A Voice from the Past - Part 2

 I've been thinking lately about churches; not "the church," but individual local churches. Last month's five Sundays had us focused on five different local churches. For some I was the preacher du jour. The venues were varied - sanctuary, parking lot, prayer garden, online - and the congregations represented a broad spectrum of church health from gloriously healthy to ingloriously struggling, a range, by the way, that has little to do with church size. Reflecting on that spectrum, I was reminded of two things.

 

One was my first visit to Tintern Abbey in Wales. My grandmother painted a picture of the abbey ruins as a wedding gift for my grandfather over 100 years ago, her perspective a bit different from the  picture here. Her painting hung in our living room when I was growing up and fueled a desire to see the site for myself some day. Social distancing among the ruins would not be a problem as long as you didn't mind sharing space with the occasional cow. I wondered what had started the slide centuries ago from a vital center for the gospel to what can best be described by the oxymoronic phrase magnificent ruins.

 

The other was that recently rediscovered recording of my ordination service that was the focus of the last blog post. Chuck Wickman's message focused on seven core concepts of ministry. It was an interesting exercise to view last month's five churches through the lens provided by those concepts. For your edification and encouragement, and as you consider the congregation you call your church home, here is a summary of his list:

 

1. Ministry is limited only by the vision of people and their willingness to walk with God. It seems to me that a lot of excuses get drowned out by that statement. How do we who minister encourage and model that vision and willingness to walk with God?

 

2. Ministry will rise only to the level of its object, and that object is Jesus Christ. Success in ministry will not be determined by the strength of our commitment; it is the object of our commitment that counts. 

 

3. Ministry will maintain its cutting edge by its definiteness. There needs to be a prophetic voice, a thus saith the Lord to our ministry. We must speak truth no matter how frightening truth may be.

 

4. Ministry is as meaningful as it is flexible. The shape of ministry gets defined by the people around us. In a world that constantly changes, ministry that cannot flex will cease to be seen as meaningful.

 

5. Ministry moves people from where they are only as it accepts them for who they are. It may be messy, but we meet people where they are, remembering that God has dealt with us in grace, and that we are likewise called to minister in grace.

 

6. Ministry is intended to develop Christian character, not to produce Christian conformity. Conformity will always be counterfeit unless it is conformity to Jesus Christ.

 

7. To be at its best, ministry must always have a good news orientation. While the good news of the gospel may begin with the bad news of sin, it doesn't end there. We are a people who offer hope, who offer peace, who offer joy, who offer life, who offer heaven, to a world that desperately needs to hear some good news.

 

It was a challenging list when I first heard it early in my pastoral ministry. It is no less relevant or challenging now. And especially for those who have been made a minister, it is a helpful guide if we are to achieve glorious health and avoid becoming magnificent ruins.