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LIFE IS MINISTRY, or All Ministry is Apostolic, Presbyteral, and Diaconal (Part 2)

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by Edward L. Lee, Jr.

Part 1 of this blog appeared in late March. It maintained that the Book of Common Prayer establishes and asserts that there are four orders of ministry in The Episcopal Church, not just three, all sacramentally grounded in Baptism: lay persons. bishops, priests, and deacons. The sequence is essential in understanding the equality of all ministers and ministry in the Church. Ministry is the holy enterprise of baptized equals who understand that all life is ministry. Being a lay person is being a front line minister Sunday through Saturday, 24/7, 12/365.

The traditional ordained ministries — bishops, priests, and deacons — have, however, through history been regarded as the real ministers of the Gospel and Church. They got locked into that perception and role when the Church for centuries was what historians have called Christendom, an official sanctifier of empire and culture, of state and dominion, an arbiter and player in the halls of power and politics. To some extent it still is, or at least tries to be, even though the Christendom era and aura have waned significantly. The Church is now faced with the task of once again coming to grips with what it means to be baptized, “to be sealed by the Holy Spirit … and marked as Christ’s own forever.”

The Protestant Reformation introduced some key understandings of what the ministries of the baptized ought to be about even though it still clung to Christendom underpinnings. For example, it was Martin Luther who posited the broad ministerial scope of “the priesthood of all believers.” And John Calvin maintained that there is only one ordained ministry, the presbyter, and he (no women back then) was only one voice with lay elders in the governance of the Church. Still, it would be awhile before governance of the Church would not just be something akin to running the institution, as if that constituted ministry; but would begin to understand that real ministry in and for the world that God loves is inaugurated and imparted in Baptism, and is lived and exercised daily from dawn to dusk for a lifetime. All life is ministry and it is a serious vocation.

Let it be argued that the Episcopal/Anglican ordained ministries — bishops, priests, deacons — are still authentic in understanding the Church’s ministry. Yet they originate in Baptism and inform the baptized of how their ministries are apostolic, priestly, and diaconal without having to wear a bishop’s mitre, or a priest’s stole, or bear a deacon’s serving towel. Throughout any given day they manifest all three. Sadly the Church has rarely told them that, much less thanked them. Making these connections will be the subject of my next posting. Stay tuned.

What is a successful congregation?

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by Peyton G. Craighill

Thoughtful church leaders know that something is wrong with our congregations. The problem lies with the our definition of a successful congregation. The widespread assumption is that two features mark success in a congregation:

  1. A full church on Sunday morning.
  2. Offering plates with sufficient funds to support an effective church program.

According to our secular standards, this definition implies a good business plan for a congregation.

But this definition does not indicate why God established and continues to give life and power to our congregations. God sent his Son, Jesus Christ, into the world to proclaim Good News. Christ established his servant community, the church, to help him with his mission of love and justice in “all the world.” Through our baptism, we become grafted into Christ’s Body, the church. We accept his Great Commission to share in his mission with him, Monday through Sunday, in everything we do in our everyday lives.

Based on this paradigm shift,  our congregations are changed from “spiritual filling stations” on Sunday morning to “base camps” for mission, Monday through Sunday. How do we get our members to accept this new meaning of church life?

The first step is that you and I must live out our baptismal covenant – in particular, the five promises that we make at the end of the covenant – in every decision we make and every action we take in all of our daily life activities. We have to let Christ transform us from “me-centered” to “Christ-through-me-centered” lives. That change in vision is essential to influencing our congregations to accept a missional approach  instead of an attractional approach to defining success in our congregations.

What is God’s mission?

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by Wayne Schwab

Need a fresh and still biblical way to describe God’s mission?

God is on mission to make the world more loving and more just.

Wherever we meet love or justice, we are meeting God at work.

Wherever love or justice are weak or missing, God is at work to bring them.  Look around.  You will see signs of God at work somewhere, somehow.

