Prioritise Strengthening Over Expansion

Today’s Church talk addresses a series of concerns any servant of God would have come across at some point in their lives. Let us receive this wisdom from those who have walked before us.

Transcript:

Apostle Priji: Greetings in Jesus name. Welcome to the church talk podcast. We are so excited you could join us for this morning’s conversation. We are assured that this conversation is going to inspire, bless and help you fulfil the call of God on your life.
Everyone of us is called with a purpose, mission of God. What matters is the principles and guidelines we follow to accomplish that call over our lives.
On today’s podcast, we are taking time to discuss this with a dear pastor friend of mine, Pastor Amit Kamble all the way from Solapur.

Pastor Amit, thank you for joining us today and for saying yes to being on this podcast.

Pastor Amit: Thank you, Pastor Priji. Thank you for having me. Hello to everyone tuning in. I am so glad I get to do this once again. I hope we will have a great time.

Apostle Priji: Amen. How has church and ministry been on your end, Pastor? We know that the Lord is using you greatly in Solapur and across the nation and world. We would love to hear from you.

Pastor Amit: Yes, God has been really gracious over us. We have been seeing God’s hand over our church like never before. We are experiencing the tangible presence of God in our Sunday services and worship nights. We are seeing the youth getting ready for what God is going to pour out. These last two years have been really important for us. I remember in 2022 post Covid, when I was in prayer, I felt I should not go for any events outside. I was out only once in this last year on a Sunday which is very unusual. We were very focused on the Church. Since it was post Covid, every church wanted to do events. It was difficult for me to say no to so many invitations. When all the other worship leaders were saying yes, I told God that I want to stay with the church here. God honored even that small desire.

Apostle Priji: Wow, that’s good to know. In a way, I am sure that the church also required and needed the presence of the senior Pastor. I do believe that when you are present there physically, you are raising so much more leaders for the different cities of India, than when you would travel solo. That is multiplying the anointing of God over your life. We really appreciate what you are doing for the body of Christ. We want to understand from your perspective especially when there are so many young people in your church that look up to you as their spiritual leader and they are also called as you are and at some point they might want to start off a new ministry or organization. Sometimes it may even be a new church or a branch church. As a leader, what are the signs you look for in your young people and you know that they are ready?

Pastor Amit: That is such a nice question. It relates to me even more because I was 25 when I said yes to the pastoral calling on my life. Before that I was into worship ministry. I said yes at a young age and it has been a ride. I see a lot of youngsters in church today who are to be leaders and ministers in the future, they themselves don’t know yet. I have been watching my young guys in the church. I see a few of them having a call for ministry. There was one person who came to know and said God has spoken to me and said I should be in full time ministry. I had to sit with him for a couple of hours and explain to him that God wanted him to be in ministry but not full time yet, not in this season. All of that is right at its own pace and time.

Apostle Priji: That is so true, because sometimes even if you have heard the voice of God, how we interpret it is very significant. We need our mentors and leaders to help understand how and when we are ready for the next step.

Pastor Amit: Yes, to hear God and to understand clearly what God has spoken is very important. When my pastor came and told me that he saw a pastoral call over me, I was so afraid, I didn’t want to become a Pastor. So he encouraged me to fast and seek the Lord. I did fast but didn’t hear God. And in 6 months time, there were two or three prophets who said about my pastoral calling. That’s when I started taking it seriously.
So I told God If He really wants me to be a pastor, let someone come to me and use certain precise words. And then I forgot about it. Around 5 months later, when I was in a private meeting with a man of God, he used the exact words that I had spoken to God about. I asked for it and God gave it to me. I wasn’t willing but still I surrendered to God. I am glad i did. It matters to hear God even if you are under a covering. Just like how Elisha saw Elijah and Joshua saw Moses, Samuel saw Eli, when we are continually under a covering, it becomes easy for us like a shortcut to understand what God wants in our lives.

