Today I want to share with you a little bit about healthy ministry. I have a lot to say about this, but to make it easy for me, I will begin by sharing with you guys some of the things I went through in my first few years after God told me to step into ministry. We all make mistakes, and on the way, we learn to cope with it and do things better. Before I continue, I must say that my view of ministry is continually changing. So in this case, when I say ministry, I am talking about being used by God to build up the church and also expand His Kingdom by reaching out to the lost.

 

Stepping into ministry

It was in 2016 that God began to speak to me about stepping into ministry. I had no idea what that was gonna look like. I did not know what my strengths and weaknesses would be. And to be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing except that I wanted to follow Jesus and set the world on fire for His Kingdom. I wanted to see His kingdom breaking through in every aspect of life, see heaven invading earth and the church maturing in their sonship. 

In that year, God kept speaking to me about “the month of March.” It was in that month that doors opened up for me and that He connected me with the right kind of people. I became more active with power evangelism, healing the sick, prophesying over people, and leading people into an encounter with the Holy Spirit. I was good at it and it has always been easy for me to flow in the gifts of the Spirit and the prophetic. I knew how to yield to the Holy Spirit and I absolutely loved it to minister to people in this way. As God opened the doors for me, I got to minister to people at different Christian conferences. Eventually, with some friends, we organized our own Holy Spirit Nights. We would have people being baptized in the Holy Spirit, receive prophetic words, receive physical and inner healing, and have deep encounters with the Father’s love. It was amazing to see God touching people as we started to flow with the Holy Spirit.


The burn-out

One year later, I found myself kinda in a little ministry burn-out. When you are ministering like this, you get to meet so many different people and you need to have clear boundaries for yourself that I did not have. It’s amazing how much you get to know about yourself as you start to be confronted with both your weaknesses and your strengths. It was during this time that I was also mentoring some people in the things of the Spirit and how to strengthen ourselves in the Lord.

There was one person that I got too much involved with that it took out all my energy and I found myself in this little burn-out. At that time I could not see how it happened and what I did wrong. It was terrible for both me and the person I was trying to help. Though I was trying to help, it seemed like it brought more damage than really something good. I felt powerless, I had no solution to the problem, I was not able to help this person and I could not find God’s wisdom in how to deal with it, except to remove myself from the connection with this person. It was better for me not to be involved with the life of this person, because it was not healthy, both for me and the person himself. So in my utmost best, I tried to let go of the connection in the most polite way as possible and learning to apply forgiveness to the situation as much as I was able. After this, I took a little break from ministry just to sit and be with the Holy Spirit and going on an inner journey with Him receiving some truth in my heart.

Codependent no More

In May 2018, the Holy Spirit told me to buy a book called “Codependent No more” written by Melody Beattie. I had never heard of the term “codependent,” but I had the absolute conviction in my heart that God wanted me to read this book. So I bought the book and it absolutely changed my life. While reading the book, I realized that I was in a codependent relationship when I was trying to help that certain person where I ended up in a little ministry burn-out. The book began to open my eyes and I began to see where my weaknesses were and how to deal with them.

So during Summer 2018, I went on a two week holiday to Greece by myself. My goal was to only spend time with the Holy Spirit during those two weeks and work my way through the book in an environment without distractions. During that time, God started ministering to me as He dealt together with me on different issues of my heart. God also started sharing more of His heart towards me and it was such a good time of healing, strengthening, and intimacy with Him. I learned a lot more about overcoming my weaknesses and I can now see how to prevent certain situations that could lead to burn-out. It was amazing and since then I began to deal with things differently. 

Responsibilities

A big thing for me was about responsibilities. When you know what you are responsible for and what you are absolutely not responsible for, it sets you free from a lot of unnecessary burdens. I used to believe that I was responsible for how people feel and that made me a people pleaser to make sure people would always feel good. But when you are not responsible for people’s feelings except your own, you gain way more self-control. You are no longer controlled by the appearances of other people. You are more aware of what YOU think and what YOU feel. You are not constantly aware of what other people’s thoughts and feelings are, to please them with the consequence that you forget your own thoughts and feelings. This gives you the power back over yourself without getting mixed up with other people’s thoughts and feelings. 

 A codependent person is one who has let another person’s behavior affect him or her, and who is obsessed with controlling that person’s behavior. – Melody Beattie

In a sense as a codependent person, you try to control people’s behavior so much as if you are them. As a codependent person, you are trying to live someone else, because you are more aware of their thoughts and feelings. You become so dependent on that person that your own thoughts and feelings hardly exist. There is no self-awareness. There is no sense of being a powerful person in making your own choices. You are dependent on the other person to choose for you or the other way around. 

 When you’re obsessed and/or even worrying about something or someone it ends up controlling you in your mind, emotions, and eventually your whole being. This is where you lose self-control and that thing or person ends up controlling you unless you detach yourself from it quickly.

 

Prophetic Gifts

It’s not that I was that deep, but I was definitely still a bit of a people pleaser as an empath. I could feel other people’s feelings, and through feeling, I was also able to prophetically minister to people. My prophetic gifting comes a lot through feeling and sensing. I often feel the presence of an angel nearby before I see the angel in the Spirit. It’s a real strength for me in operating in the Spirit, but also has it’s weaknesses when I am over-feeling/sensing that I lose myself in being a strong grounded person. This was a struggle for me, and I think especially when you minister to someone with low self-worth and who is already acting codependent, it is a challenge if you are not a strong grounded person yourself. There often comes a lot of manipulation and control with it when someone is codependent and this is hard to deal with when you don’t see it yourself.

Healthy Prophetic

I believe that learning about these things is essential when you want to grow in the prophetic. Jezebel is often called the enemy in the realm of the prophetic and she represents control and manipulation. The way to grow out of that and become healthy prophetic is to become a powerful person with self-control and know your true value which comes through your intimacy with our Heavenly Father. As you begin to know the love of Christ you are being restored into your true self-worth.

 The process of receiving God’s value for your life is what anchors you in setting healthy boundaries. – Danny Silk

These are things that are essential when you are ministering to people. You know how to govern yourself, your thought-life, feelings, and be grounded in who you are in Christ, with healthy boundaries, as you meet with other people and being able to minister to them without losing yourself. As you put your realm of thoughts and feelings back under the Lordship of Jesus Christ, He will first of all govern over the chaos bringing it back into order. Then He will also begin to teach you how to govern it yourself together with Him.


Okay, that’s it for today! Hope you liked it! The plan is also to write a book review on Codependent no More in one of my future posts. 

Have you had similar experiences? What have you learned from it? How did you overcome it or not? I would love to hear your experiences in moving from unhealthy to healthy ministry! Let me know in the comments below or send me a message if you wanna talk about it! 

 Blessings!

 Baruch