Some Thoughts on Ministry, God, and the Church
Ministry happens when Jesus’ life is transmitted from one life to another life. Ministry is the outflow of Christ’s life in us. Through the Spirit, what “Jesus began to do and teach,” He continues to do through all of us. The Gospel says Jesus called the twelve to Himself, “that they might be with Him.” Ministry flows then out of our relationship with Christ, out of who we are in Christ. And ministry therefore flows out of who we are becoming in Christ.
All of us, what any person needs more than anything else in life, is an encounter with God. We encounter God when Jesus’ life touches us. Thus when after the woman in Scripture “spent all she had on physicians” and “no one could cure her,” she saw Jesus and said to herself, “If I only touch his cloak, I will be made well.” What we need is not ideas about God; we need God. But when God reveals Himself, and He speaks to us, we encounter Him. Then we know God, because He has met with us and has spoken to us. And He has revealed Himself to us.
Encountering God may involve but transcends cognition. For ministry happens when God personally meets me, and I know Jesus has today passed by and I touched his cloak. In other words, I know Jesus has touched me in my need, and met me, and has spoken towards my need. The minister is a sinner in need of the grace of God. We must know we are not sinners because we sin, but we sin because we are sinners. A ministry comes out of our sanctification. Ministry always flows out where we now are in Christ. Something of a proverb comes to mind: “God gives breadth to a ministry; but seek rather depth to your life message.” Every life in God has a message. We minister out of the depth of our life message. What we speak is the message of our life in God. Our message reflects how God is forming Christ in us (Gal. 4:19).
The message is forged out of what we have learned, and are learning through our life in Christ. In his latter years, Peter ministered restoration to his people (1 Pet 5:10). As a fisherman, he came to see ministry as the mending- the restoration of broken nets. He saw himself as a broken net, but he remembered that the Lord once mended him. He understood the meaning of restoration because there was an earlier day, when at the Sea of Tiberias, Jesus restored Peter. So through life we learn lessons from God. Lessons that shape our life, and thus our message, are learned through the processes of sanctification. This happens as God orchestrates our life in Him. Life is therefore a crucible wherein God is shaping us into His likeness. And as God shapes us, He shapes a ministry out of us.
The Church is the place where God is restoring us to Himself. God is restoring us to His likeness. In the Church God encounters us because He is restoring us. The Church is a spiritual clinic where the sick are being healed and restored. The minister and the ministered are both in the process of healing. Jesus is our Great Physician. He is calling the sick to Himself. In Christ, God- the Triune fellowship, has revealed Himself to us and is calling us to Himself. God calls us to restored fellowship with Himself, and He does this by bringing us into fellowship with one another as the Church. The Church is therefore the fellowship of God with His people. This restoration of fellowship with God and one another is the sanctification of our life in Christ.
We therefore come together to receive one another as brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the visible expression of the Church: Coming together for fellowship in Christ. In receiving one another we minister to another, the life of Christ in us. This is an expression of hospitality, beautifully shown through the breaking of bread together; in the sharing of a meal with one another.
As a hospital for our souls, fellowship happens in settings conducive for a perceptual awareness of one another. There in the context of hospitality, fellowship, worship, and prayer, a mutual disclosure of ourselves can happen (Col 3:16). Then as we learn to mutually minister gifts- expressions of Christ’s life and grace in us, we help restore one another back from falsehood and into rather, the likeness of God revealed in Christ. This is the ministry of the Church. It is the ministry and the healing of every believer brought to Christ, whom God has called to Himself.
Monte Lee Rice (© copyright February 2007)
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