I dream ministry. Sometimes in these dreams I am preaching to a crowd of people and making a point about living in the Kingdom of God. Sometimes in these dreams I am sitting with one or two and responding to nagging questions, gruelling life circumstances, and pain.

I dream ministry because I am called to minister.

I dream ministry because the Spirit of Jesus lives within me and so I do the kinds of things He did. I think the kinds of thoughts He thought. I feel the same compassion for people that He felt, and my desire is to go to people in order to tell, to heal, and to serve.

These days my venues for ministry are not the obvious ones. I used to pastor churches, preach on Sundays, lead groups of people, develop ministry, and develop people as the Bible states: equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. So, I understand what it means to think and sleep ministry and to be constantly before the Lord, feeling inadequate for the task, but it has taken me a very long time to learn how to actually conduct one's ministry.

Of course I've had a seminary education, and of course I have cases of theology and Hebrew and Greek language study aids. I was taught church history, and I have a respect for what church actually is.

However, ministry is not leaning on one's education, nor on one's natural abilities. Ministry requires the ability to see God already at work in the lives of people. Then, it calls one to respond to God by sacrificing oneself, one's desires, one's energy, one's own solutions and plans in order to get into step with God, leaning on God Himself to supply direction, power, encouragement and outcome in keeping with His will and His work in the situations of the people with whom He brings one into contact.

That is what happened when Jesus walked in a huge crowd and someone touched his garment to be healed. He stopped everything to ask, "Who touched me?" And there ensued a moment of ministry. Wherever Jesus went, He was face up with people.

My wife is constantly face up with people in this way. She serves women God brings to her, and she is constantly interacting with them, either through her place of work, through our church, or out in the community. I have been given a woman who was called for ministry.

She began helping and teaching in church when she was a young child. She regularly shares with me the needs of people God brings to her – those who reach out to touch her in some way. We are two people whose lives are not our own; the call of God to minister is a full time, 24/7, total lifestyle love affair.

Our mission field is life – wherever God takes us, and with whomever He places us. These days I am a psychologist, organisational consultant, and coach. This job sets me up in many ways to tell, to heal, and to serve.

As a psychologist upon whom is the calling of God, the purposes of God for each of my clients are of concern, and I have learned that my role in each of those people's lives is that of counsellor.

The Holy Spirit is often referred to as a counsellor – an advocate, one who comes alongside for encouragement and support. That is my role. My role is not to preach to them, not to order them around, nor to tell them how they are failing to live like God wants them to. I don't throw the Bible at them. In fact, even though I have a Bible in my office, I rarely take it down and read something from it. Furthermore, when I "tell," I do not have to recite scripture or even speak to them directly about God.

Why not? Jesus ministered to people as they came to Him because He had compassion for all people, and many were healed even though they were not living as religious converts. They came to Jesus because they needed help, and they perceived in Him someone who cared and someone who might be able to help.

Ministry is service. A minister serves people at the behest of God. Since God loves people and sends His rain on the just and the unjust, a minister serves whomever God puts face up with him or her in life.

I also feel God's desire to heal. When broken and hurting people come to me, I do everything I know how in order to bring wholeness and peace into their lives, to help them solve problems, search out new meaning, and find support during difficult times.

I know how to do that using psychotherapeutic, consulting, and coaching skills taught to me by wise men and women in those fields.

I know how to heal using the means provided to me by God –– to pray for people and for myself as I meet with people, to be willing to go with them, if that's where they want to go, into the questioning, nagging enigmatic trouble spots of life that seem to cry out: "There just CAN'T be a God!"

I dream of these things. I dream ministry and see myself already at work in the Kingdom of God.