Do or Do Not

We all know Yoda’s wise phrase in Star Wars – “Do or do not. There is no try.” We often focus on the second half of this phrase – stop procrastinating and just do it! But let’s take a moment to focus on the first half: “Do or do not.”

The nature of ministry

Ministry is a unique thing, in that it’s highly qualitative. That is, we often think about the way ministry is done, or how well we do certain things in ministry. I often find myself ruminating after Sunday services about whether we could have done elements of the service better. And, frankly, whether I ‘delivered’ on what I needed to. Not to mention the musician’s continuing lament – “I wonder what they thought?” (whoever ‘they’ are!). 

But this is pretty different to some other jobs. I recall working a data entry job while at university. In that job, you enter the data. That’s it. Sometimes you make a mistake. But you cannot enter the data well, or not well. Either you entered it, or you didn’t.

Do or do not.

What would it look like for us to take this approach with ministry? Simply saying “I did it” is very different to thinking about how well or how perfectly we execute our roles. Of course, there may genuinely be times when “I didn’t do it”. For whatever reason, a ministry task may fall through the cracks, or we may not complete a task we’re asked to do. And we need to take responsibility for those things. 

But mostly, we could say of our ministry tasks that “I did it” or “I didn’t do it”. This is not a call to flippancy or laziness. Rather, it’s a realisation that we are called to execute our ministry with faithfulness and love. We are not called to do things perfectly. Realistically, there is only so much that is within our control. We are part of a team, so we contribute our small bit to something bigger than ourselves. 

How ministry will be received

What’s more, we cannot know the state of the congregation’s minds and hearts each week, and how our ministry will be received. As a friend of mine says about preaching, “it’s like playing golf in the dark – you hit the ball, and you don’t know where it will land.” That’s the nature of taking part in God’s ministry – he is the one who will decide where our words and efforts will land, and what impact they will have. 

So often I have done what I considered to be a ‘poor job’ on a Sunday, only to find out later that my efforts actually helped someone. Maybe a song I shared connected, or a Bible verse I offered provided hope. People never say “if you’d only done it 10% better, I would have been helped more”. That kind of perfectionism only exists in our minds. People are grateful for our service, and are hungry for words of life and truth. Sometimes we discover people’s gratefulness on the day. Sometimes months later. Sometimes never at all. We do our bit, and entrust the rest to God. It’s not about us. 

Sound and tech ministries are complex when it comes to feedback – you usually only here comments if Sunday goes badly. That’s not an easy situation. And when livestreaming, we really have no idea what the response is! We absolutely need to do more to encourage our sound and tech teams that work so very hard – especially in this era of online church. But, in truth, feedback is not very forthcoming in most areas of ministry. For musicians, but also for preachers, there is just much less feedback than we might like. Hard as it is, we need to get good with that as a reality of ministry. And when feedback comes, we must try to receive it with gratitude and grace.

This feedback reality can be difficult for our ego. Our ego likes to do well, and to get feedback to that effect. But I think of my friend who’s an architect. For every 10 jobs they pitch for, they might get 1. That’s a 1 in 10 strike rate. They do the work – and if they get the job, amazing. If not, they move on. They may not get told why they were unsuccessful. Instead, they are committed to the work and the process, and then accepting that results are out of their hands. So, ‘Do or do not.’

A postscript

While finishing writing this entry, I received an email from another church interstate. They had been watching our church’s livestream last Sunday, when (just between you and me) I felt I did a particularly average job leading singing on my own. They thanked me for our church’s music ministry that Sunday and asked if they could use one song for their own online church service. They’d even been encouraged by watching over many Sundays prior. Who knew? What I thought was an average effort was in fact helpful to someone else. What a privilege to be able to serve someone in that way! 

My own assessment of my ‘performance’ simply may not be accurate or useful. Instead, we can perhaps treat ‘Do or do not’ as our baseline, and entrust the rest to God. 

Greg Cooper
Turramurra Music Church Training; Gatherings
Music Pastor at St Judes Anglican Church in Melbourne