To read Part Two, Click here

Christians need to realize that the ministry of help is a valid ministry. Some people are fulfilling God's call on their lives to ministry by working at a secular job while helping at a local church.

If this is your situation, hold your head up! Don't be intimidated by anyone who doesn't understand the importance of the ministry of helps.

Not everyone is going to be an evangelist, a pastor, or a traveling teacher; and apostles and prophets are few and far between. Many are called, but few are chosen for those particular ministries.

Some RHEMA alumni have told me they don't come to Homecoming and other RHEMA events because they feel like they aren't welcome unless they're out pastoring or preaching somewhere.

But it doesn't bother me at all that many of our graduates are not in the pulpit ministry. As long as they are successfully doing what God has called them to do, then I'm satisfied.

What bothers me is to see RHEMA graduates looking for someone to support their ministry, while they're sitting around doing nothing.

But if a person is doing what he feels God wants him to do by working in a secular occupation, such as farming, driving truck, or whatever—then, praise God, I say more power to him! I don't expect any of our graduates to do anything except what God has asked them to do.

Do What God Wants You To Do
The ministry of helps has been underrated and not esteemed as it should be. Many people who operate in the ministry of helps feel guilty that they aren't in a pulpit ministry, when actually the helps ministry is exactly what God wants them to do. The devil is just trying to intimidate them with lies.

Some RHEMA graduates look down on their own peers who are called to the ministry of helps. They ask their fellow graduates, "What are you doing in the ministry?" When people respond, "I'm helping in this particular ministry," these RHEMA graduates make the ministers of helps feel put down because they aren't in the fivefold ministry.

But not everyone is called to a fivefold ministry. Some people are called to work in the ministry of helps, and it is a vital ministry.

We can see this is true in the Scriptures. For instance, the ministry of helps is listed with several other important ministries in the Book of Corinthians.

And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophits, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues.
(1 Cor. 12:28)

The ministry of helps includes not only working full-time with a minister in a ministry, but also working at a secular job and then, in one's spare, time helping a church with administrative work, carpentry, teaching, heading the ushers, working with youth, ect.

Not only can men and women serve in the ministry of helps with their time and talents, but they also can serve effectively in the ministry of helps financially as they work in secular jobs.

For example, I remember a couple who graduated from RHEMA and were directed by God to go back to their hometown and start a business. Now their business is flourishing to such an extent that they are able to help several ministries financially. They also go out and hold occasional seminars for churches. However, they don't believe they will ever have a ministry that is one of the fivefold ministries.

I can think of another good example of people operating in the helps ministry. In the early days of RHEMA Bible Church and Training Centre South Africa, two of the men who handled all the administrative duties also worked at secular jobs. They were both owners of companies. They didn't take any compensation from the church for their administrative help. They just gave freely of their time and labors. They were in the ministry of helps.

Many people in the ministry of helps have done these kinds of good works for years and haven't been recognized for it. I think it's time we recognize that the ministry of helps is a valid and vital ministry.

There is no ministry that operates without the ministry of helps. That's certainly true here at RHEMA. I consider the people who work a RHEMA to be in the ministry just as much as Brother Hagin and me. They are in the ministry of helps, even though they receive their natural sustenance from their paychecks.

Promotion Comes From God
Let me point out again that there are two ways to work in the ministry of helps. A person can work in a ministry with a minister and receive financial remuneration from that ministry. Or a person can work at a secular job and receive his remuneration from it, but put in extra time at a church doing what ever needs to be done.

Sometimes a person will work in an area of the helps ministry even though that isn't what he's ultimately called to do. The truth is, very few people start out working in the ministry to which God has called them. Faithfulness is rewarded.

I know of a couple who left a ministry because they didn't think they were being promoted as they deserved. They didn't know that the head of the ministry was trying to work some things out so he could promote them.

A month after this couple resigned, the person left who had been in the way of their moving into what God had planned for them. Because this couple was impatient and unfaithful in the hard times, they missed a promotion that would have been theirs.

I didn't start out with the ministry that I'm in today. I started out as an assistant to a pastor. Then I became an associate pastor. Several years later, I moved to Tulsa and became the crusade director for Kenneth Hagin Ministries for two years. In the natural, it seemed as if I had been demoted.

It wasn't easy for me to become a crusade director after being so active in the pulpit ministry for five years. I had been used to preaching every Sunday and helping in the pastoral ministry. But when I became crusade director, it was my responsibility to handle the business end of the ministry. I had very few opportunities to preach.

But I was faithful to do what God had told me to do. And as I stayed faithful, I became successful in the ministry. I eventually left my position as crusade director to help start RHEMA, and my ministry has continued to progress to where it is now.

Personally, I'm not as concerned about what people expect out of me as I am with what God expects out of me. That's why I can be happy even when some criticize me. I know I'm doing what God has asked me to do. I know I don't have to prove myself to anyone accept God.

If believers would learn this one thing—that they don't have to prove themselves to anyone accept God—they'd find themselves happier and more willing to accept what they're doing at the present time.

For instance, many people who work in the ministry of helps put unnecessary pressure on themselves. They could be happy helping out in their church., but they think people expect them to get out and start preaching. Then they start pushing to enter the pulpit ministry when God never told them to do it. And they get themselves into trouble by getting out of the will of God.

Believers just need to stay faithful in doing what God has told them to do, and put their trust in the Lord's ability to bring to pass His plan for their lives.

Remember, promotion comes from God: "For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south. But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another" (Ps. 75:6-7).

Source: Pastor's Manual by Kenneth Hagin Jr.
Excerpt permission granted by Faith Library Publications