Ministry

The word ministry is derived in both Greek and Hebrew from a word that simply means “service.” A Christian servant is someone who puts himself or herself at God’s disposal for the benefit of others and for the stewardship of God’s world. Christian service—commonly called ministry—accords with God’s purposes for people and the world and has the touch of God, often unknown to the servant. Christian service makes no distinction between the sacred and the secular. Washing dishes, designing a computer program, preaching a sermon and healing the sick are all one, as William Tyndale said so long ago, “as touching the deed to please God.” How far this is from contemporary thinking about ministry!

Contemporary Definitions

Ministry is an “accordion” word that has come to mean whatever we put into it! Sometimes ministry is defined by place (work done in the temple or church), function (tasks done for the sake of the whole, such as leading), need (meeting spiritual needs) and titles or designations (Reverend). Ministry is normally associated with what the minister does—preaching, pastoral care, evangelism, sacramental ministry, touching and handling the things of God. What really lasts, so it is thought, is service associated with church activities. All the rest is temporal, of passing or minor significance. Such clerically defined service is usually associated with a secret call to ministry that comes to a few people alongside the general calling to Christ experienced by all believers. Yet careful analysis of the New Testament does not support the idea of a secret call to the professional ministry.

In the New Testament service lasts and has significance to God not because of its religious character but because it is done in faith, hope and love (1 Cor. 3:9-15; 1 Cor. 13:13; 1 Thes. 1:3). Sermons may dissolve in the fire of the final judgment because they were preached for vainglory, while a sweater knitted in love may be a ministry to Jesus (Matthew 25:40). “Only one life, ’twill soon be past; only what’s done for Christ will last” has a deeper meaning than commonly taken by those who think they must leave a so-called secular job and enter professional ministry in order to do lasting ministry.

Biblical Definitions

In the Hebrew Scriptures two words are normally used for service and ministry: (1) sharat, which is personal service rendered to an important personage, such as a ruler (Genesis 39:4), and the ministry of worship on the part of those who stand in a special relationship to God, such as priests (Exodus 28:35) and (2) abad, which combines the meaning of “to work or to make” and “to worship.” In Genesis 2 Adam and Eve are depicted as kings-priests offering their work and worship simultaneously to God in the sanctuary-garden, which is the center of the world.

Ministry words in the New Testament do not yield anything like a clergy-lay distinction: hypēretēs (helmsman), doulos (slave), therapeuō (attend, care for, treat, heal), latreuō (serve, worship, but never in a sacerdotal or sanctuary sense) and diakonia (any service rendered in love). Equally significant is the fact that several words meaning “rule,” “control,” “priest” and “official” are not used to describe ministry. Instead the New Testament writers use a term generally associated with those who are in another’s employ and have a dependent status. The most common word for the service of love—diakonia, which originally referred to “waiting at table” but came to designate any action on behalf of others, small or important—takes on a new dignity in the Christian context.

So in the light of both Old and New Testament precedents, the following definition is proposed: Ministry (service) is any activity for which God is able to say, “It is good” (Genesis 1:31), and potentially involves a two-directional priestly service: touching people and places for God and touching God for people and places (whether or not it is known to the servant that God is ministered to by his or her action; Matthew 25:31-46). I use the word priestly here not in the sacerdotal sense but to suggest that ministry involves mediating God’s presence and purpose to the entire creation and offering that creation to God in stewardship, thanksgiving and intercession. To this matter the Old Testament makes a stunning contribution.

Old Testament Contributions

In terms of Old Testament examples, this definition would embrace the ministry of Adam and Eve, the Levites, parents with their children, rulers and politicians, craftspeople, artists and musicians, those acting on behalf of the poor or exercising social justice, persons engaging in reflection and sharing wisdom, and prophets bringing God’s word to people and situations. Today this means that ministry includes the work of homemaking, neighbor love, accounting, town planning, social work, the professions and various forms of public Christian service in churches and society. The Old Testament offers several enriching perspectives on the ministry of God’s people, including covenant (doing arising from belonging), peoplehood (with a corporate solidarity) and sabbath. But one of the most striking is the royal priesthood.