Read the biblical story that way.  As the story unfolds, we are slowly getting the message that God does not want violence; God wants love and justice.

So, love at home but also be sure that you are fair with each other.

So, be just and pay fairly at work.  Pay fairly because you know and love your co-workers.

Seek to be loving and just and you are already part of God’s mission.  Open “eyes of faith” and see God helping you to love and to be just.

Immersion

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by Herbert Donovan

Baptism: The word literally means the action of immersion in water.  A more commonly acceptable meaning, among Episcopalians, is the action of sprinkling with water. Many Christians hold to immersion, as in Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptism, as the most effective way to symbolize our being made clean by God, and clothed in God’s Spirit, for this life and the life to come.  While most of our Prayer Book service assumes the sprinkling or pouring of water, it is interesting to note the rubric, i.e. “direction”, on page 307, where we read that the officiating clergy “immerses, or pours water upon, the candidate”.

A priest tells the story of how he was in the action of sprinkling a baby at Baptism, when an old man in the congregation, on observing his action, spoke out in a loud voice, “”More water!”

God grant that our intentions and actions in services of Holy Baptism, whether as officiants, candidates, Godparents, family or friends, may be to immerse ourselves in God’s healing and strengthening action, that we may live more perfectly as His children, now and forever.

Mantra for Mission in Daily Life

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by Peyton G. Craighill

 

In our daily lives,

through the decisions we make

and the actions we take,

Christ invites us to share in his mission.

Life Is Ministry —

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or All Ministry is Apostolic, Presbyteral, and Diaconal (Part 1)

by Edward L. Lee, Jr.

How’s that for a mind-boggling church-y title! But please, keep reading.

First, let’s start with the Book of Common Prayer. Go to page 855 in the Catechism and the section titled, “The Ministry.” It begins:

Q: Who are the ministers of the Church?

A: The ministers of the Church are lay persons, bishops, priests, and deacons.

Q: What is the ministry of the laity?

A: The ministry of lay persons is to represent Christ and his Church; to bear witness to him wherever they may be; and, according to the gifts given them, to carry on Christ’s work of reconciliation in the world; …

The rest of this section identifies and spells out the particular ministries of bishops, priests, and deacons with such words as “apostle” (bishops); “to bless and declare pardon” (priests/presbyters); and “servant” (deacons).

In short, we are a Church of four orders of ministers, not the traditional three. The first is the laity, the baptized, followed by the ordained ministries of bishops, priests, and deacons. This sequence is one of elemental and essential equality in its understanding of ministry, of Christian discipleship. It’s communal, not hierarchical, and certainly not patriarchal. The primary and front line of ministers are the baptized laity; the baptized ordained persons empower, support, and sustain the laity like, for example, the conductor of an orchestra. Yet the result is always a concert of communal endeavor and commitment, an enterprise of equals. That’s ministry.

Or as expressed insightfully by a perceptive presbyter:

“Life is ministry. Ordained ministry is a role within the ministry of the people of God, and I think we lose our bearings when we see it as something other than facilitating the whole.” (James Callaway, Trinity News, Trinity Church, NYC, Summer 2014)

Amen! Life IS ministry and the baptized laity live it daily in the tasks and on the frontiers of their lives. And it’s as apostolic and presbyteral and diaconal in character and function as that of those facilitating clergy who participate with them in Christ’s relentless yet glorious “work of reconciliation in the world.”

In my next blog (Part 2) I’ll break open those churchy words in the title and illustrate how every person’s ministry is apostolic, presbyteral and diaconal. Stay tuned.

What’s the church here for, anyway?

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by Wayne Schwab

I was the interim pastor in a small church in Essex in upstate New York on Lake Champlain.  For some reason, Essex hosted meetings of the International Bagpipe Organization.

A piper walked through the church hall.  He asked, “What’s the church here for anyway?”

I answered, “God is most interested in how we live Monday to Saturday.  Sunday is to help us to do it better.”

He liked the answer.  I’d been thinking this way for some time.  At last I had said it.

