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Jesus Driven Ministry
Author Ajith Fernando believes that much ministry failure results from neglect of the basics of the faith. Too often today's church is riveted on ministry technique to the neglect of leadership lifestyle. In this book, Fernando identifies the foundational elements that allow you to be both effective and joyful in your service. He shows from Jesus' own ministry that relating to the people you minister to, retreating from busyness to prayer, being affirmed and empowered by God, discipling younger leaders, and gaining strength from God's Word must be at the heart of your ministry. Rich in Scripture and full of stories from Fernando's own years of ministry, this book will help men and women commit themselves afresh to those vital basics of ministry that make for long-term service that is both fruitful and joyful.
256 pages, Paperback
First published October 22, 2002
59 people are currently reading
247 people want to read
About the author
Ajith Fernando
70 books21 followersAjith Fernando serves as Teaching Director of Youth for Christ in Sri Lanka after being National Director for 35 years. Ajith is a visiting lecturer and Council President of Colombo Theological Seminary and also serves as Visiting Scholar at Tyndale University College and Seminary in Toronto. He has written 15 books and his books have been published in 19 different languages. The Call to Joy and Pain was awarded the Christianity Today Book of the Year Award for church and pastoral leadership.
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Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
June 10, 2024
Jesus Driven Ministry is one of those books that seems like it should be a good read. Looking at the title and even looking at the chapters I would not see anything I disagreed with. There are plenty of good ideas that Ajith Fernando is building off of here. How he builds off of those foundations I found much more mixed. He still does have good insights off of these foundations, but there is also much that I didn't really agree with.
The main flaw of the book that sends it down the wrong direction, in my opinion, is that it takes the idea of ministry and only really connects it with professional clergy. This to me is a rather large mistake and I think is cause for a lot of my disagreement with him in other places in the book. Good leadership is important, but a Jesus driven ministry isn't only about leaders.
Another thing I didn't really like about the book is the tone of the book. It is one of those books where you feel like the author is giving you a lecture. Telling you what you should do. He does in some places try to lower himself into the mess of life, but these attempts just never wind up feeling very convincing and don't last all that long.
I also wasn't a big fan of how he handled the Holy Spirit. While I liked that he positioned the chapter early on in the book, he focuses only on the Spirit as giver of power and boldness. He misses a major chance to talk about the Spirit as shaping our character and how we interact with the world. You know the Fruit of the Spirit? That's not really mentioned at all, which I find strange because in a later chapter he talks about how power isn't all that's needed, but then expounds on it again in a later chapter. It seems that he has a great focus on power, but I'm not sure that it is a good focus.
There are other little things that I just found off about the book. He tends to focus on postmodernism as the cause of negativity rather than human sin that has been around for much longer than that. He also criticizes practical books on ministry in chapter 6, but fails to realize he's writing one. The worst was probably his one story about the Bible. He talks about how he was preoccupied with war that was going on in his country and maybe a little grumpy. He then recalls how his wife told their kids rather passive-aggressively that maybe Daddy needed to read his Bible because he was grumpy.
This to me is just not a good story to tell about the importance of the Bible. The Bible isn't this magic salve that makes us not grumpy. The Bible is full of laments and times when people were preoccupied about war, the state of their country, being exiled from their country and while most of those do ultimately show trust in the Lord the emotions aren't dismissed either. You never see someone being told they need to read the Bible to not feel a certain way.
Now that I've mentioned some of the things that bothered me about the book, I want to give some of the positives as well. Now admittedly all of these are a little flawed in my mind because of his focus only on leadership, but they're still useful for a wider audience as well. One of the insights that I found good was that a leader saying "I don't know" or "I was wrong" is a good and healthy thing, not a weakness or a way of losing their authority. I think this is super important today. We need to be able to admit our limits and that we may be wrong. In a day where so many people seem willing to double-down on their errors, this advice is gold.
I also found his insights on visiting other people's homes useful, even though I wasn't sure about all of his points in it. I think that he is right in saying that doing this develops important connections. I just wouldn't necessarily put that all in the lap of the pastor, but I think as the community of faith visiting and investing in others is an important way to help each other build and develop our faith.
Also as I said at the beginning I found all of the ideas that he builds off of to be fairly good. I wouldn't be able to read a chapter title and say that's a bad idea. So he is clearly going in some good directions, the details are just a little more shaky.
Overall, I must say I didn't particularly enjoy this book. In part because I had some high hopes for it, but the book fell short of those expectations. I'm sure that not everyone will have the critiques I have for the book and it may be worth checking it out for yourself. However, if my critiques resonate than you may want to pass this book by. I don't think it will be a book I am keeping in my collection.
The main flaw of the book that sends it down the wrong direction, in my opinion, is that it takes the idea of ministry and only really connects it with professional clergy. This to me is a rather large mistake and I think is cause for a lot of my disagreement with him in other places in the book. Good leadership is important, but a Jesus driven ministry isn't only about leaders.
Another thing I didn't really like about the book is the tone of the book. It is one of those books where you feel like the author is giving you a lecture. Telling you what you should do. He does in some places try to lower himself into the mess of life, but these attempts just never wind up feeling very convincing and don't last all that long.
I also wasn't a big fan of how he handled the Holy Spirit. While I liked that he positioned the chapter early on in the book, he focuses only on the Spirit as giver of power and boldness. He misses a major chance to talk about the Spirit as shaping our character and how we interact with the world. You know the Fruit of the Spirit? That's not really mentioned at all, which I find strange because in a later chapter he talks about how power isn't all that's needed, but then expounds on it again in a later chapter. It seems that he has a great focus on power, but I'm not sure that it is a good focus.
There are other little things that I just found off about the book. He tends to focus on postmodernism as the cause of negativity rather than human sin that has been around for much longer than that. He also criticizes practical books on ministry in chapter 6, but fails to realize he's writing one. The worst was probably his one story about the Bible. He talks about how he was preoccupied with war that was going on in his country and maybe a little grumpy. He then recalls how his wife told their kids rather passive-aggressively that maybe Daddy needed to read his Bible because he was grumpy.
This to me is just not a good story to tell about the importance of the Bible. The Bible isn't this magic salve that makes us not grumpy. The Bible is full of laments and times when people were preoccupied about war, the state of their country, being exiled from their country and while most of those do ultimately show trust in the Lord the emotions aren't dismissed either. You never see someone being told they need to read the Bible to not feel a certain way.
Now that I've mentioned some of the things that bothered me about the book, I want to give some of the positives as well. Now admittedly all of these are a little flawed in my mind because of his focus only on leadership, but they're still useful for a wider audience as well. One of the insights that I found good was that a leader saying "I don't know" or "I was wrong" is a good and healthy thing, not a weakness or a way of losing their authority. I think this is super important today. We need to be able to admit our limits and that we may be wrong. In a day where so many people seem willing to double-down on their errors, this advice is gold.
I also found his insights on visiting other people's homes useful, even though I wasn't sure about all of his points in it. I think that he is right in saying that doing this develops important connections. I just wouldn't necessarily put that all in the lap of the pastor, but I think as the community of faith visiting and investing in others is an important way to help each other build and develop our faith.
Also as I said at the beginning I found all of the ideas that he builds off of to be fairly good. I wouldn't be able to read a chapter title and say that's a bad idea. So he is clearly going in some good directions, the details are just a little more shaky.
Overall, I must say I didn't particularly enjoy this book. In part because I had some high hopes for it, but the book fell short of those expectations. I'm sure that not everyone will have the critiques I have for the book and it may be worth checking it out for yourself. However, if my critiques resonate than you may want to pass this book by. I don't think it will be a book I am keeping in my collection.
October 3, 2013
I wanted to read this book based on a recommendation. Fernando has been well schooled in Western Christianity ministry concepts yet lives in the developing country of Sri Lanka.
He writes with honesty and authenticity. I like the personal examples and the documentation in the notes.
He writes this book to showcase principles Jesus used in His ministry from Mark 1. I like the well documented historical points he adds to validate his points. Particularly good are are the references to the frustration of 'living in the raw' ministering to drug addicts and feeling the frustrations of people letdowns, ministry struggles all within a broken society.
There was nothing I didn't like about it. I want to trust the Lord as much as he does. It inspires me as a layperson..
This book is a reality check.
He writes with honesty and authenticity. I like the personal examples and the documentation in the notes.
He writes this book to showcase principles Jesus used in His ministry from Mark 1. I like the well documented historical points he adds to validate his points. Particularly good are are the references to the frustration of 'living in the raw' ministering to drug addicts and feeling the frustrations of people letdowns, ministry struggles all within a broken society.
There was nothing I didn't like about it. I want to trust the Lord as much as he does. It inspires me as a layperson..
This book is a reality check.
October 3, 2017
While I found his organization of the book less than perfect, I think Fernando has seasoned advice and wisdom from years of practical ministry. The focus of the book is not on how to run a successful ministry, but rather on how to model ones life after Jesus to sustain one in ministry.
July 11, 2025
Really enjoyed his perspective and emphasis on prayer, the Word, and rooting our identity and lives on God rather than the ministry. His practical applications drawn from Jesus’ ministry as recorded in the Gospels, as well as from his own ministry and others in church history, were very helpful!
April 16, 2025
many books this semester, this one was a real highlight
September 25, 2007
It is helping me to demonstrate in practical way.
August 17, 2024
Not a terrible read by any means, but certainly not the first book I'd send to for ministerial reading. It'd certainly be hovering around a three star range or a wee bit lower. There are notable positives here. Fernando has decades of ministry in a difficult setting. Staying in Sri Lanka as long as he has is admirable in and of itself; not to mention that he's dealing with very troubled people in that context. There's a lot of great advice and well thought out ideas for ministering. He's got a lot of wisdom. There are some strong negatives with this book. One of those is the length. Several of the chapters seemed to drone on and on; some could have been shortened by numerous pages and made the same point. He's got some definite theological quirks (he's an Evangelical Methodist by persuasion with some Charismatic leanings) which leads to some odd conclusions at points. It doesn't always show up, and he's definitely friendly to more Reformed pastors, but he does have some quirks that seem unique to him. There are definitely better works out there for pastoral ministry, but Fernando does give good help for ministering effectively. It's also intriguing to get a ministerial perspective from outside of culturally Western contexts!
March 7, 2019
I largely enjoyed this read that reminds people of ministering like Jesus from the perspective of a Sri Lankan parachurch leader.
Some of the stories are particular to Sri Lanka that helps the reader general principles of pastoral leadership. For instance, the story of how Ajith would wait in line for hours to vouch for his Tamil friends that they are not terrorists in the midst of the Sri Lankan civil war or his family's determination to remain the country despite the civil war.
I also enjoyed how he draws from church history and refers to some of the Early Church Fathers (Apostolic Fathers, the Didache, Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria etc.) as he reflects on the nature of pastoral care.
One element of the book that I felt was not as well-developed is Ajith's argument that the younger generation are lost and confused because they live in a post-modern age and they simply need to return to an absolute truth perspective.
Nevertheless, overall a good set of reminders about pastoral leadership (pastoral home visitation, life of prayer, dealing with powers, training a new generation of leaders etc.) from the perspective of a Sri Lankan evangelical.
Some of the stories are particular to Sri Lanka that helps the reader general principles of pastoral leadership. For instance, the story of how Ajith would wait in line for hours to vouch for his Tamil friends that they are not terrorists in the midst of the Sri Lankan civil war or his family's determination to remain the country despite the civil war.
I also enjoyed how he draws from church history and refers to some of the Early Church Fathers (Apostolic Fathers, the Didache, Ignatius, Clement of Alexandria etc.) as he reflects on the nature of pastoral care.
One element of the book that I felt was not as well-developed is Ajith's argument that the younger generation are lost and confused because they live in a post-modern age and they simply need to return to an absolute truth perspective.
