Members Are Ministers

The Vocation of All Believers

Goetting

• Publisher: Cascade Books
• Year: 2011
• eBook ISBN: 9781621891642
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Cultural changes and social conditions today give evidence of a growing disregard of traditional authority and an increasing distrust of institutions. Relations between pastor and people are changing. In many situations, the practice of top-down leadership appears no longer to be effective. Members Are Ministers identifies the positive change necessary to achieve greater unity and to reduce conflict within the church. This book promotes an approach that generates a greater sense of community, enables a clearer corporate and personal witness to the faith, and reduces the social distances between pastors and people. Above all, it recognizes the Word as crucial for effecting change in our emerging new culture. Paul Goetting works from a biblical base that shapes the Christian ministry of all people through their various vocations, and equips them for a clearer witness to the Christian faith and to issues of injustice. The family, the workplace, the political arena, and the church are seen as the primary contexts for authentic servant ministry of both clergy and laity.

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Introduction and an Overview

Several themes will reverberate through these pages. Each is connected to the others. But one theme, the ministry of all the people of God, should be viewed as central. It is my assumption that since the days of the Reformation the ministry of all the baptized has only causally held the attention of the church, its clergy or the laity. A great deal has been written on the subject; it is often the topic of sermons at Reformation observances. It is, however, difficult to find evidence that the ministry of all the people has been broadly understood and practiced, or that this ministry is fully supported by the clergy and the church’s leadership. To be sure, the laity have been challenged to find their ministry in service to the church as institution and to engage in social services and in evangelism, the primary feature often being restricted to inviting the non-Christian to church. There is nothing wrong with this, of course, but it is much too limited. It is important today that the understanding of the ministry of all the baptized includes personal and corporate ministry in the daily life of every baptized person, in and through their unique and varied vocations. Thus living the faith active in love for others entails a lifelong, full-time activity that includes the continuous struggle for faithful ministry by all. Both pastor and people are called and motivated by Christ’s love every day, all day, to actively engage the plight of others in service and justice as we witness to the resurrection.

In years past, the ministry for others has usually been expressed within an organizational pyramid, a hierarchy of relationships, even in our Protestant and Lutheran churches. It is assumed that bishops and church leaders, seminary professors and church officials stand at the top; clergy are in some way seen to be near the top, with the laity below or at the bottom; others—directors of Christian education, music, and youth—may be seen above the laity. In the midst of today’s societal and cultural changes, many are questioning this traditional hierarchical structure. However, the critical reviews of organizational pyramids are more prevalent outside the church, focused primarily on secular institutions. Available to all are significant studies pointing to new possibilities; these we will explore as we proceed. I will not argue that the emphases and proposals that follow are a panacea for everything that ails today’s church. I am, however, convinced that significant change regarding the ministry of the laity will only occur with a return to a paradigm from the early church, one in which the church is without rank. That paradigm of Christian ministry recognizes that ministry necessitates being close to, and on the same level as, those in need in our congregations and families, and among our neighbors. It is as peers, as equals, that we are best able to listen and support.

Now is a crucial time for consideration of a fresh paradigm for the pastoral ministry, one that is the opposite of the model that has evolved in the church over the past centuries. To be sure, our rhetoric has long spoken of pastoral leaders as servant ministers and the church as a servant church. Pastors have long been recognized as significantly demonstrating such leadership, and the church has long distinguished itself through great expressions of service to people in all sorts of conditions. However, the phrases “servant ministry” and “servant church” are an oxymoron when expressed in the context of today’s hierarchical relationship. In today’s culture it is difficult to envision a servant ministry that looks down from above. From such a position one is unable genuinely to sense and to meet the needs of those below, and thus it is difficult for leaders to be trusted. Recognizing the tremendous cultural shifts taking place among us, our task in all that follows is to pursue a significant change that is both biblically based and, with the Reformation, provides insights that support this fresh paradigm: a servant church with all the baptized faithfully engaged in Christ’s love for others, including involvement against issues of injustices.

Signs of the current cultural shift have been present among us for some time. Indeed, a shift became obvious already in the early 1960s when a major reform movement was sparked, not by political leaders nor by the church officialdom, but by young, Christian, African American students. They dared to sit and request service at a Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth store’s soda counter where they were forbidden to sit because of their skin color. The newspapers and especially the new medium of television captured the hate, hostility, and harassments which the students experienced from whites. The evening news placed the repulsive behavior before the nation. The students’ action of civil disobedience set in motion a major social protest which, along with other protests of the period, became political movements that brought down Jim Crow. Other grassroots movements followed; some faltered, while others succeeded. Then within the past ten years social networking has rapidly developed, made possible by the Internet. Perhaps most evident was the networking effectively empowering Barack Obama’s political campaign. Evident also are other grassroots movements—for good or bad—exemplified by the Tea Party’s apparent success in generating a significant following of angry people in protest. Many more cultural shifts are emerging among us.

Books and blogs galore have now been written indicating what this new phenomenon means for our daily lives and for the reshaping of our institutions—indeed, for our culture. We need mention only a few specifics helping to shape a new culture: the rise of twenty-four-hour cable news, Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. They and other electronic phenomena have called into question the future of print media. Newspapers, including church periodicals, are disappearing; the traditional role of journalists is changing. Blogs, whether good or bad, have enabled almost anyone to become a writer and to gain a following. You no longer need to be a trained journalist or represent a public institution to report the news or to provide a particular opinion on a major political or social issue; you simply develop your own blog and look for a following. The historic and traditional role of the professional is thus changing. A computer-savvy mother can quickly connect with the Mayo Clinic’s Web page and obtain pertinent information, enabling a nonmedical person to obtain a preliminary diagnosis of an illness. This does not make the professional medical doctor obsolete nor the mother an M.D., but it begins to change relationships. If the diagnosis of the doctor conflicts with Mayo’s information, the mother is able to further go online. She reaches countless blogs and Web pages in a search for additional information and other related medical specialties. If her child’s medical problem remains conflicted in diagnoses, she may find a chat room of parents with similar problems, sharing their frustrations with a medical practice that seems to them to be uninformed and, in some cases and in their judgment, insensitive to their child’s peculiar illness. This illustration, employing a medical problem, can just as easily describe a process already evident within our Christian congregations. When a church member realizes a sharp difference with her pastor, or a group within the congregation differs with the official position taken by their church body, they are able very quickly to be in touch with a large number of people with similar feelings. They may easily find spokespeople who, in their judgment, reflect their personal position and provide the support they covet. Thus the relation of pastor and people is changing. Very quickly new communities are formed with like-minded convictions, often holding positions contrary to positions offered by their church body or local congregation. These groups have been formed, not related to neighborhood or congregation, but focused on special interests, including new communities of care. A 2010 New York Times article reported: “A former model who is now chronically ill and struggles just to shower says the people she has met online have become her family . . . , and a woman with multiple sclerosis says her regular Friday night online chats are her lifeline.”1

This leads us to further evidence of what is signaled as a major shift in organizational experiences: movement from the authority of a professional—once identified as a highly trusted person in our institutions— to a highly egalitarian, democratic experience in new relationships, in part generated by a growing distrust of our major institutions, including the church. The ability of computer programmers to install filters within their systems means a Web search can quickly and almost miraculously bring before you a tremendous amount of information relative to your special interest, whether political, religious, medical, or whatever. The filter may also work against your obtaining alternate, contrary information that may be most important in gaining insight on your special need. Your focus may give you clear and important insight but fail to challenge you with information that refutes or re-colors what you initially obtained. In other words, it may both open your mind to greater knowledge and also isolate you in a cyber box, limiting a fuller view and a better understanding of the world in which you live and struggle.

It is generally assumed today that organizations, including the church and its larger judicatories, are or will be undergoing difficulty and stress if they remain insensitive and nonresponsive to this major cultural shift. There is considerable interest within the church to be on top of these new communication devices, especially using Facebook Twitter, and YouTube to advance the traditional programs of the church. While not belittling this endeavor, I am most concerned in these pages with the systemic changes, especially in pastoral leadership and the interrelations between pastor and people, as well as among the people. This will be a constant concern as we proceed through this writing. This emphasis in these pages will have a direct relationship to our concern for the ministry of every Christian and to a church without rank. The ministry of all the people, and an insistence that the authority of the church lies not in the pastor nor in the people but in the Word, has the possibility of significant compatibility with elements of this still-emerging culture. Related to this phenomenon is the need to explore how the people of faith are related these days to issues of justice, and who identifies an injustice and by what means.

Several years ago, our family was to gather in St. Louis for a reunion. Before their arrival, I had an opportunity to spend some time in the library of Concordia Seminary, where I have studied. I was especially interested in obtaining a copy of the student monthly publication, “The Seminarian,” for January 1955. I had written an article in that issue only months before graduation, and could no longer find a copy in my household. The librarian quickly retrieved the issue. As I examined the table of contents, I experienced an elevated level of hubris. I was astonished! My article was surrounded by those of fellow seminarians who later went on to distinguished academic careers. I never realized I had been surrounded at that time by persons of such quality! I was thrilled.

On a quick reading of the article, my ego began to deflate: I felt as though I had not grown. The article focused on the Christian faith interacting with politics and government, especially in the life and ministry of the laity. As I read, I asked myself: Am I stuck in the past or was I way ahead of my time? What I had written in 1955 was not much different from what I believe now. The only response to the article that I remember was that of a classmate who told me, “Your article does not belong in a theological journal.” Later, however, I realized the article was a factor in leading a faculty committee to recommend that, following graduation, I teach social studies at Concordia College, Milwaukee, which certainly affected my career path.

I joined the Concordia Seminary faculty in 1969. Three years prior to joining the faculty I completed an STM at The Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia, and spent the next three years in an ecumenical “action/research” program. I was called to the program by The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) Mission Board; the project was generated by the New Delhi Assembly of the World Council of Churches. Both my STM and the ecumenical think tank were centered on restructuring the local congregation for a more effective ministry by the laity in engaging issues of social justice. My call to the seminary faculty included developing programs that were similar. Much of what I had hoped to accomplish at the seminary had to be placed on hold because of an intense conflict that raged at the time between the leadership of the LCMS church body and the seminary, a conflict that brought major adverse change, affecting every sector of seminary life. Many of my goals were never achieved. However, Professor Robert W. Bertram and I were able to develop an important program, “Theology in Metropolitan Experience” which I still consider a major accomplishment. It was a quarter-long interdisciplinary program with extensive interchange with laity in various vocational settings.

My commitment to this subject has indeed grown through the years since then. I have particularly sought clarity on the necessity of connecting Luther’s insistence on faith active in love with the Christian’s engagement in issues of justice, especially as carried out in the context of multiple offices and callings. Christian faith reaches deep into God’s word for insight, courage, and strength in struggles against evil and corruption. At the same time, we need to learn to pursue justice with reason and our senses, distinguished from the reality of faith, while also maintaining the inseparability of the two in the Christian life.

All this has led me to insist that we need to review our public expressions of the meaning of ordination and clarify for the public that the grounding of all ministry lies in holy baptism, that the call to public ministry is not separate from the common call of all Christians to offe...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction and an Overview
• Chapter 2: Ordination and the Office of Public Ministry
• Chapter 3: Baptism
• Chapter 4: Our Common Calling and Our Callings
• Chapter 5: The Creation
• Chapter 6: Discerning Our Callings and Serious Considerations
• Chapter 7: Four “Stand Outs” in Our Discernment
• Chapter 8: The Struggle for a Prophetic Church
• Chapter 9: Working toward an Inverted Church
• Chapter 10: The Art and the Science of Inverting the Pyramid
• Chapter 11: The Challenge of Change in a Conflicted Culture
• Bibliography