A Trinitarian definition of ministry
The Relational Pastor, part 3
For other posts in this series, click on a number: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.This definition is quite different than many that have arisen in the body of Christ during the modern era. But a new "missional era" of ministry seems to be emerging, in part because modern practices are being found ineffective in our increasingly post-modern, post-Christendom world. Ministry-as-usual simply will not do. What will replace it is unclear.
What is clear is that Christians are searching for more faithful and effective ways to define and practice ministry. The Spirit seems to be calling us to prayer, soul-searching and experimentation--helping us shed unhelpful accommodations to modernity's weaknesses and to reconnect with our Christian theological-missiological roots. This mean, above all, a reconnecting with who Jesus actually is, and what he actually is doing in our world.
To help us understand how cultural forces shape ministry (for better or for worse), Root examines several of the most significant cultural shifts in the history of the Western world. He shows how these shifts greatly impacted society's perspective on spirituality and religion, including the ministry of priests, pastors and other spiritual leaders. Sadly, through the course of the shifts during the last 2,000 years, Christianity has often been torn from its theological moorings. The result is a ministry quite unlike Root's definition quoted above.
In particular, Root explores the first, second and the ongoing third industrial revolutions. The first was a shift from agriculture to steam- and coal-driven industry. The second was a shift from steam/coal- to oil and electricity-driven industry. Each shift ushered in new cultural systems. I recommend that you read Root's book for the details.
The First Industrial Revolution |
As we go deeper into the third industrial revolution--the transition into the information/digital age, our culture and the church right along with it are becoming increasingly individualistic (think of personal communication devices!) and consumeristic (a new device annually!). This has led the culture and the church along with it into...
...a pseudo-therapeutic (self-help) consciousness. As full-blown individuals we became obsessively concerned with ourselves as independent feeling subjects. Now that technology was meeting so many of our basic needs...we could move our attention from survival to fulfillment.... Ministry in this period turned to programs of intervention... [which] made the church attractive.... "Programming" became the strategy of the church's ministry [with a focus on helping us]... become the self we wanted to be (pp35-37).With this as the focus for ministry, the pastor, who before was called upon to be the "moral exemplar" (see above), was now called to be the "entrepreneurial manager" who is adept at managing self-help programs (p39), a "creative, energy-bursting visionary"...
...with a strong self-help bent, preaching sermons that would make people drive miles to hear them, preaching sermons with (three) basic pseudo-therapeutic points that were directly applicable to the individual life, helping us become a more successful parent, friend and therefore follower of Jesus (p40).
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Reprinted with permission from cartoonist David Hayward, http://nakedpastor.tumblr.com/ |
People in churches were encouraged to reach out to neighbors and coworkers, not for the sake of the other person but for the purpose of getting the other person to come to Jesus or come to [their] church (p41).Thankfully, the culture and the church is changing. As Root declares, "we are on the verge of something new" (p41). Root, along with other futurists, sees the emergence of a third industrial revolution--this time shifting out of an oil/electricity-driven consumeristic, individualistic culture into one with a greater sense of relatedness. That's the good news. The less than good news is that it may at the same time become an era with "a more fractured sense of self, and increased narcissism" (p42).
Of course, only time will tell. But change clearly is in the wind and, no doubt, the Holy Spirit (the Wind who blows where he wills) is at actively at work--calling the church to a new vision of ministry that returns to its ancient theological roots while also positioning itself for an approach to ministry that will be much more well-suited to the emerging post-modern, post-Christendom cultural milieu.
What will that new approach to ministry look like? Of course, one can only guess in looking forward. But anticipating a more relational cultural context, we can appreciate the need to return to the early church's concept of ministry as empathetic life-on-life sharing--real, authentic relationship that is focused on Jesus as its center, and loves people, along with Jesus, unconditionally--with no other end than that love in mind.
Root concludes this section of his book with this statement:
[It] will be my task for the rest of this book, to offer a conception of ministry and the pastor that fits with the arriving new world, and yet rests on a richly theological vision... [I] will make a case for a consciousness of personhood, built on the second person of the Trinity. I will argue that to be a person is to be in relationship, not for the sake of influence but for the sake of place sharing for the sake of being with and being for [the other] (p44).As Root notes, one might call this place sharing ministry "incarnational" or "empathetic." But whatever we call it, it's vital to "reconceptualize ministry as participation in the life of Christ through the personhood of the other through relationship...opened to us through the ministry of the Spirit" (p44).
We'll pick up this thread next time when we'll look more at ministry as place sharing.
Comments
As with the others, I am really enjoying and appreciating this series...
Dave R. - Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Thank you for taking the time to illustrate the text. I've been a fan of Root's since Greg's and your class.
This may be off-topic, but recently I've been wondering about the relationship of receiving the Holy Spirit at the time of trust and faith in JC. Root's thesis extends this question...as we develop relationships with non-believers for the sole purpose of relationship...and at some point they develop a trust and faith in JC (not that that was the intended outcome), what is the reality of receiving the HS?
As believers and non-believers are included and seated at the right hand of the Father in JC, how is the receiving of the HS characterized in the new believer. What does that change mean and look like? I recall Dr. Stav indicating that the HS was always there but as believers we became yielded.
I would enjoy any of your thoughts on the matter,
Crag
Having united himself to all humanity through the Incarnation, Jesus shares his life and love (and his Spirit) with all humanity. The Spirit then works with people to enlighten them to his reality, leading them to personal repentance and faith, by which they are personally (subjectively) receiving Jesus, which means receiving into their lives the Spirit of Christ. Peter speaks to this in Acts 2:38, as he addresses people who the Spirit has enlightened to the truth of Jesus, calling on them to "repent and be baptized." He promises that in so doing, they will "receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." We don't take this promise as a statement that the Spirit will come into their lives for the first time (after all He clearly had been working in their hearts and minds before Peter gave this invitation), but that through their personal repentance and faith (trust) they would be "grabbing hold" of the Spirit who was with them--they would, in that sense, be "receiving" him and that would create an opening in their hearts and minds for the Spirit to do his deeper, converting/transforming work in their lives.
Certainly, Root anticipates that as we form redemptive relationships (friendships) with non-believers, that the Spirit is right there in the midst of such relationship, and there he is at work--not apart from the relationship, as though it were some sort of "step" in the direction of something else, but because relationship is the "place" where Jesus, through the Spirit is found/experienced leading to life transformation as followers of Jesus.
http://www.gci.org/_lib/playvideo.php?program=PastorVid/WFOS020&title=The+Messianic+Secret
In this 20 minute video Dr. Mike effectively states that relationships are the beginning and end game in all we come into contact with. Interestingly, he indicates as does Dr. Root that only after we have shown who Jesus is out of the loving relationship we have developed with others, and after they have asked, are we to provide an answer of the gospel message, that Jesus is the Truth.
Wow, truly a mind-shifting reversal on the common view among Christians on how to share the gospel.
I intend to purchase the book!