Apostle Priji: Absolutely, sometimes we think that starting our own ministry would mean independence and start our own thing, that is more of an ambition. But it’s only right when you start your own ministry, you have to still be under covering, you have to still be under mentorship, you have to still be under someone else’s leadership. That is a big ask because now I have to like, submit everything I want to do. I want to preach or even my character, my personal life, all of it gets under the scanner. I’m reminded of this story of when a young man came to Jesus and said, “Master, I wanna follow you”. And Jesus said, “OK, you can, but bring me all your money. Let’s make sure all this money is distributed among the poor”.
And this young man, he thought, it’s going to be an easy thing to follow Jesus. But then there was a high price to follow Jesus. There’s always a price that we need to pay in order to serve the Lord in such a manner. And I’m sure that you’ve paid your own price and you’ve made your own sacrifices. And there are so many areas that you can talk about today that you know you would have had to give up to be able to do what you’re doing today. The young people are not aware of the sacrifices that they have to make or the price that they have to pay. And I want to know about you, Pastor Amit, because you started off ministry at a very young age, what advice would you give to our young people of some mistakes to avoid early on in ministry? What things can they make sure they don’t fall into traps? Sometimes we learn only after we fall into a trap or a ditch. But if you could just share, what are some of the things that we could do early on in Ministry so that we can avoid unwanted rerouting, unwanted detours?

Pastor Amit: Yes, I think how the Lord taught me in a way that I didn’t have to rush into ministry. I was looking at different pastors and different ministries. They were having thousands and thousands of people or an overnight success. I also believe in mega churches. I also believe that we need to have the works, ministry in every place. God would give us that success also. But what happens is, young people tend to rush into things where they start making mistakes. And the output is premature.
We all learn from mistakes. As a young person, I say Yes to God and wanted to rush into ministry. Now most would need to show it to the people around them that they said yes. And also try to prove that it is the Lord who brought them into ministry, and they try to rush into things and then fail miserably. We need to understand that there is no hurry in a ministry with God. I had this one man, man of God, who had come years ago, I was not even a pastor at that time. And he was teaching on evangelism. And he also was talking about how you don’t have to expect everybody that you speak to and evangelize to that. They will immediately say yes to the call that you’re giving. Then he happened to ask people in that meeting about their ages, someone said 36 years old. Other said 52 years old. And the Pastor asked when did they get saved. The one who was 52 years old said he got saved at 30 years of age, Someone else said, at 20, 40, etc. And this pastor pointed out saying if God can wait for you to be until you are 40 to say a yes to him and get saved, how patient is our God. He put it so beautifully in front of us. At that time I was relieved and decided not to rush. We need to show young people in ministry that God is not in a hurry. He will teach you on the way as you are growing.

Apostle Priji: Exactly, I like word that you use there, Pastor, ‘a premature outcome’
Sometimes we may see the outcome and think that God is still moving, still doing wonders. But if it’s premature, it can actually hurt in the long run. For e.g: when a child is born prematurely, It doesn’t have the immunity to fight all the germs and the organisms that it’s surrounded by. But when it’s full term, it’s body is ready and able to fight off.
Sometimes we wonder why we are facing so many issues all through the ministry, every nook and turn there is so much challenge. Probably some decisions were taken prematurely, our young people, need to learn how to wait, be patient and let the Lord have His way, in His time and and we will not lose anything

Pastor Amit: Walking with God and allowing God to walk with us should be our motto
God is more pleased with excellence over perfection. God is looking for an excellent heart and he will pour out everything into what you are doing, producing excellence.

Apostle Priji: Thank you so much, Pastor. This is already helping us and is a blessing. Now it’s very important for us when we start off or when we are just in our initial stages of starting off a ministry or organization that we associate with the right people, that we have the right people in our core team, that we have the right people in our inner circle. The people who we are walking closely with tend to drain your faith or amplify your faith. They can be the reason for you to run faster or slow you down. So how do you identify your core team in the initial days, it’s so hard to find the right people because the first person that shows up in your ministry, you would want to make them a worship leader, another on the keys and make sure that all the roles in the Church are filled. So it’s very hard for us to resist that temptation to bring everybody on board. And so how do you identify, who are the people that are ready to actually partner in this vision with me?

Pastor Amit: I saw a church recently which was formed because of a dispute and then they had to separate themselves and they started coming together. And what we saw was everybody who came to the church was given a stage or a title or role, you name it. I wanted to go and talk to them, but I could not because of boundaries, of course. So what you’re saying is absolutely right. When you’re forming a ministry or your church is being built and people come you tend to give them responsibility and make them your core team. I ended up making these mistakes.

