Overcoming Ministerial Nervousness

A Minister of the gospel go through a lot behind the scene in order to minister well. Having prepared, the nervousness of presentation taunt him until the presentation is done. Sense of nervousness in public presentation is natural with man.  Is a Christian minister like every other public presenter meant to suffer from nervousness? How can we overcome or minimize this? Paul the apostle out of experience has answered this in 1 Corinthians 2:1-5NIV.

And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling.

My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.

When there is balancing in ministration tension can be overcome or reduced to a minimal level. Balance in Christian ministration , first, has to do with the knowledge that  Christian ministration is not an activity that is done only by the minister. Rather, an activity done between the Holy Spirit and the minister. 

It is therefore necessary that a minister must know what his roles are in the entire process of the administration and be content. In a case where this knowledge is not applied, the minister attempt to do the whole thing including playing the role of the. And the  consequences therefore, is that the ministration will only be carnal without spiritual value.

A minister in such ignorance or arrogance could either suffer burn-out from unproductive ministry or resort to manipulation in order to fill in the place of the Holy Spirit. Much of this is common in the church today. And this resulting basically from ministerial imbalance.

A man basically is meant to serve through:

• Willingness: This is a personal desire and choice to serve God eagerly with a gladden heart and not grudgingly.

• Preparation: we must take time and the discipline to prepare or train ourselves to be ready for God's use. Any form of preparation revolves around prayer, Bible study and the quest for God's will.

• Availability: Having prepared, We must also be offered and surrendered to God for use at any time. We should be at watch for opportunities for service.

• Faith: The tendency to depend on good feelings as a confidence for our readiness for administration is natural. But what do we do when those good feelings are not there as they are not always there. positive feelings are good but our confidence should not be on them but on the presence of the Holy Spirit.  A Minister must believe most especially at the point of ministration that the Spirit of God is there to work through him and then present what he has prepared.

Basically, these are the roles man has to play in Christian ministration. Having done this, the minister is ready to be empowered Holy Spirit with:

• Boldness
• Auction and utterances
• Divine Wisdom

When we fail to depend on the Spirit, we are bound to fail in our presentation. Good presentation or ministration is not only determined by human standards. A well-ministered presentation by human standards could be the poorest ministration by God's standards. Ultimately, the Holy Spirit is the only one who determines the standards of ministration because He is the one that knows what God wants to achieve through a particular ministration at a given time.  And so a successful ministration so much depends on Him.