Church Without Walls VII
WHO? ME! A MINISTER?
Sermon preached at Barclay Church, Edinburgh by Rev D. Graham Leitch
26 May 2002

MINISTERS AND MINISTRY

In this last sermon on key themes from the ‘Church without Walls’ Report we take the two related subjects of MINISTERS and MINISTRY. In church circles the subject of ministers is discussed more often than the subject of ministry!

Who hasn’t heard folk - sitting on a bus or train, enjoying a cup of coffee together or walking along the pavement - talking with animation (and sometimes disapproval!) about what their or someone else’s minister said or did!! One of the most unnerving but amusing experiences of my early ministry was sitting on an Edinburgh bus listening to two members of my own congregation, who were sitting in the seat behind, discussing their new young minister. I suffered the embarrassment in silence to spare theirs!

Today the predicted increasing shortage of MINISTERS, serious though it is and demanding of attention, must not be allowed to distract us from the equally important question of MINISTRY.

One of the great strengths and most useful emphases of the ‘Church without Walls’ Report is on what theology calls “the priesthood of all believers” Of course the church has always paid lip-service to this notion but it was really the emerging charismatic renewal movement of the 1960’s which began to challenge the Church to take seriously the “every member ministry” of the early church.

GIFTS FOR ALL!

The Bible is plain that all the spiritual gifts don’t reside in one person any more than all the church’s work should fall upon one person. The gifts of the Spirit are variously given not to ONE - the minister - or to SOME - the minister with His Elders perhaps. No! They are given to ALL!

“There are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit. There are different kinds of service but the same Lord, There are different kinds of working but the same God works all of them in all....” (1 Cor 12:4-6)

In Reformed Churches the use of the word “priest” has been avoided for hundreds of years because of its associations with historic Roman doctrines of the Priesthood. Yet at the same time Reformed Church has allowed the abbreviation of the term “Minister of the Word and Sacrament” to THE MINISTER to distort and do great damage to its understanding of ministry.

This is seen, in structural terms, in the (still) overwhelming focus of the Board of Ministry on the paid professional ministry. It’s seen in local parishes throughout the length and breadth of Scotland where the minister remains the “Jack of all trades” even if he is the master of but one!

It seems too much to hope that a new and more appropriate way of designating the church’s paid clergy will be found, but at least serious thought needs to be given to possible alternatives. Meanwhile I, for one, will be happy to forswear both the designation “the minister” and the title “Reverend” just as soon as a suitable alternative can be found!!

returning the ministry of the Gospel to the people of God.

In the ‘Church without Walls’ Report there is a welcome encouragement to the Church of Scotland “to return the ministry of the Gospel to the people of God.” Faced with the declining number of candidates for the ministry to which frequent reference has already been made, it’s important to be clear that this is done for reasons of principle rather than expedience. It isn’t just because there is a shortage of ministers developing that it should happen but because it is part of God’s ground-plan for His Church as much in the 21st Century as it was in the 1st!!

Nevertheless, whatever they are called - and taking full account of the need to recover “the priesthood of all believers” in today’s church for the sake of tomorrow’s church - the issue of the church’s need for Ministers still needs to be considered.

THE SHORTAGE OF MINISTERS

The shortage of ministerial candidates in the church today is probably a result of three separate but distinct trends:
. In the first place, the rapidly diminishing number of young people who are growing up in any active association with the life and worship of the Church of Scotland.

If the pool of young Christians, from which candidates for the ministry of the Church of Scotland might reasonably be expected to emerge, contains a smaller number each year it’s hardly surprising that the number of candidates is reducing.

. In the second place, the new young Christians of Scotland are less and less to be found today within the established church - or any of the established denominations.

Today they are far more likely to find their spiritual home in the newer and independent churches. These often have a more contemporary feel, offer worship that is more free in its style and have a culture that is altogether more relaxed than the average Church of Scotland congregation.

. In the third place, the prospect of a ministry in a congregation resistant to change, overwhelmingly elderly and burdened with the financial and fabric problems faced by many congregation is, not surprisingly, less appealing to young Christians considering a call to full-time Christian service than the growing range of “exciting opportunities” offered by other Christian mission agencies. Who would want to be a minister of the Church of Scotland today?!!

WHO WOULD WANT TO BE A MINISTER IN THE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND?

Though it is easier to identify the problem than to find easy solutions, here are a few things to think about:

1. “The labourer deserves his hire” - yes! - and a capable person ought not to be penalised
financially for choosing to serve God in a full-time Christian vocation. But if what I have said is
true, any increase in stipend is unlikely to have a marked effect upon the number of candidates for
the ministry. The size of the stipend is neither the main consideration nor the biggest
disincentive in the way. The archaic culture and cumbersome committee-ridden structure of the
Church is a far greater disincentive to a spontaneous and “ad hoc” growing generation.

2. The present academic training of ministers in the University Faculties of Divinity, valuable as it is
in its own right, is, by itself, a poor and inadequate preparation for contemporary Christian
mission. Has the time not come for the Church of Scotland to create its own independent college or
at least find better ways of equipping its ministerial candidates for the task of mission?

3. Does the present system of parish ministry - every church and parish must have a minister (and to
be honest the vast majority of them still want “their minister) - not leave far too little room for
creative and imaginative new ways of ministry and mission in 21st century Scotland?

The present system, combined with the pressure of the expectation of too many members,
practically invites student candidates to step out of college and into a clerical strait-jacket!

The Report emphasises greater flexibility in church structure as a desirable goal. But a far greater flexibility and wider range of kinds of professional Christian worker, lay and ordained, is also required!

THE DEPLOYMENT OF MINISTERS

Then there is the deployment of ministers. The pattern of one minister and one church in each parish was practically universal in the 19th Century and, as the report points out, apart from occasional variations remains the norm in town and country today. One minister in one church is still the most common arrangement.

The report talks about the future in terms of “ministry teams operating in a variety of community bases to be incarnate in a network of communities.”

If the phrase “ministry teams” means teams of ministers a word of caution is required, and it is this, that there is some evidence that when teams of ministers of the traditional kind are formed what one writer refers to as “a rather sinister law of diminishing returns sets in” It may result in gains in other ways and even savings, for example, if ministers are grouped and fewer buildings used, but it doesn’t automatically result in the winning of new disciples or church growth. A Church of England Report, sounds this warning:

“Increasing the staff of a parish does not lead to a significant penetration of the parish...no amount of pastoral juggling and redeployment of the clergy can create the needed breakthrough”

Nor is the cause of Christ and His Kingdom in Scotland likely to be effectively advanced by the linkings and unions of more and more churches unless a new kind of ministry emerges.

I’ve already said something about flexibility and deployment - but I think something also needs to be said about “style.”

There is a sense in which the ministry of the church is altogether too religious for its own and the Kingdom’s good and too distant, still, from the “ordinary man in the street”!! So much to do with the church: pulpits, collars and cassocks, titles, pews - yes, and even the Sacraments - can alienate rather than entice people.

the ministry of the church is altogether too religious for its own and the Kingdom’s good

It is a diabolical paradox and should grieve us more than it seems to that we, who entered the ministry to see others come to faith, should so often have become the hindrances and stumbling blocks in the way of faith.

The church’s professional ministry needs to get down to street-level. As one shrewd observer remarked “Pulpits can be the funk-holes of cowards to fearful to speak to their brothers face to face.”

If the professional ministry of the church is to be effective it needs to learn to speak the language of the world rather than the languages of its ecclesistical or evangelical sub-culture. It needs to engage with people where people are - it needs to be REAL! There is still, in too many situations, too great a gulf fixed between the professional clergy and the ordinary people inside - and increasingly outside - our churches.

THE PRIESTHOOD OF ALL BELIEVERS

So much for MINISTERS - the paid professionals of the church’s life. While the future of the paid professionals role matters, more important for the church’s future is its recovery of the concept of “the priesthood of all believers” - the plain teaching of the New Testament is that the word ministry applies to all members of the Body of Christ and not to a select coterie of paid professionals!!

“Who? Me! A minister?” you say! YES - YOU! Every Christian by definition is already a minister - and every Christian has a ministry. That include YOU. The ministry gifts of the Holy Spirit aren’t just those with a “spiritual slant” or an obviously supernatural edge.

Some of you will remember Agnes Murray. When I came to Barclay in 1980 I quickly got to know and respect Agnes and love her - Agnes wasn’t a high-flier and her educational attainments were limited. But Agnes had a huge heart! Unmarried - everyone in the church was her family. And though there were many things she simply couldn’t do, she was exceptionally good at making tea. Agnes was the teamaker. And if there were dishes to wash or dry Agnes would be there!!

If you explore the church here you will find portraits, photographs and even the marble bust of one of its past ministers. But Agnes, I can tell you, was one of the best ministers this church ever had!!

No! The ministry gifts possessed by all God’s people aren’t just to do with things like preaching and praying or teaching the young - the Bible includes things like hospitality, generosity and what it calls “helping” - just doing what you can wherever you can to support and assist others.

Every Christian by definition is already a minister

Some may seem highly “spiritual” but most are really intensely practical and all are necessary!

If the shortage of full-time ordained and paid professionals in the church leads not only to a rediscovery of the idea of “every member ministry”but a recovery of “every member ministry” in practice, the church will be stronger, not weaker as a result.

The future prosperity of the church - in spiritual and numerical terms - lies in recognising the importance of identifying members gifts, training and equipping members, celebrating and releasing their gifts and serving those inside and outside the church in Christ’s name.

Ephesians 4:7-16

When the church is effectively run by one person the amount it can achieve is limited indeed - one person can only do one person’s work. That is why so much of the church’s work has become self-limiting. Because it has relied so much on THE minister to do it. But it is not part of God’s ground-plan for the minister to be a “jack of all trades” and do everything in his/her church.

Ephesians 4:7-16 is a key passage here:

“7.... to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it....11 It was (Christ) who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, 12 to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up 13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ...15...(thus) we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.”

Notice that the role of the ministry - the church’s leaders - is “to equip the saints for the work of ministry” Or, in todays language, recognising that every believer has a gift or gifts, to motivate, encourage train, resource and support every Christian in his or her work for God.

It is interesting that in this passage the word for equipping is one that describes “net-mending” - the fisherman with lots of holes in his nets catches no fish!! Perhaps it is only when the “equipping” of the saints or “net-mending”is being properly done that we’ll start catching fish for God again!!

RECOGNISING GIFTEDNESS

We need to RECOGNISE that every Christian - from the youngest to the oldest, from the newest baby Christian to the most mature of saints - is a gift to the church and has gifts to use in Christ’s service. And these gifts can be used both in the church and beyond the church.

Don’t be misled and imagine that the only Christian service is service performed within the confines of the churches building or the circle of the church’s members! There’s a whole world for us to serve God and serve Christ in!! Be imaginative! Be bold! Be there!!

IDENTIFYING GIFTS

We need to IDENTIFY our gifts in order to use them - or perhaps I should say the church must increasingly help people to IDENTIFY their gifts so that instead of being round pegs in square holes - and therefore anxious stressed and unfulfilled in the service of the church, they can be round pegs in round holes and, by doing what GOD want them to do, find satisfaction and fulfillment in serving God in Christ’s name.

As a young Children’s Holiday Mission leader I remember leading a study on the subject of gifts and ministries, based on 1 Corinthians 12, which stressed the fact that every individual believer has a gift to use. One of the even younger members of the team was found quietly crying in a corner afterwards because she didn’t feel she was any use and couldn’t think what her gift might be!

Today there are a number of professionally researched exercises and tests which can help Christians to identify the area in which their gift/gifts may lie. Prayer has a key part to play. So does the advice of Christians friends who sometimes know us better than ourselves. And in many church there are one or two folk who have the gift of discernment and can help others to identify where they fit in.

Its membership of over half a million is still the source of the largest untapped potential in the church apart from the power of God!!

Its membership of over half a million is still the source of the largest untapped potential in the church apart from the power of God!!

The church will begin to grow again and perhaps be reborn when it recognises this untapped potential, identifies its members gift and trains equips and supports its members in realising their own God given and Spirit imparted potentialities,

In the vision of the dry bones in Ezekiel (Ezekiel 37) when the bones came together and were clothed with flesh “breath entered them and they came to life and stood up on their feet - a vast army.”
A VAST ARMY

God isn’t finished with the Church of Scotland yet!!

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