That’s a key to living God’s mission every day – especially to what a church should be doing.

We say a church needs to be friendly and open to anyone who walks through its doors.

— I now say a church really needs to help everyone walking through its doors to live better on Monday because they were there on Sunday.

We say a church should offer community – very important in a world that can be very lonely.

—  I now say a church really needs to help you to build community in your worlds outside the church.

We say a church needs vitality – to be alive within its walls and alive in its town or city.

— I now say a church really needs to be known for how its members are making the world around them more loving and more just wherever they are 24/7/365.

Finding your calling

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by Fletcher Lowe

“Jesus is in the legislature. If he were not there I would not be either.”

Rep. Byron Rushing, Member of the Massachusetts State Legislature

Lent is a season of penitence. In keeping with that we Episcopalians in the Liturgy put the Penitential Order front and center. We talk a lot about sin and forgiveness and reconciliation and redemption—all significant Christian themes.

That being said, let’s take a second look and go back to the reason that Jesus went into the wilderness. It was not for repentance; it was for vocation. As I read the accounts, it was to figure out what his mission and ministry were to be. Now the devil helped him in that by offering him at least three other options—each of which he refused. Out of the 40 days he emerged with his mission/ministry: to proclaim the Kingdom of God is at hand. His teachings and healings and other miracles gave credence to that.

For me that provides an alternative focus for Lent: to critique how I am doing in understanding my calling as a follower of Christ in my daily life and work. Relevant questions might be:

  • In whatever I do, what is the faith connection?
  • In my everyday life, how is God calling me to “proclaim by word and example…, to seek and serve…, to strive….,” as we affirm in the Baptismal Covenant.

Each of us, by the very nature of our Baptism, has been sent “into the world to love and serve the Lord.” That world is wherever and with whomever we “live and move and have our being”: in our work and home and community and school.

Christ, in his 40 days in the wilderness, gives us a model: to take some time focusing on what we do beyond Sunday. Thanks be to God who gives us the opportunity, in our own way, to be “Christ” with those whom we meet in everyday life.

Tapping Jesus’ ‘crazy wisdom’

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by Demi Prentiss

Brian McLaren, in his book We Make the Road by Walking, makes the point that becoming Christian means being alive in Christ. Wherever we find ourselves, we are to “be Christ” to the fullest extent we can manage.

What a challenge! I’m often stumped knowing how to begin “being Jesus.” Rob Voyle’s article “Compassion and the Crazy Wisdom of Jesus” opens possibilities. Voyle begins by making the point that “people don’t want to be changed, they want to be blessed.” There’s a beginning: I can take action to be a blessing.

Then Voyle goes on to describe three compassionate faces of Jesus:

  • When he encountered injury, he responded with tenderness.
  • When he encountered injustice, he responded with fierceness.
  • When he encountered stuck-ness, he responded with playfulness.

Jesus’ compassion was consistently directed at bringing transformation – opening the way toward wholeness and healing.

As a repertoire of compassion, those three possibilities open my imagination. In the situation I am facing, what is the truly compassionate response – tenderness, fierceness, or playfulness? And how can I respond in a way that opens possibilities for transformation – my own as well as others’?

Prayers for renewal

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by Peyton G. Craighill

These prayers began life as collects in the Book of Common Prayer. With extensive editing, the author has re-shaped them as prayers for the renewal of the mission of the church through the movement for mission in daily life.

Almighty and everliving God, source of all wisdom and understanding, be present with us as we seek to renew the mission of your church as Christ’s mission working through us in all that we do. Teach us to seek first your wisdom and glory; Guide us to perceive what is your will, and grant us both the courage to pursue it and the grace to accomplish it; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

O God, You prepared your disciples for the coming of the Spirit through the mission of your Son Jesus Christ: Make the hearts and minds of us, your servants, ready through your Holy Spirit to receive Christ’s mission, that we may be filled with the power of the Spirit’s guidance in everything we do in our daily lives, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.