The Ministry of One

The desire to reach the masses with the Gospel and love of Jesus Christ has a downside:  the neglect of pastoral ministry to the individual.  The ability to broadcast the word of God through periodicals, books, airwaves, television and internet has resulted in a deluge of information on demand.  Knowledge alone, however, is no substitute for the personal need for all believers to be shepherded by Jesus and one another.  This interpersonal connection one with another is a critical necessity which allows the body of Christ to function in a healthy and fruitful manner.

In The Minister as Shepherd by Charles Jefferson, this point is well-illustrated by medical practice in his day:

"The modern physician is nothing if not individualistic.  Physicians never deal with men in crowds.  'One patient at a time'--that is the rule in all hospitals throughout the world.  Each patient has his own chart at the head of his bed.  The temperature of his body, the beat of his pulse, and the number of his respirations are carefully noted.  Each patient has his own diet, his special remedies, and his particular kind of nursing.  It is this sleepless vigilance, this jealous guardianship, this minuteness of observation and delicate accuracy of treatment of the individual man which has filled the modern world with miracles and given the physicians of the body their unparalleled prestige.  It is not by spectacular and scenic methods that the death rate of great cities is reduced by the faithful nursing of one patient, the loving care of the one baby, who without this care and nursing would have died.

The same policy adopted in our churches would bring equally astonishing results.  Under our present system vast volumes of energy go to waste.  Christian men and women are filled with energy, but in many cases the energy turns no wheels.  This is in every church a Niagra of force which creates neither heat nor light.  There is in every church desert land which would blossom as a rose if it were irrigated by an engineer's skill.  There are swamps which could be drained if only the necessary knowledge and genius were at hand...When we see that the work of the Christian church is work on the individual, it is then that no parish, however limited in territory, seems really small.  There is an unimaginable amount of work to be done in every church.  Young men ought not to feel that their life is thrown away because they cannot preach great sermons before a crowd.  Get rid of the oratorical conception of the ministry and put in its place the pastoral idea.  You ought not to turn your back upon a church because it seems dull and dead...Never believe that there is a church on the earth, however desolate or demon-possessed, that cannot be made to blossom with the flowers of paradise under the summer warmth created by a shepherd's care." (Jefferson, Charles Edward. The Minister as Shepherd: the Privileges and Responsibilities of Pastoral Leadership. CLC Publications, 2006. pages 80-83)

Christians should not be deterred from this pastoral approach to ministry and service because others see it it as unnecessary or outdated because of their wealth of knowledge.  Does not the Good Shepherd of the sheep, Jesus Christ, know far better what the needs of His sheep are and how to meet them?  He has chosen to connect us to one another in the Body of Christ where each member and joint supplies strength and is governed by His love one for another.  Let us be those who intercede on behalf of individuals at God's throne room of grace rather than the general masses.  We are to invest our efforts to minister to the one person God has set before us rather than lamenting over the masses who remain unreached.  The unreached will be reached as we are faithful to minister to the one, and an example is how Jesus reached all Asia through Paul.  We will not succeed by looking for a potential Paul but by looking to Jesus who turns a Saul into Paul.  If we are willing and content to be shepherded by Jesus Christ, we will be led to do God's will wherever he guides us.