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Tuesday, October 10, 2006
It's All About Ministry
Colossians 3:12-17
That $100 religious word "ministry" simply means "service," doing what you can with your set of skills to be of help to others. And the fact is that every single person on this planet is shaped to be a serving helper to others. This week's message is designed to encourage and challenge you to discover what your shape for ministry looks like.
Listen to the GODblog!
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"Are you religious?" asked the bookstore clerk as I laid my selection on his counter.
A bit startled, I thought, "Well, I'm buying this book in a Jesuit bookstore, aren't I?" Sensing my confusion, he asked if I was a seminary student. That I was (even if a Presbyterian one) qualified me for a discount price. Woo hoo.
The Roman Catholic tradition distinguishes the vast majority of garden-variety believers from the select few with a religious vocation. Laity, clergy. People, priests.
That seems to work very well for them. But we Protestants see the seeds of a spiritual class system planted in that distinction. Truth be told, though, we're prone to duplicate it ourselves, even though we affirm the "priesthood of all believers."
Did you know the title "parson" is a holdover from long ago when the pastor was the best educated person in town, and thus worthy of the name "person" with a capital P?
Too bad for the uneducated masses, huddled in their pews and scrabbling at their daily tasks.
Did you know the word "clergy" is foreign to the Presbyterian vocabulary? Its opposite, of course, is "laity," meaning "people." So logically a clergy man or woman turns out to be a non-person!
Tricky, that.
As far as I know, we Calvinists are unique in ordaining not only pastors, but also elders and deacons, to their official ministries. Three different job descriptions, calling on different skill sets, but each recognized as equally valuable and authoritative in its own area of ministry.
Pastors major in teaching God's truth and guiding the church in worship, fellowship, and service. Elders focus on spiritual oversight and practical management of the church's life together. Deacons lead the church's ministries of mercy and practical assistance.
And there's your "priesthood of all believers" in action. No clergy-laity divide, no Person-people caste system.
It's all rooted in Christ's breaking down the walls of separation between God and people, and between people of different ethnic, or class, or even gender origins. (See Galatians 3:26-28 and Ephesians 2:13-19)
In Colossians 3, it's all about ministry -- every single person shaped by God for serving God and serving God's people.
Imagine that. Every one of us is a unique, unrepeatable bundle of gifts for ministry. Even if you've never been appointed to official church leadership. We're just meant to work out, every day in every which way, what it means to love God and love people most effectively.
Rick Warren, in his best-seller The Purpose Driven Life, uses the word "shape" as an acronym for five distinct aspects of this serving life style.
Spiritual gifts -- Your God-given strengths for ministry
Heart -- Your center of motivation and passion
Abilities -- Your natural in-born talents
Personality -- Your unique temperament
Experience -- Your history of satisfaction, challenge, and learning in the laboratory of life
Take some time to reflect on each of those aspects in your own life, then put them all together. There's your personal template for how to help each other become all the more the person God intended you to be.
posted by Jack Buckley at
2:40 PM
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