by Ron Perry

Darrin has a heart for the Lord and a desire to serve Him however he can. He teaches in a Christian school and faithfully attends a church where he serves in many capacities. He has a reputation for serving wholeheartedly and of always saying yes to anything that is asked of him. But lately he seems to be dragging. He is constantly tired and sometimes irritable. The biggest change is his work performance at school: he is missing details that normally he would be on top of. As
you approach him to find out what is happening, you quickly realize that he is trying to do more than he can handle. He knows that he is not doing a great job at work, but he tells you that he is struggling with how to say yes and no to the different ministry opportunities that are available to him.

Darrin’s dilemma is not unique. Many individuals in ministries today struggle with what they should say yes or no to. While having a servant’s heart is a must for ministry, the inclination to always say yes, which often accompanies a servant’s heart, can get us into trouble.

The first principle we must understand is that every yes always includes a no. Someone saying yes to an evening ministry opportunity during the week means that he will also say no to the activities he would have been doing had he not said yes to this specific ministry. In other words, it is impossible for a person to only say yes!

The second principle is that it is humanly impossible to do everything that is offered us. While I was in college training for the ministry, a man told me that I should make a practice of never turning down a ministry opportunity. That statement sounded good, but I soon learned that it is humanly impossible to follow. Each of us has only a limited amount of strength, only twenty-four hours in a day, and only seven days in a week. We have natural, physical boundaries that prevent us from doing everything. What a liberating truth to learn that we are weak and God is strong! It makes the act of co-laboring with God so much sweeter. And it makes it possible to realize that though I cannot do everything, God can. I often refer to this as the Earthen Vessel Principle.

With these principles in mind, here are a couple of practical tips to help you say yes.

Determine your primary areas of ministry in order to help you establish your priorities. Let’s take Darrin for instance. He is a high school math teacher, an usher and first-grade Sunday school teacher at church, a husband, and a father of three—giving him four major areas of ministry within his life. Making those main areas of ministry his priorities governs what ministry opportunities he will say yes to. In other words, he will say yes first to those ministry opportunities which help him fulfill his four main responsibilities.

Say yes enthusiastically. When a person knows his priorities, he can enthusiastically say yes to something even if it means that something else (which is not a priority) is not going to get done. I have a friend who says that he believes he has had a good day at work if he can leave the office each day knowing he has completed the next best thing. One of the greatest robbers of enthusiasm is the lack of knowing whether or not what you are working on at the moment is truly important.

Plan for the flexibility to say yes. No matter how hard I plan, I always find last-minute requests for a service. Just last night in my church, at the last moment, I found myself needing a substitute to teach our youth group. I had a need for someone to be flexible and say yes to a last minute ministry opportunity. I am thankful that a man in my church had planned for flexibility: he keeps a lesson in his Bible at all times for just such a time. My wife and I keep extra, easy-prep food in our freezer for those times when a person needs a meal after a church service. We can quickly and easily invite him over for dinner, because we planned to be flexible.

Consider it a privilege to have been asked. If you are asked to do something, consider it a privilege, as opposed to thinking, “Why am I always the one asked to do this?” Thank the Lord for a testimony that causes people to ask you, pray that God will keep you humble and give you wisdom to know how and when to say yes or no, and then follow through with your commitment.

Don’t say yes to everything. Within our ministries, it is good to remind our co-workers that they are not considered weak if they do not say yes to everything. In a world that thrives on achievement, we must guard ourselves from thinking our spirituality is based on how much we do. A person could do volumes of work within ministry but be extremely far from the Lord simply because his motive is wrong. People need to say yes to ministry for no other reason than that they want to please God. People like that are a blessing; because they do not say yes to everything, what they do they do well.

In the next article in this series, we will look at some helpful ways to graciously say no when asked to do something in ministry. Until then, try putting these principles and tips for saying yes into practice.