Priesthood of all Believers

Whose work is ministry?  Ministry is the work of all Christians.  Read 1 Peter 2:4-5 and 9-10

⁴ As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by  God and precious to him— ⁵ you also, like living stones, are being built into a  spiritual house[a] to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable  to God through Jesus Christ.

⁹But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of  darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are  the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received  mercy.

This is a passage that will be familiar to those who have participated in a Walk to Emmaus.  We are part of the priesthood of all believers.

I know I keep saying it, but all of us are called to the work of servant leadership - ministry.  God will find us where we are, will work with us to answer our doubts, and will prepare us for the work.  Given all of that, we are God's chosen people - all of us - and we are now God's people.

Notice that there isn't anything in that passage that says we have earned this calling. God hasn't examined us and found us worthy. We are not worthy, but God has called us.  This is a form of grace, of mercy, of love.  God gives us this gift of a call out of God's mercy and love for us.  God changes us so that we are now holy.  Sacred.  Called. 

How can we ignore that?

Sorry for my lack of images - for some reason, they keep loading up in black and white.  I'll have to figure that out.

Servant Leadership

As I continued to prepare my class plan for the Western District, my next question was, "What does it mean to be a servant leader?"

Matthew 20:26b-28:  …whoever wishes to be great among you must be your  servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve. And to give his life a ransom for  many.

I think a good image of a servant leader, for us, the the picture of Jesus, wrapping a towel around his waist, and washing the feet of the disciples.  Servant leadership, to me, has these characteristics:

• It is centered on the first phrase of the definition of ministry from yesterday:  an expression of the mind and mission of Christ.  Servant leadership, for a Christian, begins and ends with being a person who reflects the nature and purpose of Christ.  That doesn't mean we ARE Christ - but that we are disciples of Christ, doing and being as he has taught us.Servant leadership isn't about bringing glory to oneself.  Servant leadership is about bringing glory of God.Servant leadership is about leading others by serving them.  It isn't about telling other people what to do and expecting them to service you, as a leader.It means we do a whole lot of hard work so that others can know Christ. Servant leadership involves sacrifice.  It means giving.  Of our money,  our time, our gifts, our preferences - so that God's work is done.It isn't about credit.  It's about lifting others up.
  
  

What else do you think servant leadership is about? How would you characterize it?

Ministry

Last week I wrote about call stories.  These were all part of a class I taught in the Western District about lay servant ministry, but all three stories were highlighted in my CLM training curriculum.  There are certainly other call stories in the Bible that one could examine.

As I was planning the session I was going to teach, I wondered next about ministry.  What is ministry?  According to Paragraph 126 of the Discipline, ministry “is an expression of the mind and mission of Christ by a community of Christians that demonstrates a common life of gratitude and devotion, witness, and service, celebration and discipleship.  All Christians are called through their baptism to this ministry of servanthood in the world to the glory of God and for human fulfillment.”

Let's make a list about ministry:

• An expression of the mind and mission of Christ.  So, ministry reflects who Christ is and what Christ came to do.
• By a community of Christians . Community is a good word.  By a community.  We don't do ministry in isolation.  
• It demonstrates a common life of gratitude and devotion, witness, and service, celebration and discipleship.  Without going through each one of those, I think we can agree that ministry is multifaceted.  
• All Christians are called through their baptism.  We all have a ministry to do. And that calling is associated with the sacrament of God's claim on our lives.  Also, ministry isn't something we work up to, or earn the privilege of doing.  Ministry is a part of who we are as Christians.
• Servanthood.  Ministry is wrapped up in servanthood.
• In the world to the glory of God.  We have an outside motivation and inspiration for ministry.  It is for God's glory, not our own, and not to glorify the church or the pastor.  It is for the glory of God.
• and for human fulfillment.  Does that one surprise you? I was so glad to see that phrase as  part of the definition.  Ministry is necessary for fulfillment of who we are.  Ministry is not drudgery done only because God said so.  Ministry brings fulfillment.

Burned Out?

Years ago, I was at a sorority training event for adult chapter advisors, and the presenter said, "Sometimes, those who say that are burned out never had a fire to start with." 

I like it. I don't think it means that we are supposed to continue to trudge through the work we're doing, even when we don't have passion or desire for it. I do think there are times when we were called to particular work for God, and we do it, and we reach a place when we are called to do something else, and pass the previous call to someone else. 

But sometimes, we use the phrase "burned out" to signify that we believe we've done a whole lot of work, and we are used up. Empty. I do think that happens, but sometimes, don't we say it because we want someone else to notice how much work we've done? And do we sometimes say it because we never had a passion for the work in the first place? 

In writing about Paul, Buechner says, "Jesus lit the fire, and Paul used it to forge for him a new church." 

Christ lights sparks inside of us, and when we fan those flames through service, we find that Christ continues to feed the fire - that our passion doesn't diminish. We may be called to move on to some other work, but our passion for service doesn't die. Am I write? Or just wishful?

At one point, I told a friend, "I'm going to stop doing this particular job that I'm doing at the church." He replied, "Ok, what are you going to do instead?"

What fire has Christ lighted in your heart? What are you called to do with it? What part of the Church can your forge for Christ?

Interruptions

In the devotional I read this morning, Adam Hamilton points to Simon of Cyrene as an example of a person whose life was forever changed by an interruption.  He was an unconnected bystander, watching a criminal walking to his execution when a Roman soldier grabbed him by chance, and forced him to carry the crossbeam of Christ's cross.  He became a follower of Christ, well known enough by the church in Rome to be recognized in Mark's gospel by name.

I'm grateful there are people who make time in their lives for interruptions.  I am very often an interrupter.  I often walk up to the people in our office and start asking them a question or sharing information that I have.  I'm grateful they listen, and I hope I am open to them doing the same.  I think it changes us from people working together into a team.

Being open to interruptions is harder to do than being the interrupter.  I especially notice this when I am very busy.  I'm serving as the media/tech person on an upcoming Walk to Emmaus.  As I'm rushing around during a team meeting, trying to make sure everything I need to get done gets done, I am often interrupted.  Other team members need to ask me a question or give me a file.  I want to say, "Wait a while; I need to get this done," but I don't.  I intentionally try to say to myself, "Listen.  Focus.  This is the ministry you are doing."  I find doing this puts the task I was trying to get done into the background and calms me enough from my frantic pace to listen.  I look at the person, listen to their words, and make them the important item for the moment.  I think that's one of the hardest parts of doing the tech job on the walk - shoving aside the technology to focus on the person.  I don't know i what I am doing is transformational to anyone else, but it is to me and the job I am doing.

Interruptions.  It's ministry.  Do you find it so, too?

(By the way, I'm hotel internet for a couple of days.  I'm not sure if I can upload images with any speed or not)

Design and Intention

If you have a chance, go watch this video.  It's about Apple -- design and intention.

After you watch it, think about these questions:

1. When we craft ministry, do we start with our intention?  Do we outline the purpose of what we are doing?  
2. What about God do we want people to know after the experience of the ministry?  Will something about God be revealed?  Will something about the person be discovered?  Will the person grow closer to God? Will calls be answered through what we are doing?  Would Jesus take part in the ministry we design?
3. Do we craft around our intention?  Does the intention serve as motivation for what we are doing?  Or are we just doing it?
4. Do we confuse convenience with joy?  Do we confusion abundance with choice?
5. Are we willing to invest time to create something worthwhile?
6. Does the ministry we craft touch people?  Are their lives enhanced?  Does God reach people through what we do?
7. Is God involved in our ministry?

Expectations

One of my favorite images
from vacation this year.

Because I am a nerd (and I am happy to be one), I was reading a book about typography called Thinking with Type  by Ellen Lupton.  I do some design work with my job, and I thought I needed to learn more about typography.  While reading, I found this paragraph:

The impatience of the digital reader arises from culture, not from the essential character of display technologies.  Users of websites have different expectations than users of print.  They expect to feel "productive," not contemplative.  They expect to be in search mode, not processing mode.  Users also expect to be disappointed, distracted and delayed by false leads.  The cultural habits of the the screen are driving changes in design for print, while at the same time affirming print's role as a place where extended reading can still occur.

So, why would I bring this up?  I think it has implications for church leaders.

1. What does it mean for a church that those who use the internet often are in "search" mode?  I think that's good news.  I think if people are willing to search and seek, then that creates a good habit for seekers in the church.  We have to adapt to that, and offer those who are seeking an outlet to do that.
2. What does it mean for churches who are trying to reach the unchurched?  I think we have to be adaptive, the way modern media is adaptive.  We need to know our "fish" and look for them with the right "nets."
3. People want to feel productive.  That's wonderful news.  The Church can offer so many ways to be productive in service.  I think people want to make  a difference, and we need to offer ways to help them make a difference.
4. People still see print as the place for extended reading.  Wouldn't this be considered good news for those who are in Christian Education?  People are still willing to read for extended periods of time.  It's not their attention span that has changed.

I think my take home message from this quote, when I thought about it in light of the Church, is that we need to stop trying to do what we have always done, and adapt what we do to reach people.

Wearing the Mantle

At Annual Conference this year, one of the worship services was a Ministry Night.  The focus was, in case you can't tell from the name on ministry.  Six people were asked to share their experience in "wearing the mantle."  Each of the six people was from a different "type" of ministry -- lay, local minister, associate, provisional, deacon, and elder, and each spoke for about three minutes.  I was asked to speak as a lay person in ministry.  This is what I said:

There is a story told of a mother and her young son.  It was a dark night, and she needed the son to go to the barn to check on something.  The son looked out the door and said, “Mom, I can’t see the barn, even with this flashlight.”  She answered, “It’s OK.  Just keep walking to the end of the light.”

My name is Kim Matthews, and I am a certified lay minister in our Annual Conference.  I, and those who will follow me this evening, have been asked to speak to you about what it means to put on the mantle of ministry.

To me, wearing the mantle often means that I can’t always see where God is leading, but I have learned enough to – most days – walk to the end of the light.

I am a child of God, who on a Walk to Emmaus, heard my call to love more and trust more.  The mantle feels like grace.

I am a biologist, who spent a very sleepless night struggling with God, and who got up the next morning and applied for the position of Associate Director of the United Methodist Foundation of West Virginia.  The mantle feels frightening.

I am the Associate Director of the Foundation, and I have the opportunity to meet with churches and individuals to speak to them about ministry.   I’m asked to preach and to teach and to share with others how God works through the Foundation’s ministry.   I use gifts I have been given by God to do work that has been placed in my hands by God.  The mantle feels like joy.

I am a sinner, who every day has to decide whether to listen for God or not.  Every day I am asked to say yes to God.  Sometimes I say no.  The mantle feels undeserved.

I am a lay person in our church.  Four years ago I felt a call to pursue certification as a lay minister.  I told God that I couldn’t see where that path would lead – I couldn’t see how I could be of use to my church as a certified lay minister.  God told me to trust and obey.  God reminded me that when I do that, God does not leave me alone.  The mantle feels like the presence of God.

We are the church, and each of us – clergy and lay – has a call to God’s ministry.  What does the mantle feel like?  It’s different for each of us.  I do know this – for me, to wear God’s mantle of ministry creates in me a response of gratitude.  It is with incredible thanksgiving that I can say I am called to the ministry of God.  Each day I walk to the end of the light, and on days when I am very blessed, I am called to shine, and to be the light.

May it be so for you as well.