First Build the Altar

I spent years building the machinery of ministry. Mostly on college campuses. Planting chapters. Evangelism strategies, evangelism stations on the main green, getting and filing contact cards, vision talks, involvement fair outreach funnels. Small groups and manuscript Bible studies. Leadership pipelines for student leaders. Large group meetings planned semester by semester. Training weekends. Support raising. None of it was wrong. It was all good, necessary work. It was the nuts and bolts of ministry. 

But here is the standing temptation - at least it was mine. To place my trust in the machinery of ministry. If I build it, they will come, the thing will grow. To believe that if our systems are tight enough, our structures strong enough, our strategy smart enough, ministry will grow. 

But I was missing something. In fact, I was missing the essential thing. I was missing Him. 

One of the scriptures that shook me and gave me a new paradigm came from the book of Ezra. Here’s the background. 

Jerusalem was rubble, leveled by the Babylonians. The walls were gone, the temple was gone. This was 587BC. And it lay there for a hundred years…and more. Finally, a remnant came home to rebuild. And what would make most sense from a human perspective, was to rebuild the walls first. Then the temple. Then, once everything was in place and protected, they could build the altar and start offering sacrifices. 

That is not the order they chose. 

The people gathered, and the first thing they raised was an altar. Not a wall. Not a house. An altar. And on this altar they began offering sacrifices.

From any sane resource perspective, this is madness. The altar produces nothing visible, nothing lasting. Even worse, it consumes, it wastes. Their wealth was grain and livestock, and they were setting it on fire. In a half-ruined city with winter coming, they were burning their money.

And yet.

At the heart of the house of God is an altar. At the heart of the city of God is an altar. Before the walls, before the work, before the strategy, there must be fire. My house, God says, will be called a house of prayer. Not a house of ministry systems - although those will be needed later. But the fire is primary. The fire on the altar is not one program among many. It is the foundation the house is built from.

Prayer is costly. It always has been. To put prayer at the center is to pay an opportunity cost, in hours that produce nothing you can measure. It looks like a waste. The same word the disciples used when the woman broke the alabaster jar at Jesus’ feet. But Jesus didn’t see it as a waste. He said wherever the gospel is preached, this story will be told - because costly worship and seeking of Him is foundational. 

First, build the Altar.

Rev. Greg Johnson
Director, Revive New England