Let’s pretend there is a place close to where you work and live that is neglected by your community. The average income of its residents is less than $10,000 a year. Drugs, gang violence and crime are just part of a normal day for people who live there.
Since you’re a Christian and are active in your local church, you decide to join a ministry that is attempting to share the Gospel with kids in this area.
The first night you show up to help, there are three helpers and 75 children. As the weeks go by, more people start giving their time. After eight months of investing your time and money, you see a few kids give their life to Christ and you form relationships with many who come every week.
And then you get the bad news — the program has been canceled.
The churches who partner together for this outreach in the city no longer see eye-to-eye, and your church has decided to focus on different ministry opportunities in the area.
So, after months of exhausting Wednesday nights with 75 children, it’s over. Just like that. You’ll probably never see the kids whom you formed relationships with again.
As you’ve probably guessed by now, this isn’t a made-up story, but exactly what happened to me this past year.
And I felt like the ministry I was a part of failed. We failed the kids and the community we were trying to reach.
But did we?
“ … so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.”
— Isaiah 55:11
So if you feel like you are a part of a failing ministry, or have experienced something similar, here are some truths the Lord has shown me as I walked through this experience:
