by Pastor Stephen Portner
Scripture - Acts 2:1-21 (5/23/99)
“The Call to Minister”
This morning I want to share with you a whirlwind history of the church. For the sake of this sermon, it will be very simplistic. But I would like for you to track with me what it means to be a minister for the Lord.
On that first day of Pentecost the Holy Spirit gave birth to the church. There was a sound like a mighty wind and divided tongues, tongues as of fire, which landed on each of the believers gathered in one place. Each one who received the power of the Holy Spirit was able to communicate the gospel to the crowd in a way that they understood. Each of the followers of Christ were gifted by the Holy Spirit. And God blessed the church that day. Even though there were those who sneered at this new thing (Acts 2:13), day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved (Acts 2:47).
As the church continued to grow, the responsibilities and the tasks became greater. In Acts chapter 6 we read that only a few people were actually doing the work of the ministry, and people were complaining that there were people in the community who were being neglected (Acts 6:1). The leaders appointed others in the community to help with the responsibilities saying, “It is not right to neglect the word of God.” Their gift from the Holy Spirit was to share the word of God, not to wait on tables.
There were others who had the gift of serving others. And they were appointed to the task of waiting on the tables for the people who were in need. (Acts 6:2-3) Paul the apostle learned how important it was that each member of the church knew that they had a spiritual gift.
“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” (1 Cor 12:4-7 NRSV) “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.” (1 Cor 12:12 NRSV) Each person had at least one gift of the Spirit, and each person was to be part of the church as a whole, working together in ministry for the common good in the name of the Lord. There were no pastors who lorded it over a congregation, because the gift of pastoring was only one gift out of many. And each gift was essential to the well-being of the body in the sight of the Lord.
Now, fast forward to when John Wesley and his colleagues were bringing Methodism to America. They were called circuit riders, because they were unable to stay in one place for very long. They rode their horses from place to place so that they could visit as many churches as possible in a limited amount of time. There were new churches to be planted, more people who needed to hear about the good news of Jesus Christ. The circuit riders were clergy but they did not have time to hang around visiting every home, visiting the sick and infirm, and doing the general care-giving of the people who came to Christ, let alone take care of the other people in the community who had not yet been saved.
Those were important responsibilities, but they had to be left to the lay people of the church. And, because it was the lay people of the church who did the care-giving ministries, the churches thrived. Through the years, the Methodist church became the largest denomination in America. And then something happened. Churches grew big enough that they no longer had to depend on circuit-riding preachers. They could afford to hire a preacher of their own. Clergy became the paid, professional ministers. The pastor soon assumed the role of the professional care-giver in the church. If there was someone who was sick, it was the pastor who would go to visit. If there was a person who showed up in need, everybody pointed to the pastor as the one who should do something about it. If there was someone new in the community, it was up to the pastor to call on them. If there was a concern in the community, it was left to the pastor to lift up the prayer. If someone had a faith issue, the people turned to the pastor for expertise.
As a side consequence of being given that much power in the church, many clergy were tempted to be very controlling. What they said was “from the Lord,” or so they thought, and that was what they conveyed to the people. It was their way or no way. And the people of the churches gradually lost more and more power to live out what God was calling them to do.
Then, for reasons which seem obvious to me now, churches started to die. People could not understand it. Many still don’t. They are many reasons churches may die, but I believe the main reasons was that having the pastor do all the ministry in the church was not only unhealthy, it was unbiblical. Nowhere in the Bible does it say one person should be invested with all the spiritual gifts to do all the care-giving and mission work of the church. The ministry of the Lord belonged to all who believed.
Each person has a gift of the Holy Spirit, but many are not putting it into use. Just like an arm that is not used over a long period of time atrophies, likewise the members of the church who did not exercise their gift were shriveling, becoming spiritual prunes.
Instead of challenging people to live up to their call to ministry, in too many cases the standard was lowered to accommodate the masses. People were told, “No, you don’t have to read your Bibles. You don’t have to learn how to pray. You don’t have to witness to other people. You simply have to have Jesus in your heart, and that will be enough.” But the gifts from the Lord are not to be kept to ourselves. Imagine if you gave a gift to someone and all they did was put it under their beds, saying, “Thanks. I will always keep this gift close to my heart.” The gifts of the Lord are meant to be used.
And now, we’ve come to the verge of the 21st century, and a number of people are very concerned about the life of the church. Start up churches are the ones which are thriving, mainly because they are not carrying around all the excess baggage of “that’s the way it’s always been done.” The churches which have been around for generations had lost their reason for being.
