Mr. Potato Head Ministry

By Steven Furtick

Published: June 23, 2008

For the first few years of my ministry, I felt an awful lot like Mr. Potato Head.
I was determined to learn as much as I could from as many people as I could.

So I did what you're supposed to do:

Study mentors, devour books, track with conferences...
...watch, listen, learn.
I gained invaluable exposure to infinite methodologies, theologies, and ideologies.
I admired many great ministers and their ministries, some from up close, even more from afar.

And then I made a critical miscalculation:
I tried to be just like every single one of them.

My desire was to be teachable. I often wound up confused and overwhelmed. I wanted to preach like this guy, lead like that guy, and administrate like the other guy.

Do you see why I'm calling this the Mr. Potato Head approach to ministry?

Sometimes we indiscriminately gather various components of different features of the body of Christ.

An ear from one church. A nose from the other.

And slap it all together like so. As a result, we don't wind up building much of a ministry at all.

We wind up building a Frankenstein.

In the last 2 years I've gotten better at the fine art of filtering. We refer to this as eating the fish and leaving the bones. The filtering process happens as I contextualize and internalize.

1. Contextualization
What worked there may not work here.

2. Internalization
What works for him may not work for me.

God has wired me in ways that are unique and intentional. And there are both tangible and intangible considerations, too numerous to list, that play into how God works in a given situation, or through a certain personality.

Consider your circumstances. Size up your strengths. Learn from everybody. Then leverage the stuff that works in your world. Leave alone the stuff that doesn't.

Always Remember:

Inspiration without Internalization= Imitation.
Inspiration + Internalization= Impact.

Steven Furtick is the pastor of Elevation Church, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. Under Furtick's leadership, In less than two years, Elevation Church has become "one of the fastest growing and most innovatice churches in America" according to Outreach Magazine. For more information about Elevation Church or Pastor Steven Furtick, log onto http://www.stevenfurtick.com.