Apostle Priji: Me too, Pastor

Pastor Amit: We’ve all done those mistakes and failed miserably. It is better not to have anyone for a while than to have someone and mess it up badly, right? What I understood from these years of the ministry that the Lord gave is people who will understand and believe in your vision are important. The people who believe in you will become your congregation. And the people who will believe in you and your vision, they will become your wingman or your core team or your inner circle. We need to observe if there is someone around me who will believe not only just in us, but also in the vision that the Lord has given us. Some may not just say it upfront, but they have limited themselves, so they will not be able to walk with you, grow with you, partner with you and shoulder with you with what the Lord is doing through you. We can also be practical and have a couple of tests to see if a particular person would do according to what they have been told. For e.g, giving them some responsibility and just to see if they do it.
Some people would give me some excuse and they would not do it. And I understood it well. And another way in which I could do it was to give them feedback. And then I would see how they receive the feedback, how they grow with the correction. Are they resisting the correction or are they defending themselves or are they trying to justify or are they trying to submit when they’re corrected. And that’s how you know they’re the person that will be with us for a long time.

Apostle Priji: By submit, I want to know how you inspire people in your church to serve? Now, I understand that when somebody understands your vision, they will automatically begin to serve. But not everybody in the church understands the vision of the church or they don’t understand how to articulate the mission of this particular church or where we are headed to, but we still want all of them to serve in one way or the other, serve one another, serve in the running of the services, serve in the in the ministry of giving, serve in the way that we take care of our community. And that’s not a one person job or that’s not something that just me and my core team can do. It’s the need of the entire church to serve. And this is not just young people, because sometimes when we think of serving, we are really looking at young people. But how can we really inspire everybody in our church, little children, young people, old and young alike, to serve? And how? How can we really grow a church or or raise the church that has a heart to serve and to remain humble?

Pastor Amit: Yes Good question. I did not know how to handle these kinds of things. But the way God brought me to be where I am was from, right from that you know that block one from down under, from coming to church, cleaning the chair, setup and the stage, everything. So I used to do all of that. There was a time when there were no youth in my church.Except for me. So I had to get up at 5:00 in the morning, go to the church office, get the trolley guy and put all the equipment and the chairs in it, go to rented hall rented hall, put all the chairs and the set up. It was a small setup though, but do all of that and then after the church is over, do everything back and then bring everything back to the church office. It was something that my pastor taught me and I kept doing it and even when I became a pastor for I remember for a really long time until my seniors told me, ‘You are a pastor now and you need to slow down and allow others to serve. But what I want to say is let them watch you. Let your people watch you. If they watch you, they will understand your heart. So you are not only there to boss around, instead you are there as a leader and the leader not just teaches by words but by his actions. I did not have to really teach my young guys. They saw me doing it.They saw not just me but my other leaders also. They saw us doing it. And that’s how they believed. Humility also matters. And again, humility cannot be just taught by words.They have to see you doing it right. So you really cannot be learned by hearing it. It has to be taught by watching it. Once I was taking a call and a church member is yelling and shouting because of some issue. And I had to be ice cool on the call and then I had to just say, ohh, you know what auntie? I’m gonna see you this Sunday. You are still a part of this church. I am still your pastor. Let’s sit and sort things out. I had to share with my guys, that’s how they understood that we cannot lose our temper. We need to just stay humble and try to understand and not lose our temper Humility is a present tense.You cannot say I was humble. You need to continue in humility.That’s where they see you and learn from you. And we need to address their shortcomings. In the ministry if someone does something wrong, you get to sit with them, talk to them and not just pat them on their back and say you did well, but also to say this is where you went wrong. And I think we need to correct here and let’s do it together. I am speaking out of some really not so good experiences, Pastor. I could see one of our leaders making mistakes. I was so fearful that if I speak with him.I might end up with an issue. I might end up losing him and his family from the church. It will be so bad in front of the congregation that you know the leaders are having issues with each other. Because of this pressure and the fear, i could not correct my brother. And that ended up bad. If I would have taken a bold step and in love corrected, I think i would have avoided something. In another couple of years, something similar happened and because of the previous lesson learnt, we could sit with the other leader and talk and understand and be transparent and things are much better. Addressing the shortcomings really matters.

