When we are doing ministry, especially during the first few years, we often face an important question: Should we try to go wider, or should we go deeper? This was a very important question for me for quite some time.
As we know, there is a ministry cycle in almost every organization: starting, growing, reaching a climax, and then declining.
When we start a ministry, our first focus should be on how to firmly establish and root the ministry. This is an indispensable question. We need to make sure that the ministry takes root safely and develops a strong foundation.
Once the ministry is firmly rooted, however, we naturally begin to think about expanding and widening it. At this point, we need to be careful about what I call the “temptation of expansion.” We may want to expand far beyond our actual capacity or ability to manage the ministry. Of course, we learn many things through trial and error, but it is better to understand this danger before we make a serious mistake.
This is what I have learned from my own ministry experience: unless there is a particular reason to expand, we are usually better off continuing to deepen the ministry.
If we want to widen the ministry, I believe the expansion should come as an overflow of a deep and healthy ministry, rather than something we try to force ourselves. In other words, expansion should come from fullness, not from pressure.
If we try to widen the ministry before it has become full and deep, we may scatter our energy and distract people’s attention. It is like focusing sunlight through a convex lens. When the energy is concentrated long enough at one point, it becomes intense enough to produce heat and eventually burn. In the same way, when we continually concentrate our energy on deepening the ministry, there comes a time when that energy naturally overflows beyond its original boundaries.
So, I believe we should deepen continually and allow expansion to happen naturally when the time is right.
We do not always need to ask, “How can we make this ministry bigger?” Sometimes the better question is, “How can we make this ministry deeper and stronger?”
When the ministry becomes full, healthy, and mature, expansion will often come naturally.
Deepen first. Let width come from the overflow.
That is what I have learned from my ministry experience.