“Come Home to Ministry”
Ephesians 4:7-13
Broadway Christian Church
David Shirey
Our theme during October, Homecoming Month for high schools and many college campuses, is Come Home. Two weeks ago on World Communion Sunday: “Come Home to the Table.” Last Sunday: “Come Home to our Heritage” as a congregation of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
This morning, it’s “Come Home to Ministry.” Each October, many Disciples of Christ churches designate a mid-month week in October as Week of the Ministry, an opportunity to uplift God’s call of all of us to ministry. Our baptisms serve as our ordination certificates. Our lifetime vocation as ministers of the gospel is to love and serve God and neighbor. Be assured we’re all called to ministry. We’ll come back to that.
At the same time, there are men and women called by God to exercise specific responsibilities necessary for the flourishing of Christ’s Church:[1] Pastoring. Preaching. Teaching. Planting new churches and shepherding long-established ones. Paul put it this way, “some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.” (Ephesians 4:12). We use a catch-all word to refer to such people. We call them ministers and the authority and blessing to perform their ministry is conveyed in what we call ordination and commissioning.
Each of us can name ministers who blessed our lives. I remember Jim Cox who baptized me when I was thirteen in 1972 and whose funeral I spoke at when I was fifty-eight in 2017. Roy Griggs, who was Senior Minister of First Christian Church in Bloomington, IN when I was in college. I made an appointment with him my sophomore year and asked him, “What do ministers do?” He put me alongside a woman who taught the junior high Sunday School class for 2 ½ years and assigned me a homebound member of the congregation to visit whose name was Minnie Teague. I think of Millie Slack, a woman who has given over five decades of her life to ministries of mercy and justice in St. Louis who mentored me in the grit and grace of urban ministry. Joseph Windley and J.O. Williams, esteemed African-American pastors who took me under their wings and welcomed me, a 30-year-old white guy, into the fellowship of Black Baptist and Disciples churches in North Carolina. Kathy Reinger, my colleague for 7 years in Wilmington, NC. Jennie’s father, the Rev. Dr. Richard F. Taylor. Professors I’ve had: David Buttrick. Liston Mills. Fred Craddock who taught me much and influenced me immensely. What I call “paper mentors” – ministers whose prose and poetry have enriched my soul. I trust you have your names of ministers esteemed in your memory.
I have more names, 31 in total, members and regular guests of Broadway who are ordained or commissioned, served congregations, are currently seminarians or in care of the Regional Commission on the Ministry. Some are here this morning. As I call your name, please stand as you are able: Rita Allen, Dale Angel, Jim Coffman, John DeLaporte, Bob & Coletta Eichenberger, Rick Frost, Leanna Garrison, Mickey Havener, Chellie Hinshaw, David Holmes, Martha Jolly, Bob Klein, Don Lanier, Sarah Merz, Terry Overfelt, Bill Ryan, LeAnn Skinner, Michael Tatum, Kris and Bill Tenney-Brittain, Ed Varnum, David Wallace, Shirley Williams, John Yonker. I’ll add the men and women raised at Broadway who went into ministry, the so-called Timothys and Priscillas of Broadway: Bill Dunning, Patricia Farmer, Sara Griffith Lund, Bill Nigus, Terry Overfelt, Bill Ryan, Hannah Fisher Ryan, and Wayne Smith. By my conservative estimate, these men and women total over 1,000 years of ministry to Christ’s Church. A handclap of grateful applause for these ministers in our midst, please.
But hear this, according to Paul, we ordained and commissioned ministers have one overarching responsibility above and beyond teaching, preaching, pastoring and what-not. We’re called to call everybody else in the church to ministry. In Paul’s words, we are to “equip the saints for the work of ministry” (Eph 4:12). Now, you may not think of yourself as a saint, but I’ve got news for you. According to the New Testament, you are. Paul’s letters all begin the same way. They read: From Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle: To all of you at the church in (fill in the city), all of you who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace.”
“To all of you who are called to be saints.” What’s it take to be saint? Does it take wings and a halo? The answer, of course, is ‘No.’ The fact of the matter is we’re saints not by what we do but by whose we are. We’re all God’s in Christ, bound as one by the Holy Spirit, and it’s the primary call of ordained and commissioned ministers to equip all the saints for the work of ministry which, according to Paul is “building up the body of Christ” – strengthening the church. You’re all ministers.
I recognize those words may take some getting used to – that we’re all ministers - because there’s a widespread notion that God didn't give gifts for ministry to everybody but only to a select few people with seminary degrees and ordination or commissioned certificates. As if people like Terry and John and me and our colleagues who stood up have been given all the gifts for upbuilding the church and serving others but everybody else received a few table scraps and crumbs. Au contraire! Wrong! We’re all called to be saints. Ministers all.
Which reminds me of a moment at a General Assembly of the Christian Church years ago. Disciples were gathered from all over the country for worship, fellowship and learning as well for debating things both petty and profound. Some motion or another was on the floor and a man stepped up to the microphone to speak to the issue. He was recognized by the moderator. It was Bill Tucker, the late Chancellor of TCU. With his head hung down and shoulders stooped, the man began by saying, "I'm just a lay person, but..." Whereupon Bill interrupted him and said, "Brother, did I hear you say you are ‘just a layperson?’ There’s no such thing as ‘just a layperson’ in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). “Each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift (Eph 4:7). You’re someone with a gift from God you’re prepared to share with all of us now. Please continue. I'm all ears." I looked at that man's face and posture in that moment and saw a transformation. It’s as if he’d just come into his own as someone who recognized for the first time that had been given a gift by Almighty God for the upbuilding of Christ’s Church. So it is that I’ve seen some churches on their web sites post something like Pastors: Rev. So-and-So and Rev. Thus-and-Such. And next to that Ministers: the members of the congregation. Amen to that!
I know we each can come up with a list of people from across our lifetimes who were ministers in the fullest sense of the word – servants of God and others (The word ministry-- in Greek diakonia—means servant). Because of the way they comported themselves, we saw Christ reflected in them, mirrored in their actions, and echoed in their words. They were saints among the saints. I think of Mr. Bill and Ella and Mary and Walt and Cliff and Edna and Jack and Jasper and Carolyn and Harvey and Margaret and Mike and Eph and Irwin and Russ and Sonya. I won’t name names, but there are folks I’ve come to admire during my brief time here at Broadway I look up to. I want to be like you when I grow up. Think of particular people whose manner of living the life of faith nurtured, encouraged, and blessed your journey of faith, who, when the saints go marchin’ in, you know will be in that number. I trust you have your names.
I’m thinking right now of a few dozen folks who answered the call to serve as ministers of the gospel right here at Broadway Christian Church and are doing so as we speak.
Would all current board members please stand?
Would all of you who have ever served on the board please stand?
Would everybody, all the saints, please stand?
It says Week of the Ministry on the church’s calendar, but when you think of ministry, don’t just think about men and women called Reverend or Pastor or whatever other formal names we use to address folks called to be shepherds, leaders, and teachers of a congregational flock. Every one of us is called to ministry in the sense of glorifying God and serving others in Jesus’ name. It’s called The Priesthood of All Believers.
All of us “given grace according to the measure of Christ's gift.”
All of us called to equip each other for the work of ministry.
All of us called to be saints.
This message brought to you From David, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an interim lead pastor: To all of you at the church in Columbia, all of you who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let all the ministers of the gospel say AMEN
[1] Our Disciples of Christ understanding of ministry is detailed in two documents: Theological Foundations for the Ordering of Ministry in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and Policies and Criteria for the
Ordering of Ministry. See http://www.ccncn.org/resources/Order_of_Ministry-CCNC-N_RCOM.pdf
