Today, church ministry:
1. Can commonly be done by ‘ministers’
who haven’t necessarily been cleansed by the blood of Jesus. Yes, a pastor can ‘minister’
never having actually been regenerated by the Holy Spirit — having not actually
yet experienced the cleansing and renewal of the Holy Spirit.
2. Is seen as an option rather than something that all Christians are to be engaged
in. In early church times, everyone was involved in ministry — which is
probably seen as a sign of having undergone a salvation experience. Those who
see ministry as an option haven’t considered that there is always a role for
anyone to play in the Kingdom of God. To serve should be considered a fruit of
the Spirit.
3. Is more a noun — a thing of status,
whereas in the earliest day it was a verb — a function. When ministry is a
function incorporated into our life itself, we have a direct line of communion
with the Lord. If it is a status, however, we do our works for the Kingdom in
vain, which is not to say that God won’t use them.
4. Is no longer a shared activity as it
was almost always in the early church. Ministry nowadays is very often done
individually. Those who engage as teams honour how church was done from the
earliest days. We need to remember that those who are still on the journey to
faith need to see how we “love one another” in the actual midst of life.
5. Requires “authorisation” and follows
more a secular model. In the early church authorisation always seemed to follow
ministry — a deed done by faith. When we go forth “in the Spirit” we trust the
Spirit and no human authority should clamp down on such a thing unless it’s
unsafe, immoral, inappropriate or unbiblical. If a truly regenerate person
follows a leading of the Spirit they are acting in obedience and they should be
encouraged.
6. Intellect carries more weight than
character. That flies in the face of the biblical worldview. Character, and
giftedness, was always more important in the early New Testament church. This,
I find a personal frustration, but I also honour the fact that God can refine
us and sanctify us even more through our studies. But Degrees without character
and giftedness are a waste of time and will prove vain.
7. Is very often led by young and
inexperienced pastors, but the First Century church, and much of time since,
church leadership was set apart for experienced people. Young people,
especially in this day, are much more charismatic and attractive than those in
their 40s, 50s and 60s, but we miss so much of the grace embodied in
experienced persons when we promote those in their 20s and 30s to senior
positions — especially when they have had few life experiences of suffering.
Our gospel is a gospel of being sanctified out of suffering and of service out
of that suffering.
8. Is done by ministers whose training
is confined to colleges or seminaries, whereas ministers have traditionally
been trained on-the-job, like apprentices, under Rabbis and the like. With such
an emphasis on formal training there is less grounding in how to deal with
people, relationships, conflict and actual forgiveness. It is possible to
become accredited or ordained and to have never honed those ‘soft’ skills that
require and form so much character in us.
9. Is not a local and circulating ‘activist’
ministry as many early ministers were. These early ministers were freed to
serve in the areas of their gifts without being weighed down by the sorts of
administrative tasks that deacons would carry out. There seems, in the earliest
days, to be a more topical dividing line between those who are settled in ‘parish’
roles compared with those in ‘itinerant’ roles.
10. Is not often conducted by local
ministers who have a long-term commitment to their local church like the far
majority of ministers of past centuries had. Many ministers over the centuries
gone have devoted themselves to decades in one place. This is still a good
standard of success today.
11. Involves the ministry of paid
pastors, which was basically unheard of in early times. The church might still
support their minister, as they should, but there would often be some sort of
tent-ministry that the trained leader would stay part of. Either way, paying
pastors by salary emulates a secular model. Imagine if we could ‘pay’ our
pastors more creatively according to their and their family’s real needs. This
would mean we would have to know them, pray for them, and have a line of
communication open that would allow the church to love their pastor
appropriately.
12. Usually features pastors and church
leaders who like to do all the ministry work themselves. But all throughout the
history of the church, the minister would see their ministry as being that of
an enabler of persons; an identifier of gifts in others that the good
Lord would desire to use. This reminds me of my first senior pastor, who
identified his role as most simply being an enabler of persons to unlock their
giftedness. When a senior church leader sees people as God’s gift to the local
church, he or she asks, “How can I endorse this person’s gifting, inspire them
to use their gifts, and see them blessed through the use of their gifts?”
13. Does not seem to value as central the
role of solid Christian doctrine as the vastness of the tradition of church
leaders have in the past. We can reel off a series of high profile ‘pastors’
who spruik a prosperity doctrine, for just one instance. They we only have to
think of Westboro Baptist in America’s south as another example of truth
without love. The early church had three qualities in ministers of the gospel: 1)
character, 2) “apt to teach,” and 3) “holding fast to the faithful Word.”
14. Is loaded with the need to have
functional and in many cases elaborate facilities. The early church was built
around people and not buildings. But we are often constrained if we don’t have
amenities that live up to an impression we wish to give. The works of ministry
are easily able to operate in the atmosphere of care and in the environment of
acceptance, love and inclusion.
***
Church leadership
and ministry today has moved a long way from the core ideals set up by the Apostles.
The less we run our churches and our ministries according to secular ideals,
the more we will bless the Kingdom.
Offering people
a solacing sanctuary away from their fractious world is one cogent thing the
church can give people of all walks of life.
© 2015 Steve
Wickham.
Reference: these observations are a commentary on Michael
Green’s 14 points as written in Freed to
Serve (London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1983).
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