Ever feel discouraged by weaknesses in your ministry?

You’re not alone. Many pastors and Christian leaders struggle with feelings of inadequacy. That’s one of the things Pastor John Dickerson talked about at a Hendricks Center event called The Way Forward: Re-Imagining Evangelicalism.

In this video, John suggests honestly assessing your weakness and letting these insufficiencies draw you to the Lord. He shares an encouraging passage that gives pastors and ministry leaders a biblical perspective on weakness and warns against putting our faith in perceived strengths.

He quotes 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong (ESV).

John says:

The church never ran, wasn’t designed to run, on human strength.  It’s designed to run on a divine and supernatural strength…and God tells us, through Paul, the way to access God’ supernatural strength in your life and in your ministry is through weakness.

And so here, God has given us this door that we can open up for his strength to invade into our personal lives and into our ministries and most of us have locked it, closed it, [and] nailed it shut because we don’t like to think about our weaknesses. We don’t like to think about insufficiency.

If there’s one thing you take away from today, it should be that it’s OK to be weak. It’s in your weakness that you find God’s strength. It’s our weakness that draws us to him.

Weakness is present in every church and every ministry. In fact, John’s research uncovered key weaknesses in the evangelical church as a whole: We are not as large as many people think we are. Some churches and ministries say donations seem to be drying up. We see the popular culture quickly changing around us as the church is divided over hot-button issues. All the while, many of our kids seem to be leaving the church, and ministers struggle just to maintain our discipleship efforts. But thankfully, the churches’ strength is not in its health or present situation. Its strength is in the power of Christ’s resurrection.

Download the complete event to discover more about John Dickerson’s research findings and solutions for your ministry and the local church. Order The Way Forward: Re-Imagining Evangelicalism.

About the Contributors

Mikel Del Rosario

Mikel Del Rosario (ThM, 2016; PhD, 2022) is a Professor of Bible and Theology at Moody Bible Institute. While at DTS, he served as project manager for cultural engagement at the Hendricks Center, producing and hosting The Table podcast. You can find him online at ApologeticsGuy.com, the Apologetics Guy YouTube channel, and The Apologetics Guy Show podcast.