Nevertheless, overall a good set of reminders about pastoral leadership (pastoral home visitation, life of prayer, dealing with powers, training a new generation of leaders etc.) from the perspective of a Sri Lankan evangelical.
May 7, 2025
Super sincere and earnest. Good insights. I love hearing from people a few decades in who haven't lost their gusto and are still striving to grow. I also appreciated his non-western perspective, mainly in terms of what he sees as instances of where pragmatism and efficiency eat into the essence of what we're getting at. His love for Scripture and generous use of it was refreshing. I liked how he almost seems to just assume that continuationism is true (though I did see towards the end of the book that he cites Deere's work). The stuff on the demonic was super helpful and neither nuts nor rationalistic.
January 22, 2026
It is very refreshing to read a pastoral ministry book from an international pastor working in a different nation than my own. He brings a perspective that is at once eye-opening but also biblical familiar. Fernando’s book’s strengths include his pastoral applications that resonate deeply with Jesus’ own shepherding ministry as well as his compassionate tone and transparent struggles with fighting off bitterness and forging further resilience in his joy in Christ alone. He makes mention about how shepherds are first sheep and you can tell he takes that to heart within his own ministry in Sri Lanka.
August 2, 2024
Some great thoughts and sections on leadership, discipleship, and spiritual disciplines. However, it also feels long and sometimes repetitive, such as quoting the same Bible verse three times on one page (not just the reference, the entire quote). A healthy emphasis on prayer that I was challenged by. Would recommend for any Christian leader or missionary, but not necessarily top of the list.
September 17, 2018
Granted been reading a lot of the same books on pastoral reading and leadership so that might affect my review but did feel this book was longer than needed. Overall good points and interesting to hear his experience in a Far Eastern context though. But are better books I think out there
October 28, 2017
Should we reconsider who or what really drives us to serve? The book recommend Jesus as the ultimate driver and your whole life will be fine and effective on serving Him.
September 14, 2019
Ajith has a great way of writing theology in an understandable way.
January 14, 2021
Exhorting and encouraging
An excellent tool for leaders to be challenged and trained by! His perspective is Biblical and grounded in personal experience, too.
An excellent tool for leaders to be challenged and trained by! His perspective is Biblical and grounded in personal experience, too.
July 17, 2024
Great content, but way longer than it needed to be. Appreciated the perspective on ministry from someone from the Global South.
Read
April 21, 2025The author examined the characteristics of Jesus's ministry and tried to apply it to his postoral duties. Some of his tips may be quite useful.
April 6, 2013
Excellent book. Fernando loves God and loves people. He contends for a prayer-filled, relational, inefficient, non business oriented approach to ministry. Good application of biblical texts and many helpful stories from ministry front lines. Refreshing and provocative read from beginning to end.
October 9, 2016
The thing that stood out most in this book is Ajith's brutal honesty about the ministry. He shares his experiences with absolute transparency and describes clearly the requirements of the ministry by using many examples from Jesus' life. A must-read for every minister.
August 1, 2011
A very deep and penetrating account of Jesus' ministry and ours. Ajith has good insights on Jesus' ministry, but his personal reflections on ministry make this book outstanding.
July 28, 2012
I really enjoyed this book and am putting some of the thoughts into practice. Very practical! I also really appreciated the perspective of a non-Westerner.
March 19, 2013
So good! Honest, transparent, informative, challenging. Interesting perspective of the Western Church from an Eastern viewpoint.
December 19, 2013
Essential Reading for anyone who wants to understand the real demands of Christian ministry. Veyr challenging but, at the same time, very encouraging and satisfying.
February 5, 2014
A foundational book for me on ministry and one which I at least try to read every year. I have yet to read it and not find some new challenge that is deeply rooted in scripture.
August 17, 2014
Another important book by Ajith.
I respect Ajith for stating Biblical truths and hard facts the way they are.
I respect Ajith for stating Biblical truths and hard facts the way they are.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews