by Edward L. Lee, Jr.

“Baptismal ministry – ministry based primarily on baptism and living the baptismal covenant, and not on ordination.

“Ministry in daily life – daily life recognized as the primary  arena for ministry, with parish activities as the context for the support of those ministries.

“Total ministry – ministry organized on the principle of the communal sharing of all members in the church’s ministry rather then based on a top-down, clergy dominated model.

“Servant leadership – communal structures of power and authority based on mutual sharing and servanthood in place of authoritarian patterns of clerical control.

“Evangelism – practiced in a new spirit, not of manipulative imposition, but of sharing and loving service.

“Incarnational spirituality – practiced not as an escape from the world into a private relationship with Jesus but as a spirituality experienced as corporate as well as personal, in all secular as well as sacred contexts.”

And one on “secular theology” I especially appreciated: “Theology focused on God’s presence in the whole of creation rather than primarily on the church; Christ, not as a judgmental Lord or as a private companion, but as an abiding presence in all the world’s activities; the Spirit at work implicity in all the affairs of the world as well as  explicitly in contexts in which God is recognized and named.”

by Fletcher Lowe

Mary and Martha: Remember them?  They were with their brother Lazarus when he died and was raised from the dead by Jesus.  At that point Martha exclaimed: “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God” – one of the strongest affirmations of Jesus in the entire New Testament. We later find them at home with Mary at Jesus’ feet listening attentively to his words while Martha is busy at work in the kitchen getting dinner ready. In her frustration Martha confronts Jesus and Mary, aggravated by Mary’s lack of help.  Jesus’ response calls out Martha’s many distractions and worries: “There is one thing necessary, and Mary has chosen the better part.” Amidst her busy work, Martha had lost that focus she had when her brother was raised. Is this a case of either/or, either contemplation or action? Or can it be both/and?

Several years ago, my wife and I worked with Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity in East Africa and Calcutta, India.  Theirs was very  much a Martha world: Hard work emotionally, physically, spiritually.  But it was balanced by their Mary: Early morning Eucharist, communal noontime and close of the day prayers, not to mention the individual spontaneous prayers said for those they were caring for. Their Martha busyness was balanced t by their Mary devotion.

Is that not our calling as well? We are very much Martha people.  We live busy lives in a busy world.  We multitask and check our smart phones for the next thing to do. It is easy for us to lose our Mary focus. But we have – and can expand – that Mary side. We honor her Jesus focus by corporate prayer on Sundays and other times during the week, as well as our individual prayer on a regular basis.  Then there are those spontaneous times: Putting the pause on the car radio to briefly say a word to God, or while watching the TV news and giving thanks for the Apollo 11’s safe moon landing and return, or offering a prayer of concern for those in distress.  And pausing to smell a flower or listen to a bird’s song or give thanks for a butterfly: Mary moments amidst our Martha lives. So the Mary/Martha story is not an either/or but a reminder for each of us in our busy daily Martha lives at home and community and work to honor our Mary side in our Christian journey.

by Demi Prentiss

In May 2019 the Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop Michael B. Curry was interviewed by Harvard Business Review.   The focus of the interview was Bishop Curry’s consistent message of love and unity at a time of deep division.

His message about dealing with people in our daily lives – particularly in our workplaces – speaks to the vocation of being a Christian – walking our talk. He champions servant leadership in a time when polarization and self-dealing seem to have become routinely expected.

Interviewer Ania G. Wieckowski: How do you encourage people to bring love into their workplaces?

Bishop Curry: In the past couple years I’ve started thinking of love less as a sentiment and more as a commitment to a way of being with others. As a sentiment, love is more about what I’m getting out of it than what you’re getting out of it. But as a commitment, love means I’m seeking your self-interest as well as my own—and maybe above and beyond mine. That kind of unselfishness is actually how Jesus talked about love most of the time in the New Testament—the Greek word that’s used is agape. That’s the kind of love you see in a person who has done something selfless for you and affected your life for the good: a parent, teacher, Scout leader, or coach. Take that further and you realize that there has been no social good that’s been intentionally done apart from this kind of love. We don’t give people Nobel Peace prizes for selfishness. We recognize those people because they’ve given of themselves without counting the cost to themselves. So, I’ve been playing with the mantra: Is the action I’m contemplating selfish or selfless? I invite folks to just ask that question throughout the day: Selfish or selfless?

Bishop Curry invites us to a simple practice of examining our behavior by asking ourselves whose Way are we walking? What does our baptism really mean? Are we being loving, liberating, and life-giving? Selfish or selfless?

by Matthew B. Harper

“What is your ministry?”

As I have worked my way through the church’s discernment process, I have struggled when someone asks me this. And it gets asked a lot.

It is a good question because it seeks to understand my role in community, and how I view my relationship with others and my calling from God. But it is also a terrible question, because it is asking me to take the calling of my heart and distill it into something that can fit on a resume.

Isn’t it enough of an answer just to say, “I’m a Christian”?

A simple statement of identity should ground all of us as ministers of the gospel. As Christians we all HAVE a ministry. Some people are very deliberate in what they do, and some lucky few make a living doing it, but each and every one of us is a minister making their way in the world. As such, everything we do IS our ministry. Maybe it’s a big, loud, front-and-center ministry, and maybe it’s a quiet and diligent ministry. Maybe we are preaching to a congregation or leading a huge public charity, and maybe we are just being kind, honest, and decent to the people we see every day. Maybe we teach children or we sell cars, but even if we can’t talk about God to others, we are loving them through our words and actions.

Whatever it looks like, it’s kingdom work.

Preaching, teaching, leading music in worship, these things are easy to identify as my “ministry.” But when I hug and encourage Chris in the chow hall, or help Kenny find a book in the library, when I show Charles how to do something in class, or spend a recreation period walking, talking, and listening to Brad – these things are also ministry. I don’t plan them, or categorize them; I am just trying to do the right things, the Christian things, in each situation. These are concrete actions where the gospel of grace is being manifest through my life.

Ministry.

Sometimes those momentary opportunities have spawned plans and actions still going strong years later, other times it’s just a hug and a smile and we all keep moving. All of them matter.

Trying to keep track of them as if to check boxes on my “Christian resumé” somehow cheapens them. And whatever happened to the right hand not letting the left hand in on the secret?

I am a Christian, nothing more or less (and not always a great one), trying hard to live in grace in this place, at this moment, open to the leading of the spirit.

If I put that on my resume it’s going to be a short document, but it will still say a lot. Maybe that’s enough?

– Living God’s Mission is honored to feature this blog post, written by Matthew B. Harper, a resident in a Virginia prison.

by Edward L. Lee, Jr.

On May 9 I observed the 60th anniversary of my ordination to the diaconate of The Episcopal Church. The same for the priesthood will be observed on November 14. As for the episcopate, it will be my 30th anniversary on October 7. Collectively they represent a full lifetime of ordained ministry and leadership in the church. In memory and experience they are richly indelible.

However, one other tally is missing in the above years of service. It’s the one that undergirds the others. The Prayer Book’s Catechism on page 855 informs us that the sequence of ministers and ministry in the church, not its hierarchy of clergy, are “lay persons, bishops, priests and deacons.” This means my life in ministry in the church began when I was baptized not ordained. So on June 23 I will remember and celebrate the 84th anniversary of my baptism. Truth be told, it’s taken me quite awhile to make that observance as indelible as the others: baptism as the first order of ministry in the church, not bishops nor priests nor deacons.

Over the years this recognition of sequence and not hierarchy of ministers has shaped my understanding of the church as a community of fully graced baptized equals and not a top down organization of spiritual and sacramental unequals.

For me the realization of this pattern of community occurred when I was chairing one of those annual organizational planning meetings that parishes and dioceses, and their vestries and councils, regularly conduct to envision and carry out their common life and mission. It entailed the usual brainstorming and posting of ideas and comments on newsprint.

In this case it was the diocese of my episcopacy and there were pages upon pages of newsprint taped on the walls throughout the meeting room. “How do we see ourselves as the church?” was the question to explore. And the image that was most common to much of the thinking was the triangle, and on the newsprint pages it was always visually vertical. At the peak point of the triangle was, of course, the bishop. Below that ministry came a middle rank of ordained clergy. And below them came the laity. This image of church was invariably three-tiered with me at the top, the other clergy next in line, and the laity at the bottom. Very hierarchical. Very authoritarian. Very Episcopalian. Just the opposite of the Prayer Book’s sequence of ministers.

It was at one such meeting that I had my newsprint epiphany. Rather than looking at the triangle vertically why not view it horizontally. To demonstrate this, I took down one of the newsprint pages and laid it flat on the table in front of us. From that vantage point all of the church’s ministers were now on a common playing field, all baptismally equal, a community of shared authority and accountability, of collaboration and consensus, of mutual responsibility and interdependence. In short, an authentic movement and community as revealed and mandated by Christ.

Here then is another image for ministers and ministry in daily life, gathered as a base camp and encircled and embraced by the triangular arms of the Trinity in “whom we live and move and have our being,” and sent forth to love and serve the world as Christ has loved and served us.