Ministry Proverbs: Lessons Learned for Leading Congregations

By N. Graham Standish

Wisdom through easy-to-grasp phrases.

Biblical and cultural proverbs have been cherished throughout the ages. One reason for their enduring influence is that they reveal deeper wisdom through easy-to-grasp phrases. They form our lives by offering wisdom we can hold onto and use in life’s most complex situations. In the increasingly complex world of modern ministry, it has become harder for pastors and church leaders to act wisely when the models for ministry keep changing.

Ministry Proverbs is a collection of 60 proverbs that the Rev. Dr. Graham Standish has developed over the years to guide his own ministry. These are proverbs such as “We are only responsible for our efforts. God is responsible for the results. So be responsible for your part, and let God be responsible for God’s part. Wisdom comes in learning to tell the difference.” Each proverb is followed by 4-6 paragraphs of reflection that take the reader deeper into the ramifications and applications of the proverb. The reflections are intended to help readers to apply the proverbs in their own ministries, and to remember them so that when they face a difficult or uncertain situation, they can tap into the wisdom.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Morehouse Publishing
• Release date: Aug 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9780819232830

N. Graham Standish

N. Graham Standish has been pastor of Calvin Presbyterian Church in Zelienople, Pennsylvania since January of 1996. He is the author of six books including Becoming a Blessed Church (Alban 2005). Before becoming a pastor, he was a therapist. He has a PhD from Duquesne University in Spiritual Formation. Calvin Presbyterian Church was one of the congregations featured in Diana Butler Bass's Christianity for the Rest of Us; a member of the congregation actually gave the book its name when talking about the kind of Christianity they practice there.

Book preview

Proverb 1.

We are only responsible for our efforts. God is responsible for the results. So be responsible for your part, and let God be responsible for God’s part. Wisdom comes in learning to tell the difference.

WHAT IS YOUR PART IN MINISTRY? What’s God’s part? Do you confuse the two? Can you tell the difference?

I think that most of us in ministry, whether clergy or laity, confuse what we’re responsible for and what God is responsible for. We tend to think everything is up to us, and that God is judging our efforts and results, as though success will open the pearly gates and failure will close them.

God only calls on us to do what we can—to give God our best efforts. Ultimately God is responsible for the results. If what we do is really trying to please God, to serve God, and to do what we sense God wants, it opens a conduit for God’s grace to grow. I learned this lesson from the nineteenth-century Quaker mystic, Hannah Whitall Smith, who said,

To sum it all up, then, what is needed for happy and effectual service is simply to put your work into the Lord’s hands, and leave it there. Do not take it to Him in prayer, saying, Lord, guide me; Lord, give me wisdom; Lord, arrange it for me, and then rise from your knees, and take the burden all back and try to guide and arrange for yourself. Leave it with the Lord; and remember that what you trust to Him you must not worry over nor feel anxious about. Trust and worry cannot go together. If your work is a burden it is because you are not trusting it to Him. But if you do trust it to Him you will surely find that the yoke He puts on you is easy, and the burden He gives you to carry is light: and even in the midst of a life of ceaseless activity you shall find rest to your soul.¹

God wants our churches to do well. God wants us to do well. But we can’t let God do well in our midst if we’re constantly taking responsibility for everything. So do what you do well, and let God do what God does well. And bathe your efforts in prayer, asking God what is God’s part and what is ours.

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1. Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House Company, 1952): 202–03.

Proverb 2.

The secret to prayer is to pray specifically for what we want, but to accept faithfully what we get.

PRAYER IS HARD FOR MANY REASONS, but chief among them is that we don’t know how specific we should get in prayer. To what extent should we pray fervently for what we want, and to what extent should we hedge our bets and only pray for what God wants? There’s more in this question than meets the eye.

There are a number of reasons we’re reluctant to pray specifically for what we want. What if we take a chance on praying for a specific need and God doesn’t give us what we want? It feels like God is rejecting us. But is it really a rejection? Also, if we don’t get what we pray for, does that confirm our doubts that God even exists? Better to play it safe and keep our fragile faith intact. What if it’s wrong to ask for what we want? Will God be irritated with us? Is it greedy to ask for what we want? Isn’t that putting ourselves in God’s position to assume that we know what’s best? It’s obvious that praying specifically opens a big can of worms.

So, we don’t typically pray with passion for healing. Instead we pray for God’s presence and strength. We don’t typically pray for God to help us financially. Instead we pray for God’s help and wisdom. We don’t typically pray for God to remove a thorn from our side. Instead, we pray for God to give us endurance. We hold back our prayers.

Still, if we hold back in prayer, what do we do with Jesus’s teaching: Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened (Matthew 7:7–8)? Why would Jesus say this if he didn’t mean it? The reality is that he says that we should pray specifically for what we want. In fact, we should pray passionately for what we want, whether it is for a job, healing, a relationship, financial help, or anything else. If you look in the Psalms, all of those prayers are passionate. That’s our model.

Still, life is not really about God just giving us whatever we ask for. God isn’t a genie in a lamp that we have to learn to rub just the right way to get what we want. We need to pray specifically for what we want, but also accept faithfully what God gives. This is a hard balance to keep. We want to be sure that if we pray specifically, we get what we specifically asked for. But that may not be God’s will. We need to be sensitive enough to recognize how God may be answering our prayers. We may not get what we want, but generally we get what we need. So we need to passionately pray for what we want, and faithfully accept what we