I read a study this week entitled (I kid you not) "Stressful Jobs That Pay Badly".  What a downer!  I probably wouldn't have found this study by myself if not for the dozen or so folks that sent it to me.  Why did they send it to me?  Because of this part.

...that's right.  "Music Ministry Director" is listed fifth of fifteen.  Not that that surprised me.  I know my job is stressful.  Everyone in the church has an opinion about the music and what they want to hear.  They like certain styles, certain instruments, certain decibel levels.  They want the worship leader to have a certain voice, the right words between the songs, event the "correct" clothing and hairstyle.  Those are normal parts of the job, I'm used to those.  In fact, I consider myself lucky, as I know a lot of people who have my job and are far more stressed about it than I am!  I'm certainly not the first person to write about this study this week, and all have done a great job of relating our stress to those issues.  However, the series that we're in right now at Church has me thinking about another aspect of stress for those in ministry (and not just music ministry) - spiritual warfare.

One thing that I don't think we often consider is that there are real, other-worldly forces battling against us in our ministry.  The more successful we are, the more God moves in our midst, the angrier Satan gets.  He doesn't want to see us succeed, he doesn't want to see us expand our territory for Christ, and he certainly doesn't want us exposing him for what he really is: a created being with limited power.  Nope, Satan doesn't like that one one bit!  We've seen quite a few examples of that during this current series - video clips that we couldn't upload in the usual way, files mysteriously corrupting 10 minutes before the service starts, drama scenery getting broken during rehearsal, etc.  I'm not normally the type of person to chalk a LOT of my troubles up to the devil, but man - the oppression, the battle has been palpable as we've been preparing and presenting this series!

Of course, there is some very good news in all of this - the war is won!  The battle rages on, but so long as we've accepted Christ, we literally can not lose!  This is what keeps me going.  This is what makes me press on in ministry despite having one of the (apparently) most stressful, low-paying jobs out there.  The knowledge that Satan can't defeat us, and that the battle we are in is worth fighting.