Death of the Gatekeeper

Religious ministry is very different from business.  One of the major ways it is different is its goals.  A ministry exists solely to educate people in the ways of faith.  This includes teaching, doing (outreach and spiritual formation), praying, and preaching.  None of these things require a ‘gatekeeper.’  

In a business, a gatekeeper is a person who is there to make sure the information gets to the right person, and make sure that the person who makes the decisions has the time and energy to make the right decisions for the company.  It is a viable method of making sure that the people at the very top don’t exhaust themselves trying to micromanage every part of their business.  A business is there to provide goods and services, and to make a profit doing so.  For example, I work at a school.  There is a ‘gatekeeper’ there.  The school secretary makes sure that every person who walks through the doors of the school is supposed to be there. She protects the children by her very presence, and more by her tenacity and insistence on knowing nearly everything that is going on.  She also protects the principal’s time and effort by making sure that she only deals with the things she needs to deal with. 

However, as I have said, a Christian ministry is different.  In its nature, goals, and operation, a ministry is called to be something else.  A minister (any person who ministers, not just those who have ministry as a ‘vocation’) is there to spend time, energy, and money on the goal:  reaching out to the people in a place, teaching them about the Good News, and caring for their needs as much as is possible and wise.  

I am not advocating the concept that all effective ministers should live in penury.  Nor am I saying that it is wrong to live well materially.  However, when a church begins closing its doors, when a ministry worries about longevity and funds rather than the people it serves, something is wrong.  That something is usually at the very heart of the ministry and its ministers.  

Jesus said his own purpose was to “seek and save those who are lost” (Lk. 19:10, emphasis mine).  He spent time, energy, money, and his very life to accomplish that goal.  If he had not, we would, as Paul said, “be of all men most miserable” (1 Cor. 15: 19).  

A minister’s life is to be devoted to the Gospel.  Ministers ought to spend time reading the Word, praying, preparing their teachings, and studying.  However, if they are truly called ‘ministers,’ they must indeed speak to the people they serve.  

There is no room whatsoever for a gatekeeper in a ministry.  Those who work for a ministry ought to be facilitators.  They should be connectors and door openers.  They ought to welcome people in, let them know about the ministry, and send them on their way a step closer to God than they were before.  If the main minister cannot be reached, someone in the office can certainly pray with those who enter, letting them know that they are important.  Gatekeepers, protectors of doors and buildings, stand in complete opposition to the purpose of a ministry.  

Scott Wesley Brown has a song that keeps running through my head.  The chorus goes something like this:

This is church when we gather round to praise the Lord above.
This is church when we walk in truth
And show each other love. Not of wood or bricks and stone, but of people first;
Anywhere God’s children are, brothers this is church.