GIFTS OF MINISTRY
Brian Favell
Ministry has to do with the moving, feeding, guiding
and empowering of the local church in its work of mission to a dying world.
We no longer expect it to be merely the province of ordained clergy: it
is undertaken largely by lay members of a church, but how those lay members are
themselves chosen, trained and empowered varies a great deal from place to
place. Training courses
at church and diocesan level abound, but unfortunately too often the part of the
Holy Spirit is misunderstood or ignored and emphasis remains on human learning
and fashions.
In places where the Holy Spirit is honoured and his
gifts valued, we may get the opposite error of elevating individuals who
manifest those gifts until they become mini-gurus, answerable to the Spirit
only! To help bring balance
and order into this situation I have dug out some teachings on the subject which
I was given quite some years ago.
It is NOT my teaching: I had it from some friends in the States who had
found it of great value. I
have done no more than condense and re-frame it around English situations and
idioms in place of the American ones.
I offer my thanks again to Ted Nelson and his Church of the Resurrection
in Dallas, Texas (a very big and active Episcopalian - American C. of E -
church) for making it available.
There will be seven articles based on St. Paul's list
of ministries in Romans 12.4 - 8, in the order of that list.
One thing must be emphasised: these are not gifts
possessed by this or that person for use as he/she wills: they are given by God
to the local Church, the Body of Christ, for that Church's up-building and
growth. Since they cannot be
held in vacuo, they are manifested to different degrees by various
members of the local Body, but are held in trust to be used for the Body. Every single member of a Church has the potential -
indeed the calling - from by God to minister in at least one of the ways
described. And this
potential exists equally in clergy and lay, men and women, young and old: it is
the basic equipment of ministry which is for ALL Christians.
Most people will have symptoms, as it were, of several; but each one of
us has one which at this time and place is the main pattern of his or her
ministry.
My purpose in printing these articles is to help
churches (NOT individuals) to recognise these main ones and develop them.
In a given church there will not be equal numbers of prophets, leaders,
servants etc. (there are few churches which could stand having 14 prophets for
every hundred in the congregation!), but there should be at least one or two
prophets, and maybe quite a lot of servants.
But let the Body discern who is what - not the Vicar or the PCC or any
individual. Particularly let nobody try to look inside him/herself to discover a
ministry. Without the careful
and patient discernment of the Body (moved by the Spirit) they will almost
certainly get it wrong!
Finally, I am here writing about ministries and our
calling to them, NOT about the nine Gifts in 1 Corinthians. As I understand things, the nine Gifts are
tools, not ministries. We
need to wield first one, then another and another in the course of each and
every ministry, and must therefore be ready and willing to learn the skills
attached to a number of them. But our occasional use by the Spirit to give a
word of prophecy, for instance, does not, praise God, make us Prophets! And if
you want to know why I put it like that, read on . . . .
PART 1 -
PROPHECY
....... And this does NOT mean putting on a hair shirt,
eating locusts in the wilderness and standing up every so often in a church
service or the P.C.C. to declaim in condemnatory tones, "THUS SAYS THE
LORD........"
Take a look at Deuteronomy
18 verse 22, then 1 Corinthians 14 verse 3; finally 2 Peter 1
verse 19.
Having done
that, what are the marks of a prophet?
First: he is driven to speak, to say what he knows MUST
be said. And often he doesn't want to: he knows what he must say will hurt
himself as well as others. The
only thing is it hurts him much more to keep silence.
As an example, take a look at the story of Elijah and the prophets of
Baal (1 Kings 18 verses 7 onwards). And read it bearing in mind that God told
Elijah what to say and do.......... BUT NOT what God was going to do, or what
would happen to Elijah. Imagine
him going to Ahab in the first place..... virtually asking to be locked up or
killed. And imagine him
having to tell the slaves to pour barrels of water over the sacrifice without
any idea what God would really do. Not
to mention the hours of waiting - the going to look seven times for a sign -
before the first cloud was seen at the horizon.
Even if speaking means losing his job or getting
himself executed, a prophet CANNOT keep bottled up in himself what must be said.
He has the gift of seeing inside people: he sees their
character, their motives, their good, their faults. And whatever he sees, he loves them . He sees them with
Christ's eyes and loves them with his heart.
And because of that love he gets torn to bits inside by his understanding
of the damage their sins are doing to them.
Out of that hurt, that understanding and compassion he HAS to speak:
consoling, comforting; or exposing and rebuking evil.
He is himself willing to be broken: it has happened to
him before and it will happen again.
But because he knows that this is the essential pattern of growth in
Christ he has accepted it for himself, and because he has gone through the
process he can lead others through it; indeed will do even though he shares in
their hurts.
He is rooted and grounded in Scripture: not just
parroting of proof texts but heart and soul immersed in the essential truths of
Scripture. You will never find him
contradicting those truths, manipulating them or watering them down.
But mere words are not enough: when someone comes to
see and accept the truth of what he has had to say, a prophet wants to see
ACTION as evidence of genuine response.
In this he can be most un-Anglican!
His words are direct, open - not wrapped in cotton
wool. He goes straight to the heart
of the matter, and your heart too. He
is concerned for God's reputation in the world.
A sloppy service or woolly preaching on television, a Christian publicly
'letting God down' in speech or action...... A prophet's reaction to these is
"What does this make God look like?
How are we going to get the world to take God seriously when we do things
like this?"
A prophet is likely to be glad - genuinely - when
someone tells him where he is at fault (it probably takes another prophet to
dare to do it!). He sees his own faults as separating him from truth and from
God, and he wants to know his faults so that they can be dealt with.
A prophet is misunderstood. His particular qualities
lead others to think of him as harsh, intolerant, 'holier-than-thou'. His
over-riding concern for truth will be seen as rigidity, lack of tolerance,
evidence of a closed mind. His
emphasis on action in response to conviction of truth (rather than mere mental
assent) may seem crude, insensitive, gimmicky.
It may not be obvious to others that he is as harsh with his own faults
as with theirs.
And of course these criticisms - some anyway - may be
true. These are the ways in
which he is most likely to fail. Pride
is a particular danger for him - or her; for although so far I have only said
'he' or 'him', men have no monopoly: there are women prophets and there always
were (though a Women's Libber might do well to think twice before demanding that
God shall make her one - read about Elijah again - the bit after the contention
with the priests of Baal!).
One more thing. No
one will have all these qualities fully developed. One or two will stand out while others ring only a
faint bell. But in one who is
called to this ministry, willingness to accept the call will bring developments.
And a final warning: a prophet above all ministers must
have love - Christ's love - in great measure; without it he falls very far..
[Editors note: Brian is a former Organising Secretary
of A.R.M.(Wales)1985-91]