Bezalel: What is Ministry?

Interesting fact for the day:

Exodus 31:1-5 records the first place in scripture where someone is "filled with the Spirit."  Can you guess what the Spirit empowered them to do?  Not prophetic words, not healing, not angelic tongues, not preaching, nor worshipping, not even leading the people.

Bezalel was filled by God's spirit to be the artist and craftsman in charge of the artwork and finely crafted instruments for the Tabernacle.

It makes you think...

Ministry is often conceived of as "pastor-work."  In most places the nurses, teachers, gardeners and neighbors are looking over the pastor's shoulder saying, "that looks fun, can I try?"  But that isn't the way it is supposed to be!

Ministry is supposed to be the work of Christians in the world.  The pastoral role ought to be guiding and equipping Christians in that fundamental ministry task of partnering with God in His work around us, in us, and through us.  In short, the pastor should be looking over the shoulders of the nurses, teachers, gardeners, and neighbors and saying, "that looks fun, can I try?

Ministry Pornography

Pornography is damaging to the soul for many reasons, one of them is the way in which it creates a false understanding of human sexual behavior and norms.  When people feed their sexual imagination with pornography they begin to think that the behaviors they see in the porn actors/actresses are the behaviors that they should engage in when they are having sex.

The problem is that porn stars aren't normal.  They aren't normal in many ways.

1. Normal people don't have sex in front of a camera.
2. Normal people's bodies don't look like that.
3. Normal people don't enjoy those acts (indeed, most porn stars don't actually enjoy all of the things they are paid to do on camera, they do them because they get paid, not because they like it!)

What is more, the camera doesn't capture everything.

1. It doesn't show you the toll pornography takes on the porn star's romantic life.
2. It doesn't show you the toll pornography takes on the porn star's sobriety.
3. It doesn't show you the toll pornography takes on the porn star's self worth.

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There is a parallel to draw to ministry.  (Actually there is a parallel to draw to any vocation.  The real parallel here is about how comparing ourselves to unhealthy people actually causes us to become unhealthy ourselves.  Or, how comparing ourselves to people that are in radically different situations than us can often lead to confusion and pain.)

In the church we love to hold up examples of church success that are the ministry equivalent of porn.  Looking to the mega churches to teach us how to do ministry is like looking to the porn star to learn how to make love to your spouse.  You are probably going to hurt yourself, hurt your spouse, and likely offend them in the process.  The same is true in the church; we are likely to damage people, and damage ourselves.

Lets make this clear.  The average church in America has 70 members.  If my stats are correct, churches with over a 1000 members represent less than 1% of American churches.  But we keep putting on ministry conferences, and teaching ministry classes, where the leaders are mega-church pastors, and the learners are normal church pastors.  This means the people we are putting on a pedestal have almost no common ground with the people we are asking them to teach.  They are engaged in radically different tasks.

At least as different as a married couple and a porn scene.  ...maybe even more different!

The Perverting Force

I had a recent conversation with my brother.  He is in the fitness/health industry in Southern California.  He shared with me that one of the largest forces perverting his ability to help people become healthy, is the fact that he derives his livelihood from this endeavor.

People come to him saying "help me to be healthy."  When he then offers them his program for health, the response is "I don't want that, I want some other program."  They then leave, and go somewhere else where they are given what they want, instead of what makes them healthy.  This creates a strong incentive to offer people not what makes them healthy, but rather what they want, so as to keep them around as paying customers.

His need to feed, clothe, and shelter his family is set in direct opposition to his desire to help people be healthy, precisely because he makes his living by helping people to learn to live a healthy lifestyle.

The connections to 'professional Christian ministry' are boundless...

CCDA Conference with John Perkins

Go to the City Vision web site to register for the conference.

Paper Pt X: Implications for Ministry

It has been said “the Church is like manure, if you spread it around beautiful things can grow, but if you pile it all up in one spot, it just stinks.”24 Jesus models this for us in many ways, sending away those who desire to follow Him,25 sending out the Twelve26 and the seventy-two,27 and ultimately commanding His followers to scatter abroad.28 We must hold our own ministry up to the same mirror. Are we producing harvesters or consumers?29 Are we gathering crowds or sending out missionaries? The difference between fertilizer and sewage is whether the excrement is dispersed over the field or sealed to prevent contact; which one are we trying to accomplish?

4) Outward Ministry – Ministry is primarily conceived of in terms of leading church events and programs; preaching, worship, teaching, childcare, or even technology or maintenance. The ministry of the ‘royal priesthood,’ however, is not to other priests; the Church’s ministry is not to itself. Ministry must be re-conceptualized in terms of mission; and we must cement this in the theology of all Christians. Our ministry is to the world; this is the reason God has covenanted with us, and it is the guiding principle that should govern the purpose of both individual Christians and the covenant community as a whole.

5) Redeeming the Trades – When ministry is taken outside of the context of the Church community it is primarily conceived of in terms of evangelism, or compassion ministries; providing material resources for those in need, offering prayer and healing for those suffering, or engaging in discourse with the hope of conversion. A theology of the Kingdom necessitates that we begin commissioning (and perhaps even ordaining) lawyers and artists, carpenters and philosophers, educators and urban planners, even homemakers and retirees; in effect, we must redeem the entire scope of work available for use in the Kingdom project.  Most importantly, we must go beyond talk in doing this, we must actually equip and hold accountable for such callings, as we do for preaching.

Kingdom theology is about God’s mission to the world. Therefore, the Church must minister to the world. This ministry is to bring God’s powerful rule and reign into every corner of the world by means of our presence and influence there. The Vineyard movement has a history of reexamining the significance of the priesthood of all believers; “everybody gets to play.”30 It is time to take this to its full conclusion; a theology of the Kingdom demands that we think through what we mean by ‘everybody’ and what we mean by ‘play.’ Church can no longer be a place where paid clergy minister to Christians, rather Church must be a community equipped by leaders to minister to the world.