A Word For Ministry Leaders

Donald E Coleman 0:22

Now that you've had time to sit, just truly sit with everything that came forward in the last episode, I want to speak directly to those that are in the vocation and those who are volunteering in ministry in church, those that are leaders, those that are coaches, those that are counselors and teachers and worship leaders and small group facilitators. I want to speak to every one of you that are active and participating in what we call ministry. The people who have structured their lives around loving others in the name of Christ. This one's for you. This one's for us. Ministry is one of the most fertile environments for protective self-doing. Boy, have I learned this. Boy, have I learned this. Because ministry provides the protective self with an almost

When Doing Becomes Self-Protection

Donald E Coleman 1:47

unlimited supply of legitimate sounding reasons or excuses to keep performing, to keep doing, to keep striving. There is always a need. There is always someone who needs help. Or to say it, the time to pause and to receive. And the church, tragically and unknowing at times, has often rewarded protective self-doing. Because when people see that you're good at something, they want to grab you to do something else. And before you know it, you're on this windmill going around and around and around, doing, doing, doing. Because they celebrate the person who never stops giving, who is always available, who is willing, who sacrifices everything for the work, even their health at times, even their families at times. We have called this faithfulness. And sometimes it is, but sometimes it is a wound wearing a ministry title. If you have been in ministry for years and found that what you feel most often is not joy but duty, not overflow, but obligation. I want you to hear this not as a failure, but as an

Duty Versus Love-Rooted Service

Donald E Coleman 3:51

invitation. The invitation is not to do less. It is to return first to agape, to agape toast, and then to discover what ministry looks like when it flows from that place, when it flows from us being rooted and grounded and established in love, not from an intellectual knowledge, but from an experiential knowledge of experiencing a love that your mind cannot put words to it. Experiencing a presence that you can't even utter what it is, but you know that it's God. The world doesn't need more of us, exhausted, doing the right things from the wrong place. The world needs a capitan, the one through whom divine love moves, because that we've been so formed and shaped in our identity of being the beloved, that nothing, nothing can separate us from the love of agape. Nothing can separate us from the love of agape. Why? Because agape never fails. Agape is always pursuing. So I want you to sit for a moment. Let's go into a pause. Place one hand over your heart. Taking a slow full breath.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

Slow full breath.

Guided Pause And Breathing Prayer

Donald E Coleman 6:11

Just know every time you breathe in, God breathes. You're breathing in the love of God. And every time you exhale, you are exhaling the love of God.

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Just sit with that. Just sit with that.

Donald E Coleman 6:50

Every time you breathe in you're breathing in Agape. Every time you exhale you're exhaling the unconditional love of God that accepts you tick for who you are and wherever you are. Now as you inhale want you to receive these words Father I return to your love Father, I return to your love.

SPEAKER_02 7:45

I return home.

Donald E Coleman 7:55

Now as you exhale, Father, let your love be the source of mine. Father, let agape be the source of mine. Allow these words to go with you. And I pray that you would continue to remember, to pause, and to return. Before I end, there's a couple of reflection questions I want you to sit with. Just sit with them. No judgment, no shame. Before you even go over them, let's do that welcome prayer, Father.

Reflection Questions For The Protective Self

Donald E Coleman 9:10

I consent to your presence in action within. Now the first question: which are the four protective self-patterns? Loving to be needed, loving to be seen, loving to manage discomfort, or loving to keep records? Do you currently recognize most in your own life? And what circumstances tend to activate or trigger it most strongly?

SPEAKER_02 9:58

Question two.

Donald E Coleman 10:00

I want you to think back to the earliest message or memory you received about the conditions of love? Who taught you through their behavior, not their words, that love had to be earned? How has these episodes on the protective self helped you or shaped you the way you agape today? So, where in your life is the gap between the protective self-doing and the beloved self-doing most costly right now?

SPEAKER_02 11:02

Is it in a relationship? Is it in your ministry?

Donald E Coleman 11:11

Is it in your work? Or is it in your own sense of peace? And lastly, what is your most honest answer to this question? Is the love I'm currently offering the people around me coming from being or from my womb? Let's pray. Father, I bring all of me to you, my protective self and everything to you. Not with shame or guilt or condemnation.

SPEAKER_01 12:06

I bring it forth in honesty.

A Prayer To Bring Your Whole Self

SPEAKER_01 12:14

I just want you, Lord. We just want you.

Donald E Coleman 12:22

We just want to bask with you. We want to live in fullness in you. No more outside looking in, no more inside looking out. But I pray that as Jesus said, the branch connected to the vine, that we stay together, and as Peter said, that we become partakers of the divine union, because the wall of separation has been torn down. And as you are in me, I am in you, Lord. I love you. We love you. In Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, in the last episodes, we named what many believers have been living in, sometimes for decades, without language for it. And the naming itself is a form of grace and mercy. But you cannot

The Four Movements Of Divine Love

Donald E Coleman 13:41

return to a place you have not yet been able to see. In the upcoming episodes, I'm going to bring the full four movement framework or the four movements of divine love framework together. I will show you how agape flows into agape tos, how agape tos is formed into agapitan, and how agape tan moves forward as a gapow. Not from a place where I'm telling you as a guru, but from a place that I am being, I'm living in agapitan. I'm living in agape tos, and I'm experiencing moments of agapao. And I want to do it in a way that makes the entire arc not theologically rich. I don't care about theology. What I care about is your walk. Your walk and my walk. Making it personally livable. These are the episodes coming up where everything integrates. Until then, carry this. The protective self kept you safe for a season. Agape is offering to be your safety now. And you don't have to earn your way into that offer. You simply have to receive it. You simply have to return. Until next time, keep living daily for Christ and stay the course.