Where will I not go, what will I not do?

In the less familiar part of Philippians 2, Paul encourages the believers in Philippi to behave well among each other, so they will have nothing to be ashamed of before the seat of Jesus, nor will he.  And then he says that, even if he is being offered as a drink offering for their faith, he's OK with that.  I'm not so sure I would be OK with that.

Church people are the reason I never went back into ministry the first place. Being "poured out as an offering for their faith" implies that all the work I do for them and with them being of no effect on their lives. That's what happened to me the first time. 

In my first ministry experience after seminary, it got to the point that they focused so much on what they didn't like about me, they could no longer focus on God, hear His Spirit, or even understand the basics of the gospel.  One man even claimed that Jesus had told him to gossip and incite others against me.  If they could agree on what they didn't like, or were in agreement about details or particulars, that would indicate some area of ministry or my walk with God in which I had fallen down.

I realize that I contributed a lot to what happened there.  If Satan can so overcome a body of believers in Christ that they walk the line of the unpardonable sin in photo-negative, what the heck was the shepherd doing anyway?  Yes, I admit I was asleep at the wheel.  Had I been more open to immersing myself in the lives of the people for whom I was responsible, I would have seen Satan's fingerprints sooner, known to pray directly and specifically, and at least faced the spiritual warfare head-on.  I probably would have lost anyway, because the beachhead had already been firmly established before I got there.  But I would prefer a straight on fight to being steamrollered from behind.

So, am I willing to be offered up as a drink offering for the faith of others?  I am not the same person I was, God has done a lot of work in me these 11 years, and I believe that in some ways I am more spiritually mature than then.  But I am also more cynical, sarcastic, and skeptical.  I have fewer illusions of other believers because I simply jettisoned any expectations that they be like Christ.  How's that for a lovely pastoral attitude?

But one thing I have still is hope.  Hope is the ground that God plows to grow faith.  Faith is the raw material God uses to build love in the hearts of His people.  Having hope still is due to God's continued work in my life.  I know change is possible.  My faith in His work in the lives of others enables me to pass on that hope to others.  When someone can hope for change, believes that God can bring it about and wants to, and then commits the future to Him, change happens.  The change is the change God chooses, not the change we imagined, but change still.  That's what has and is happening to me.