Right now I am raising support. I left the church I planted 12 years ago and have joined the staff of Mission the North America (MNA) for the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA). My new role is Church Planter Recruitment Director. Simply put my task is to find new church planters. The way to impact communities and culture is through the local church. The adage, “Think Globally, Act Locally,” applies here as well. The way to affect the world is one person at a time, one community at a time.

But first I must raise all of my support—my salary, benefits, and ministry expenses. And that is quite a task. It feels daunting. I have regular fears that roll over me, especially pertaining to media. You see, I feel fairly confident communicating my role and my need for financial support. But where I don’t feel confident is communicating with creativity. In other words, I can talk, but Facebook befuddles me. I can share passionately about my love for church planting, but I can’t Tweet. (I was going to say that I’m a twit at twittering, but that would be corny—however, it would probably prove my point.) I can write, but presenting my thoughts with pictures and graphics and eye-catching presentations are beyond me.

I went to a conference recently where I would meet a lot of people who might be interested in church planting. I was hoping that that trip would result in financial support. So right before the trip I produced a booklet, presenting my new role and my need for financial support. And I got help from some people with graphics abilities. They did a great job making my content look good. So I had 50 color copies made at a significant cost, at least significant to me (and when you are raising support, every dollar you spend is significant). I thought the final product looked really good. The first morning of the conference, however, I was looking over the booklet and found a typo. And it was not insignificant. It was actually in my title, and it was on the front cover, in all caps. Well, it took me a couple of hours of reminding myself of the power of God and the goodness of his plan for me to rescue me from that gutter of self-doubt. So the next evening I had dinner with my new boss and a new co-worker and, with a slight degree of pride (despite the one typo), I showed them the booklet. And they found two more typos. My heart sank, my face turned red, and I wanted to crawl under the table in embarrassment.

What I have to keep telling myself is this: The success of this effort to raise support does not hinge on me doing everything right. It hinges on the strength and power of Jesus and His commitment to me as one called by him to this ministry. God is not limited by my lack of graphic ability or my poor editing skills or my befuddlement at social media. In fact there is a certain spiritual beauty to the humanness of imperfection. You see, it is my inabilities that invite God’s abilities.

The Apostle Paul basically echoes this idea in 2 Corinthians 12, where he pleads with God to remove his thorn in the flesh. God chooses not to do so, and instead tells Paul that His grace is sufficient for him. Then in verse 10, Paul says, “I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”

Did you catch what Paul said there? He said that he will actually boast about his weaknesses, if it takes weakness for the power of Christ to be unleashed. I don’t want to get to the end of support-raising and only see the work of my hands. I want to see the power of Christ, and boasting about my weaknesses is the way to do that.

What does it mean to “boast” in our weaknesses? Well, I don’t think that it means that we intentionally do a poor job in our ministry efforts, or anything else for that matter. When I got home from that conference, I corrected those typos and then spent the money to have them re-printed. Boasting in our weaknesses means that we become comfortable with the limitations God has given us. Boasting in our weaknesses will keep failure from crushing us. Sin, failure, and inabilities should cause us to look expectantly to the strong arm of our Savior for our salvation and success. Boasting in our weaknesses is to have Someone stronger let us off the hook.