Apostle Priji: Wow, this is so powerful. Thank you for sharing this with us, Pastor Amit. One last question before I conclude. I want to know how we take discouragement in ministry because you started off, not everything is going to be overnight success, not everything is going to be overnight expansion.And you’re being invited to 20 nations and you know your video is going viral. God doesn’t use everybody the same way. So it is normal for our expectations to be broken, our desires to feel unmet. How do we take that discouragement and how do we still stay on track with the vision?Because sometimes I’ve seen that some young people start off saying I want to plant to church and when the church is not getting the momentum, it should have gotten, they say probably God has called me to be an evangelist. And then they change their vision. Because they didn’t see success in a particular season. And then they do evangelism for some time and then they’re like, OK, wait a minute, probably God called me into prayer ministry, let me start something for intercession. And then they again change lanes and and so in this process they are constantly redirecting because they’re looking for success instead of sticking to the vision. So how can we remain encouraged even when we don’t see the right success or the right momentum in the ministry. How can we stay on our lane? How can we stay faithful to the vision that God has given us?Pastor Amit: The vision that God gives us, it demands so many things, Pastor. It demands discipline and demands us to be on the right track always, it demands patience. For e.g I am in the sea, but my whole self, my whole body is in the water. I am all drenched. I am all wet. But when you go start going a little deeper in the sea, there is a current. There is a stream, we need to understand and wait until we get an encounter and our body gets into that stream and then in that current and suddenly the same water now is gushing and taking us really fast. But then if I dip myself into the water and I say OK, I’m not going faster and nothing is happening, then I try to get out of the water. But if we are patient enough and just steer ourselves to that current so that during that one appointed time of God, we get into that encounter and then we can see that expansion and then the growth that really God intended for us to have and to enjoy also. We need to look for strengthening instead of expanding.This is what we did.
As a church, when I started it was maybe 60 people or something. We decided as a leadership, for a couple of years, we will not work on church growth. It was a hard decision to take. We thought about strengthening the current congregation. We have to believe in what we have in our hands. And as Jesus had the five loaves and two fish in his hand and believe for a miracle for multiplication. So for two years, pastor, we did have cell groups, no house groups, no evangelism. We were just doing things to strengthen the current congregation. And then afterwards when we did pretty well, we started some cell groups. Now we have a center church. And a church in the outskirts, then we have another couple of churches in the villages. So God has been really gracious over us, we were very sure of what we asked the Lord. We said, Lord, we don’t want to focus on expansion more initially, because now we want to really strengthen who we have in our hands for now.

Apostle Priji: Right. So to prioritize strengthening over expansion. That is such an amazing word. Pastor. Would you just take a moment to pray for our listeners? And you know, I’m sure that there are many people going through highs and lows and discouraging times. And some who want to start off but don’t have the right people to feel that vision and some who want to do the right thing, but they don’t know what that right thing is. But if you could just speak the heart of God over our people.And just pray that each and every genuine church planter or ministry pioneer their vision will be fueled by heaven and that their drive will be fueled by the Holy Spirit and that they will have the grace to stay faithful till the end.

Pastor Amit: Let’s pray. Father Jesus, I want thank you for this beautiful time that you gave us that we could just open our hearts and share our experiences and thoughts. Whatever we have spoken, every person who have heard this, Lord, I just pray maybe it’s not just the words that they have heard on the way back to their office or from from the office back to their home and maybe on the bed, lying, sitting on the chair and listening.But may these be the words that would really help many in their ministry if there are young leaders who are listening to this, I just pray Holy Spirit come over them right now and let them learn through our mistakes. Let them learn, allow them to learn from this so that they might not be entangled in unnecessary things of this world and delay would not become a portion of their life and their ministry. Lord, so I cancel everything that is not from you, that they would be blessed with wisdom and understanding, and also with patience and love and humility.And servant hood and a servant Heart. Lord that they will be blessed with all of this, so that the product that would come out would be so fruitful. Help our young leaders to consecrate themselves from their daily schedule so that they will be able to associate with you more. I bless them. Thank you for this time. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen.

Apostle Priji: Amen. Thank you so much, Pastor Amit, for joining us today. If our people have to stay connected with you on YouTube, on Instagram, what is the best way for them to reach out to you?

Pastor Amit: well, I have a YouTube channel called Amit Kamble Ministries I put out songs, worship videos and teachings on worship. My wife’s gonna come up with some teachings on some encouragement for the women especially. So yeah, YouTube and also on Facebook and on Instagram as Amitkambleofficial.

Apostle Priji: Thank you so much. We enjoyed having you on this podcast and hope to have you again with us very soon. May the Lord bless you. Friends, if you’re blessed, make sure to share this podcast with your friends. Make sure to comment. Let us know what it is that the Lord spoke to you. Make sure to forward it to other pastors or leaders in your church or other young people that want to start off a ministry and they want some wisdom and some advice on how to go about with it or what to avoid. And if you’re looking for mentorship, if you’re looking for up close conversations, you’re always welcome to write to us and we will be more than glad to journey with you. God bless you. We’ll see you again for the next episode.