Wednesday 06 May 2009

Background

In the exciting early days of the Church, as often happens withvisionary new movements, many people realised that here wassomething they needed and wanted to join. And just like many othermembership organisations, as the whole thing grew, so the need tofind leadership structures emerged.

Within what was emerging as an informal leadership group among theChristians in Antioch (in modern-day Turkey), a notion developedthat God, through the working of the Holy Spirit, was calling twoparticular individuals to be set apart for a particular task.Barnabas and Paul, with fasting, praying and laying-on of hands,were then duly sent off on their travels around the Mediterranean,preaching God's word.

Although this all might sound rather unremarkable, it serves as theprototype for the whole principle of ordained ministry. Today'sordained ministers, in whatever denomination or flavour of Church,have some experience of being called by God, of having that senseof call endorsed by the Church, and being ordained with prayer andthe laying-on of hands.

Even if in some ways ordained ministry has become moreprofessionalised and formalised since this early example ofBarnabas and Paul, the underlying concept remains the same.Ministers are ordinary human beings, even if they may sometimes beasked by God to try to do extraordinary things.

To Ponder

How do you see the role of ordained ministerstoday?

It is sometimes argued that training, ordainingand employing people as ministers is an unnecessarily heavy burdenon today's churches. What do you think?

God calls all kinds of people to do all sorts ofthings, in addition to ordained ministers. How do you thinkordaining some people, but not others, affects the Church?