A friend recently told a story about roofing a house in Indianapolis. While he was working, a young man approached him and asked if he needed help. While he had never roofed before, he was eager to learn. My friend showed him the basics and put him to work. Another young man came by and soon they were both “on the job”. While neither had had experience, the first was already “teaching” the second what he had just learned. It would have been for easier for my friend to do the job himself if he had just wanted the job done right. They made mistakes; he had to correct their work from time to time, and their technique was far from perfect. But his story made me reflect again on building, and especially this question: Are we building people or are we building buildings?
What are our priorities in ministry? Are we more concerned with buildings, programs, and organizational structure then we are with people? 10,000 years from now, what will remain? Even the best-made building will have crumbled away, but the people in whom we have invested will still be in existence – either in heaven or hell.
Are we more concerned with getting the job done or with the process by which the people doing the job are being shaped and built up? While it may be easier to just do it ourselves, how we invest in and empower those around us will determine how they grow and develop. Giving them good instruction, the right tools to do the job, and lovingly correcting their mistakes may be their first wobbly steps on a pathway towards something much greater! Making a safe place where they can “fail forward” may be their ticket to discovering God’s calling on their life.
If all you want to do is build buildings, just hire contractors. If you want to build people, it will take time, patience, and a willingness to teach the process while the task is completed. It will take longer. It may cost more. It may need to be redone. But what you will have when you’re finished is more than a building, you will have another builder.
When we began building our new home, I had no idea what I was getting into. We had a great builder backing us up, (thanks Glen Coblentz) and he was willing and able to help where we needed him. This gave me the confidence to try. Throughout the process I had many helpers, but one stands out—my 11-year-old son, Samuel. He rode the excavator as the basement was dug. He worked 13-hour days with Peter Crotser and me pulling electrical wire through the crawl space. He learned the basics of plumbing working with Mainard, a 70+ year old plumber with over 45 years of experience. He helped me to blow insulation in the attic. He had his favorite and “not so favorite” parts of the process, but he has grown as we have built. The education he has received in this past year has been invaluable and will shape him for decades to come. I have not just been building a house; I have been producing a builder.
What are you producing? If you are someone who like to keep it “clean,” chances are you won’t produce many builders. Proverbs reminds us that, “Where no oxen are the crib is clean, but much increase is by the strength of the ox.” Building builders can be a messy business. It requires hard conversations, gentle correction, and a willingness to value people over the project.
As we look at the needs in ministry today, most of them come down to one thing: The right person. “Who will do it?” is the number one question. Developing leaders at every level is critical. More than ever before, we need builders—people willing to invest their lives into a people and a place for the glory of God.
My prayer is that God will continue to build me as I seek to do my part in building up others. With God’s help, I want to be a builder of builders.
The Gathering at Victory Acres 