“But I considered it necessary to send you Epaphroditus—my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, as well as your messenger and minister to my need—since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he was sick. Indeed, he was so sick that he nearly died. However, God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. For this reason, I am very eager to send him so that you may rejoice again when you see him and I may be less anxious. Therefore, welcome him in the Lord with great joy and hold people like him in honor, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

It’s tough sometimes knowing when something should be a habit and when it should be merely an occasional affair. It takes wisdom to know when some event should be annual or ongoing and when it should be a one-time thing. This is especially true in the church. When we do something that works, that’s really exciting. Just because it works though, doesn’t mean we should necessarily do it again. It doesn’t mean it should become a permanent fixture in our ministry. Sometimes it is time to go, but there are also times to stay or even to come home. I say all of this because of what Paul has to say about his next ministry partner. Let’s talk about it.

We talked last week about Paul’s reflections on Timothy and the importance of both being developed by and developing other believers. We can’t do the Christian life alone. It was never meant to be a solo endeavor. Advancing God’s kingdom was always intended to be a team sport. If you are not in the church, being strengthened by and actively strengthening other believers, you aren’t where you need to be in your walk with Christ.

The next ministry partner Paul mentions to the Philippian believers is one who would have been entirely more familiar to them. This was a man named Epaphroditus. From what we can glean about him in Paul’s writings here, he was a member of the church there in Philippi. Perhaps he was sometime Paul mentored directly, but either way, he grew in his faith to the point that God called him out to the mission field.

Now, let me caveat that just a bit. What I don’t mean to say is that going out onto the mission field to advance the Gospel is necessarily a sign of a deep and growing faith. Neither is it the only such sign. Some people go who shouldn’t. They seek to grow by going rather than going because they have grown. Sometimes that works out; sometimes it is a recipe for disaster. Still others are called to apply their faith in other ways closer to home—sometimes at home. But when someone is genuinely called by God to the mission field and don’t realize a call merely because they don’t know what to do with their life but don’t want to settle down just yet, that is often a sign that God has recognized their growing faith and is putting them into action.

Epaphroditus seems to have been just such a believer. And the mission trip God called him to take and which the Philippian church sent him out on was to deliver an aid package to Paul. We have talked before about just how close the relationship between Paul and the Philippian church was. Epaphroditus’ mission was another indication of their rich friendship.

This faithful disciple had been with Paul, but Paul had sent him back home. In fact, as we learn later, he is probably the one in whose care Paul entrusted this letter to be taken back to Philippi for the believers there to receive it. Or, to put that another way, if Epaphroditus had failed in his mission from Paul, we wouldn’t even be on this journey together. Paul did this because it was time for him to go home. He had accomplished what God intended for him to accomplish with Paul, and now it was time for him to return and do the work in Philippi God had for him. Now, the most immediate reason for this seems to have been that he got sick and his friends and family back home were worried sick about him. His return would give them great encouragement.

“But I considered it necessary to send you Epaphroditus—my brother, coworker, and fellow soldier, as well as your messenger and minister to my need—since he has been longing for all of you and was distressed because you heard that he was sick. Indeed, he was so sick that he nearly died. However, God had mercy on him, and not only on him but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. For this reason, I am very eager to send him so that you may rejoice again when you see him and I may be less anxious. Therefore, welcome him in the Lord with great joy and hold people like him in honor, because he came close to death for the work of Christ, risking his life to make up what was lacking in your ministry to me.”

That’s all great for Paul and Epaphroditus, but what does any of this have to do with us? Well, here are a couple of thoughts. First, I think we see here the value in short term mission trips. Epaphroditus wasn’t going to be gone forever. He wasn’t going to the mission field never to return again. There are those who are called to a lifetime commitment to serve the advance of God’s kingdom in a foreign land. We rightly celebrate their stories and their Gospel successes. But statistically speaking, that is only a very few relative to the total number of believers. For most of us, our primary ministry call by God is to serve at home as we raise our families to follow Jesus and pursue the vocation He has set before us. And although some believers particularly passionate about missions may make it seem otherwise, that’s a perfectly acceptable call to answer.

There is a middle ground between these two ends, though. It may be that God calls us to go somewhere on the field for only a short time. And while there are all kinds of short term mission trips that are focused on serving the local church in some way (i.e., construction projects, Bible clubs, evangelism blitzes, and etc.), one of the more helpful trips that often flies under the radar is the trip that is intended to encourage and strengthen the local missionaries, and to leave them better prepared and equipped for the work that lies ahead of them. This seems to have been what Epaphroditus did for Paul. I’m sure he did other things to advance the Gospel while he was gone, but the thing Paul seems to celebrate most here is his encouragement and companionship.

The other thing worth noticing here is that Paul’s sending Epaphroditus home brought an end to his time on the mission field. This work was finished for now. Perhaps it would be taken up again at some point in the future, but for now it was over. One of the aspects of ministry that is really hard to embrace is the fact that there really is a season for everything, and no season lasts forever. Just because a ministry has been started and is even experiencing success doesn’t mean it is going to or needs to last forever.

It takes a great deal of wisdom, but also humility and courage to say goodbye to something that has been good for a long time. Bringing an end to a season of ministry will come with a season of grief, and it’s important to know that. It may or may not be immediately clear what ministry God is preparing to lead you into next when a season of ending arrives which can be a scary place to be. Ultimately, though, it is better to bring an end to a season of ministry a year early than a week late. The damage caused by not ending something when it should be brought to a close can be incredible.

Perhaps an example will help here. The Gathering Place is my church’s Wednesday evening program. It involves everyone eating a meal together and then breaking out into Bible study groups for all ages. It’s a simple program, really—dinner and Bible study over the span of two hours (except for the dinner team for that week, and then it’s a much greater time investment). But there has been something powerful about fellowship over food and studying the Scriptures together. That time has become the lifeblood of our church. I remind the congregation often that if someone visits on a Sunday, they might be back. If they experience The Gathering Place with us, they will almost certainly be back. That program has been instrumental in creating the kind of welcoming community that has cemented our place in our town as the church where all the kids and families are.

But The Gathering Place won’t last forever. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t see an end to the program coming anytime soon. I certainly hope that day doesn’t come anytime soon. The Gathering Place is mine and my wife’s baby. We led them to put that in place when we arrived, just like we did at our last church, and the result has been the same in both places: Life in abundance and a relational core that strengthened everything else the church was doing and experiencing. I can’t imagine doing something else on Wednesday nights.

But the day will come that it will be time to do something else as a church. It could be that God leads us elsewhere for some reason. It could be that we simply get too big for that kind of ministry to be possible given our facility limitations, and we have to follow God’s lead into new territory. He’ll take care of us either way. Ultimately, following His lead will always result in more kingdom advancement than faithlessly holding onto a program or ministry—even one that has been very successful—for reasons of fear or pride. Trusting Him will always be better than trusting in ourselves. He won’t lead us astray.