Royal priesthood. Israel was founded to become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6). This appears to be “the priesthood of all believers” before Christ, something never fully apprehended within Old Testament times. It may be argued that Israel’s vocation to the nations always assumes the priesthood of the people as the primary priesthood, with the establishment of the special Aaronic and Levitic priesthood as instrumental and functional—equipping the people to distinguish between the sacred and the profane (Exodus 19:22) so that the people could fulfill their priestly role to the nations and the creation. The vision was not abandoned. In Isaiah 61:6 the prophet envisions the whole nation serving God as priests, including even the Gentiles (Isaiah 56:6-9). This dream was fulfilled in Christ in a manner beyond, but not in opposition to, the revelation of the Old Testament (Romans 9-11; Ephes. 2:11-22).

In the Old Testament ministry is not a solitary, individual activity. Ministry is people service. The idea that each person can be his or her own priest is not supported either by New Testament teaching or by its Old Testament antecedents. Under the old covenant the priesthood within the people was given for the realization of the missionary priesthood of the people as a whole, a vocation signaled in the promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3), reinforced by the prophetic comedy of Jonah’s reluctant missionary excursion, the winsome prophecy of Zechariah (Zech. 8:23), the vision of universal prophecy in Joel 2:28-32 and finally the enigmatic suffering of the Servant (Isaiah 49:6; Isaiah 52:13-53:12). In continuity with the former Israel, the Israel of God in Christ (Galatians 6:16), now reconstituted with believing Jews and Gentiles, exists for the glory of God and for mission in the world. It must never become a self-serving institution. Mission is not an occasional activity for those so inclined but is part of the very being of the people of God. That transforms our vision of lay ministry, as does the next Old Testament perspective.

The servant and service. We have already explored the double-edged meaning of abad: service and worship. What is easily overlooked is that the servant is a servant of God. It is difficult to appreciate how foreign this is to contemporary views of ministry, which boil down to serving people for God’s sake rather than serving God’s interests in people and in creation. The servant passages in Isaiah make this point explicitly: the servant is God’s servant, pure and simple. In the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah, the term occurs twenty times in the singular (Isaiah 39-53) and eleven times in the plural (Isaiah 54-66). Most commonly the plural use refers to the nation Israel. But there are passages in which the servant is differentiated from Israel and possesses a mission to Israel (Isaiah 41:1-7; Isaiah 49:1-9; Isaiah 50:4-10; Isaiah 52:13-53:12). So a single individual was envisioned, an individual who would gather up all the service expected of Israel in his own person and undertake a mission not only to Israel but through it to the world. Paradoxically, because this servant is also divine, God becomes his own servant in this individual.

That service was fulfilled in Christ the Messiah-Servant, not merely the prophets, priests and kings. New Testament apostles, prophets, evangelists and pastor-teachers are not the culmination of their Old Testament counterparts. That is the fatal equation that leads to exclusively male pastors and priests. All Old Testament leadership and service is fulfilled in Jesus, not in New Testament elders and church leaders. In Christ the people as a whole become the servant of the Lord. Here leaders are merely people whose service to other servants is their leadership. Clericalism is thus effectively eliminated.

Ironically, this Old Testament perspective can save us from a hierarchy of ministries. Incarnating our loving submission to Christ’s lordship in every arena of life precludes saying that certain tasks are in themselves holy and others are sacred. Hendrik Kraemer puts it this way: “All members of the ecclesia have in principle the same calling, responsibility and dignity, have their part in the apostolic and ministerial nature and calling of the church” (p. 160). Ministry is work and work is ministry for the Christian. Luther never tired of pressing this truth:

The idea that the service to God should have only to do with a church altar, singing, reading, sacrifice, and the like is without doubt but the worst trick of the devil. How could the devil have led us more effectively astray than by the narrow conception that service to God takes place only in church and by works done therein. . . . The whole world could abound with services to the Lord—not only in churches but also in the home, kitchen, workshop, field. (quoted in Feuchts, p. 80)

It is true that the church was hampered in the third and following centuries by adopting anachronistic Old Testament priestly models to justify the exclusive practice of Christian sacramental officiants. Today it is professionalized models of ministry that strengthen their understanding. But perhaps more crucial for the challenge of transcending clericalism in the church today is to rediscover the comprehensive, empowering vision of the ministry of the people of God in the Old Testament! Yet the New Testament takes us a step further.

New Testament Contributions

In the New Testament we are introduced to a church that is ministerium (a ministering community), to flexible and changing leadership forms adapted to the situation, to a community in which men and women serve together in full partnership, to a people in which all are called (Ephes. 4:1), to a community in which ordination as a rite or ceremony that confers power or office does not exist, to a community in which leadership equips all the people to fulfill their calling in the church and world. The theological reasons for this every-member ministry are set as follows.

First, all the people of God have experienced the inbreaking of the reign and kingdom of God. There are no first- and second-class citizens (those who follow the evangelical/gospel counsels and those who are “just” Christians).

Second, all the people of God are called to service. The nonreligious word diakoneō is used by Jesus to describe the thing that makes a person a disciple (Luke 22:27; Acts 19:22). Paul also takes the secular word diakonia and fills it with Christian meaning. Any service in love is ministry!

Third, all the people of God are empowered and endowed with spiritual gifts. Gifts and graces of God are not limited to a particular group. They are given to all members of the people of God.

Fourth, all the people of God are invited into the royal priesthood. Apart from describing Christ’s high priesthood (Hebrews 4:14-5:10; Hebrews 7:1-10:18) the word hiereus (priest) is not used for individual servants and leaders in the New Testament (except for the Jewish priests). Now that Christ has fulfilled the priesthood, the whole believing community becomes the “priesthood of believers” (1 Peter 2:9-11; Rev. 1:6; Rev. 5:10). This priesthood is community-based (arising from the corporate life of the believing community), God-oriented (blessing God through worship, mission and work) and world-directed (blessing the world by declaring his glory to the nations).

Sacred and Secular Service

Most discussions of the church’s ministry and mission revolve around the two great mandates in the Bible: the cultural mandate (Genesis 1:27-30) and the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19-20). The first seems to invite secular service (earth keeping, politics, science and social justice), and the second sacred service (preaching, evangelism and witness). Reformed churches stress the cultural mandate and the importance for Christians to take care of the earth, to become involved in salting politics, education and culture and so to transform God’s world. Most evangelicals line up behind the Great Commission as the constituting mandate for the people of God, believing that saving an eternal soul cannot be compared with the passing value of designing a human city or enacting just legislation.

Separating these two mandates has been tragic. Where the gospel ministry and our creational stewardship are separated, Christianity becomes privatized. Mission is separated from life and becomes a discretionary-time activity. Social action and evangelism become separated and competitive. As Charles Sweazie once said, social action without evangelism is like sowing grains of sand in the soil; evangelism without social action quickly heads toward superstition. In contrast to the dichotomized Christianity of the modern West, Christians of the first two centuries—and to some extent in developing countries today—shared the gospel of Jesus and did what they could to deal with plagues, abortion, the rights of women and the needs of travelers for hospitality. The record of this is truly inspiring (Oliver).

Christ’s purpose in saving us is partly to restore our true humanity. And the “one new humanity” (Ephes. 2:15 NRSV) we have become in Christ is not religious but fully human. The last Adam, Christ—Adam at last!—restores the potential of the first Adam and Eve. But this more than fulfills the creation mandate. Returning to the foundational texts in Genesis gives us a liberating perspective on what God purposed for his creatures. In fact Adam and Eve had three full-time jobs, not one.

Full-time communion with God. As we have already seen, Adam and Eve dwelt in continuous awareness of God in a garden-sanctuary. Communion with God was a full-time job. A pregnant hint of this is found in Genesis 3:8 with the references to the garden pair walking and talking with God in the cool of the day. While the evening conversation was a highlight of the day, communion—living, moving, and having their being in God—was a twenty-four-hour-a-day occupation, as it should be with us. This challenge to dwell with God, repeated explicitly in the visions of Ezekiel and Revelation, is something that continuously occupies the one new humanity in Christ. It can never be reduced to a quiet-time devotional or be delegated to an evangelist or spiritual director. It is everyone’s full-time job.

Full-time community building. Community building is the second full-time job. Humankind was created male and female in the image of God (Genesis 1:27), signifying that the first pair were called to live in grateful awareness of their cohumanity and joint reflection of the image of God (Genesis 1:26-28); only together they were a mysterious expression of God’s own dignity (Ephes. 5:32). As designed by God, male and female are equal partners and heirs of the grace of life, complementary rather than hierarchical. The image of God is therefore relational or communal.

One practical dimension of this is the call to reproduce (Genesis 1:28) and to build a family, a prototype of the church. So all community building can potentially be a ministry about which God can say, “It is good.” It is, however, a full-time job and can never be reduced to a diversion, even if one should make one’s living by counseling or town planning.

Full-time cocreativity. We are called to make God’s world work and to enhance it. Work encompasses the full range of human tasks from farming to genetic engineering, from needlepoint to accounting. Humankind must never be unemployed, even if remunerated employment is not available or needed. Cocreativity too is a full-time job. The renewal of all creation in Christ is envisaged by the gospel, not merely the saving of individual souls. The lay vocation involves sharing with Christ his complete work of redemption and renewal. The purpose of fulfilling the missionary mandate (Matthew 28:16-20) is to make not saints or angels but fully human beings who will be the vanguard of Christ’s new creation of people and the world, anticipating the consummation of the kingdom (Genesis 1:26-30; Isaiah 65:17-66:24; 2 Cor. 5:17-21; Ephes. 2:15; Ephes. 3:10; Col. 1:20; Hebrews 2:5-17; Rev. 21:5).

This is not to reduce the Great Commission to making disciples of Jesus so that they will fulfill the original creation and cultural mandate of Genesis 1:27-29. There is more to being Christians and more to being fully human than being merely stewards of God’s resources and developing human culture. Evangelicals, having correctly insisted on more, have also generally neglected crucial dimensions in God’s declared intentions for his creatures. Communion, community building and cocreativity, therefore, combine the tasks of evangelism, pastoral care, earth keeping, creative work and social justice.

Trinitarian Ministry

All human ministry is derivative, not delegated. All ministry is God’s ministry. There was ministry in God before there was a world, before there was sin, before there was the need for redemption. Therefore ministry is not imitating God (as holiness is not the imitation of Christ) but being incorporated and conformed to God’s ministry. In reality, this means being incorporated into the love of God. This brings a deeper understanding and practice to the three dimensions developed above.

Communion—colovers of God. Coloving means that we are drawn into the love life within the heart of God. It is the heart of what “loving” God means. As we commune with God, are known by God and practice God’s daily presence, we are actually giving and receiving ministry. The purpose of creation is the glorification of God, and the purpose of God-imaging creatures is to have communion with God.

Community building—loving one another. Human beings are by nature relational and are designed not merely to respond to God but to resemble God through sharing themselves and self-giving. The new creation restores this capacity. It invites us to participate in one another’s lives; to love neighbor, family and friend and be loved; to celebrate cohumanity and celebrate sexuality. Many do not think of this as ministry, service or priesthood, but it is. Indeed, a theology of the laity must inform us of the theology and spirituality of our relational life in everyday circumstances.

Cocreativity—loving the world. Creation is expressive of God’s character, an overflow of the love within God. The world was created to be ultimately transfigured and glorified. Incarnation and resurrection are the highest expression of nature and not only what God did to redeem the world. So a truly evangelical theology of the laity is not only a rescue effort but accords with God’s purposes for the world. What is truly astounding is that humankind has, through the Spirit’s irruption in our lives, the privilege of participating in the creative and the re-creative work of God. But it is also incarnational and resurrectional. As Kraemer so profoundly shows, Christian ministry is not merely a call to ethical living but to participation in a divinely created order of existence that is undergoing change as a result of the Spirit’s transforming power.

Christian service is making ourselves available to God’s love so that we can love people and God’s world for God’s own glory. What we will discover one day, to our immense surprise, is that quite ordinary services we rendered on earth brought blessing to the Lord (Matthew 25:31-46).

» See also: Clergy

» See also: Equipping

» See also: Laity

» See also: Leadership, Church

» See also: Service, Workplace

References and Resources

R. Banks, Paul’s Idea of Community (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994); O. Cullmann, The Christology of the New Testament (London: SCM, 1977); A. Faivre, The Emergence of the Laity in the Early Church (New York: Paulist, 1990); D. J. Falk, “A New Testament Theology of Calling with Reference to the `Call to the Ministry,’ ” MCS thesis, Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., May 1990; O. E. Feucht, Everyone a Minister (St. Louis: Concordia, 1958); J. Houston, “Trinity and the Christian Life,” lecture at Regent College, Vancouver, B.C., 1994; H. Kraemer, A Theology of the Laity (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1958); H. R. Niebuhr, The Purpose of the Church and Its Ministry (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1956); G. Ogden, The New Reformation: Returning the Ministry to the People of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1990); E. H. Oliver, The Social Achievements of the Christian Church (Toronto: United Church of Canada, 1930); W. J. Rademacher, Lay Ministry: A Theological, Spiritual and Pastoral Handbook (New York: Crossroad, 1991); C. A. Voltz, Pastoral Life and Practice in the Early Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990); M. Warkentin, Ordination: A Biblical-Historical View (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1982); J. H. Yoder, The Fullness of Christ: Paul’s Vision of Universal Ministry (Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Press, 1987).

—R. Paul Stevens