When the Lord called me into ministry, I told Him I would go anywhere He asked. When Kaye and I married and discussed where the Lord would possibly put us, we committed that we would go wherever He sent us. When we graduated seminary and were asked to fill out a form to indicate where we would like to serve, we put “wherever God puts us.”
I never understood those who listed three states as their “preferences” for ministry.
While I told God I would go anywhere, I also asked that it would never be Nineveh. And I don’t mean a town or city called Nineveh, but a people that I would not love, a place that I would not cherish. I never wanted to be the Jonah of Chapter One, never wanted to be disciplined into the ministry God has for me.
By God’s grace, I have never served in Nineveh. He has always been gracious to me and given me a love for the people I served, a passion for the city, and a desire to live in the community in which God has placed me.
You can minister in Nineveh, and God will use you as He used Jonah, but you may also be miserable. Surely it’s much better to allow God to breathe His passion for the community and the people deeply into you. Surely it’s much better to love the people and the place God has called you to serve.
Looking back, here are a few practical things my wife and I did to develop our love for the places we served. I will use my most recent local church experience in Miami illustratively.
