Understanding the Ministry of Helps in Church Leadership

 

I’ll start at the beginning.

 

I love how Mr. John Eckhardt explained the difference between natural and spiritual gifts in his book Ministry Anointing of Helps. People think that ministries of help only do natural things, such as cleaning the church, receiving tithes and offerings, leading people to their seats, etc., but the ministry also needs people to pray for spiritual protection, singers to bring the people before the throne of God, etc.

 

Page 14 deals with deacon-possessed churches and how the deacons are not called to run the churches, control the pastor, or tell the pastor what to do or say. Mr. Eckhardt calls this a form of witchcraft. I had to pause and ponder that. They are using manipulation to control the pastor and get their way…..I would be terrified to touch God’s anointed.  Deacons are called to be members of the help teams and to help hold up the leader’s hands.

 

I then flipped to page 16 and read about Elijah and Elisha. It talked about how, after confronting the prophets of Baal, Elijah took off running when Jezebel threatened to kill him if she caught him. I always wondered why Elijah ran for his life when he knew God was on his side. But Mr. Eckhardt broke it down for me….Elijah was spiritually drained. 

 

It opened my eyes to how much we, as the ministry of help, are needed. A leader can’t do everything. I always thought that Elijah picked Elisha to train him to take over. I didn’t realize Elijah was grooming Elisha for takeover and using him for help.

 

I then flipped to page 21 and read about being a financial blessing to the ministry. Mr. Eckhardt stated, "The motive must be pure, from a generous heart. People are not to help ministries financially with impure motives. The motive must never be to control or get the ministry's favor.”

 

In the last chapter, Mr. Eckhardt discussed laying down our life as a ministry gift. He said, “The Lord will divinely connect people to a ministry to help bring the vision to pass. He will cause intercessors to give their lives in prayer for you. The Lord will join psalmists and minstrels to you. The Lord will join prophets to you. These are divine relationships that can be established for a lifetime.” So many people say they are sent by God to hook up with a leader, but when something goes down, they bail out. I wish people stop lying to God and start seeing the truth about themselves; their motives are wrong.

 

This book basically dealt with how we, as the Ministry of Helps team, should not try to step out of place. We are there to help the leadership, not to run things and throw tantrums when we can’t get our way.