People attended church out of a sense of duty or commitment. It didn’t matter if they came to church and didn’t understand what was going on, or even found it a convenient time to catch a few Z’s. What was important to them was that they were in worship, and that was good enough. But now for the younger generations, it is not good enough. They are increasingly looking to experience God for themselves. They could care less about religion and the way things have always been. If they can not fill their thirst for spirituality in the church, then they will look elsewhere.
Many mainline churches which have not stagnated in their growth, are spiraling downward toward death. (1) There are fewer and fewer people in the ranks from which a clergy person can be called. And fewer and fewer people answer the call, or drop out of the call, because the task of a clergyperson is too daunting. To try to meet the needs which would require all the spiritual gifts would be too daunting for any mortal.
Now there is a scramble to train clergy who will train lay people to participate in the ministry they should have been a part of all along. Except now, not only are clergy expected to train lay people to do the ministry, they also feel the need to continue carrying on the ministry that has come to be expected of them. They are to offer opportunities for the lay people to discover their gifts for ministry while at the same time strive to carry on all the visitation, administration, counseling, and all the various other forms of care-giving by themselves.
Spiritual gift inventories, which aid members in discovering what gift the Holy Spirit has given them, have glutted the market. But, in my experience, most lay people do not bother with them. Whether it is because they don’t see the value in them or, once they have taken them, they are not given opportunities to use those gifts, I do not know. So more and more clergy are throwing up their hands in despair, hoping either to ride out the storm or be appointed to a bigger church before the axe drops. My mother told me that her pastor said, “Who wants the church to grow? Now is not a good time for the church to grow.”
Friends, there has never been a better time for the church to grow. There has never been a more needed time for the church to grow.
Church growth experts are telling us that we are living in the age of the pre-Christian. What they mean by that, is that we live in an age where more and more people have not even heard about Jesus or the Bible or what the building on the corner with a steeple on it is supposed to represent. And the only way a church is going to grow is if the clergy no longer horde all the ministry to themselves, but empower and equip the laity for the ministry God has called them to do. There is a joy and an excitement about using your gift for the Lord, which is indescribable. The only way to know the joy, to experience the power of the Holy Spirit, is to try it for yourself. Some people get so excited about using their gift that some people have accused them of acting drunk. It happened on that first Pentecost. It can happen again. To you.
This evening at 7:00 PM I have scheduled what I call “The Church Growth Dream Team.” I have been doing quite a bit of reading on church growth, by people who pastored growing churches. And although they have some disagreements with each other, they all say that lay involvement in ministry is essential for vibrant and growing churches. These books disclose what growing churches look like, at least the ones which have grown to a thousand strong or more. There are some things we are doing which are headed in the right direction. But the more I read, the more I realize there is a long way to go. And although I have a general idea of what we would need to do as a church to reach higher levels of growth, there are still many areas in which I am unsure. But that’s all part of the growing process. The way before us is never absolutely clear. Church growth is not a program; it’s a process. And it’s a process I would like to invite you to join. John Maxwell is fond of saying, “People are down on what they are not up on.” Tonight is your opportunity to begin the journey with me, and with the future of LUMC.
(1) From Bruce Cole of transformational-leadership forum: “...if you've
been paying attention to the church in this country, you'd be aware that Gallup's research
says regular worship attendance is going down (38% of USamericans in 1997).
Barna [Research Group] claims it dropped from 42% to 38% between 1994 & 1996 and forecasts
further slippage through 2000. the university of notre dame, with even
more credible methodology, published a study in 1994 that the national
average was 26.7% and going down. As Mike Slaughter says in "out
on the edge" (abingdon: 17): "Church attendance is heading in a downward
spiral at an accelerating pace." Here's a quote from the search institute's
1990 report, "Effective Christian Education: A National Study of Protestant
Congregations--A Summary Report on Faith, Loyalty, and Congregational Life,
authored by Peter Benson and Carolyn Elkin, p.3: "Only a minority of Protestant
adults evidence the kind of integrated, vibrant, and life-encompassing
faith congregations seek to develop. For most adults, faith is underdeveloped,
lacking some of the key elements necessary for faith and maturity."
And on p.58: "Christian education in a majority of congregations is a tired
enterprise in need of reform. Often out-of-touch with adult and adolescent
needs, it experiences increasing difficulty in finding and motivating volunteers,
faces general disinterest among its 'clients,' and employs models and
procedures that have changed little over time."
© 1999 Stephen Portner
