For the first few years of my ministry, I felt an awful lot like Mr. Potato Head.

I was determined to learn as much as I could from as many people as I could.
So I did what you’re supposed to do:
Study mentors, devour books, track with conferences… watch, listen, learn.
I gained invaluable exposure to infinite methodologies, theologies, and ideologies.
I admired many great ministers and their ministries, some from up close, even more from afar.
And then I made a critical miscalculation:
I tried to be just like every single one of them.
My desire was to be teachable. I often wound up confused and overwhelmed.

I wanted to preach like this guy, lead like that guy, and administrate like the other guy.
Do you see why I’m calling this the Mr. Potato Head approach to ministry? Sometimes we indiscriminately gather various components of different features of the body of Christ… an ear from one church, a nose from the other…
And slap it all together like so.
As a result, we don’t wind up building much of a ministry at all.
We wind up building a Frankenstein.

Tomorrow, I’ll share some of how we can move from a ministry of cut and paste… and experience ministry from the inside out.