The average church in North America has between sixty and seventy-five attenders. In light of that, think about this question: What would be the potential of that church if they had five pastors on staff—if they had five people who sensed God’s call to Christian service and, in response to that call, poured themselves into the lives of people ... five God-called men and women who were deployed and released into our community to do what He had gifted and equipped them to do?
Most people who attend such a church would say, “We can’t afford that. We need to grow and build the financial base a lot before we’ll ever be in a position to afford five ministers. Churches with five ministers are churches that are much larger and have a lot of financial resources to work with.”
To which I’d say, “Size and financial strength has nothing to do with it.” For if I read my Bible correctly, all of us that have entered into a relationship with Jesus and been touched by His grace are called to be ministers. The calling to ministry is not reserved for a select few—for the vocational clergy … for men and women who sensed God’s tap upon their shoulder which led them to get an education at a ministerial training institution and enter a career path that requires their salary be paid from the giving of God’s people. The calling to ministry is God’s desire—check that, it’s God’s plan—for every one of us. If we’ve entered into a personal relationship with Jesus, we are called to ministry. It’s that simple!
In prior posts, I’ve written about the topic of renewal—what it is, how it comes about, and what we can do to encourage it. I’ve talked about how renewal hinges upon a return to Jesus as the sole object of our faith ... how it requires that we allow God’s Word to be authoritative in our lives ... how it’s linked to a worship that avoids the trap of being perfunctory and mechanical ... and how it is only possible in an environment characterized by people who are willing to pay the price. In this post, I want us to consider a fifth key to renewal: Renewal happens in an environment where people have had a “second Reformation”—where they’ve grasped the idea of the priesthood of believers and ministry is housed, not in the professional clergy, but in a core of everyday men and women who have sensed God’s call upon their lives and have responded in passionate, devoted service to Him.
To understand what I mean by the term “second Reformation”, lets go back to the original Reformation—the reform movement spawned by Martin Luther in the early 1500s. A Catholic monk, Luther investigated the Word of God and found the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church did not align with it in a number of areas. Rather than remain silent about this incongruity, he spoke up—taking on the hierarchy of the Church and giving birth to a movement that forever changed the face of Christianity.
One of the central tenets of Luther’s thought was what he called the priesthood of believers. This was in sharp contrast to what the Catholic Church had in place—what’s called a sacerdotal system. The Catholic church believed priests belonged to a special class of individuals poised between God and the rank and file. When God wanted to communicate to the people, He did so through the priests—that was the bridge He used. By the same token, when people wanted to communicate with God, they had to go through a priest to do it. When contrite individuals wanted to access God’s forgiveness and be absolved of their sins, they had to go through the channel of the priesthood to do so.
On the basis of his study of Scripture, Luther said this system was wrong and proclaimed the priesthood of every believer. In other words, each person has direct access to God; there’s no group of individuals closer to God by rite or calling than any other. If you want to connect with God, you don’t have to go through a human intermediary to do it. There’s only one priest—Jesus—who died on our behalf and became our priest. We don’t have to access God via the priesthood. We can serve as our own priest and connect with God “in the name of Jesus”.
It was a revolutionary, albeit thoroughly Scriptural, idea. Men and women don’t need a human mediator to help them access God. Granted, some people may know more of God’s truth and have a more intimate knowledge of God, but it isn’t because there’s a certain group of people that have an inside track or because God withheld certain insights and revelations from some that He granted to others. The priesthood of believers teaches us that all Christians are equal in both their communion with God and their ministry for God.
So, why do we have professional clergy? If we’re all equal in terms of our communion with and ministry for God, why is there the need for ordained pastors? Some people, by virtue of their life experience and training, have cultivated a knowledge or, and closeness with, God and immersed themselves in the study of His Word to where they are able to offer insights to others. But it must be kept in mind … these insights aren’t anything that aren’t available to anyone else. The only way someone can serve in a priestly role is if we grant them that privilege and open our heart to receive what they have to offer. As a credentialed minister, I have no inside track or channel to God. My prayers aren’t more special to Him ... they don’t carry more weight or are more likely to be answered. I have no insight into the ways and workings of God that isn’t available to anyone else. I can’t stand before people and speak for God unless they choose to allow me to do that ... unless they give me the freedom to use the skills and tools I’ve been given to pass along insights to you that, were they given the same set of skills and tools, and had access to the same schooling and training that I had, they be just as fit to discover and express as I. We all are equal in terms of our access to and ministry for God.
That said—it’s been my observation that while we’ve grasped the “we all have equal access to God” idea of the Reformation, we haven’t done a real strong job of latching on to the “we’re all ministers” part. It’s as though we’re living with an understanding that acknowledges the truth of the phrase “every member a minister” while, in our heart, we feel those who are ordained are the real ministers and that bona fide ministry is carried out by those that are part of the vocational clergy.
The reason I say that is because of some of the vocabulary we use. In casual conversation we talk about someone going to seminary to “study for the ministry”. When someone exits the vocational clergy, we talk about how they “left the ministry”. We talk about a teenager, sensing a divine nudge to pursue full-time Christian service, being “called into ministry”. Our prayers for God to send workers into the fields because the harvest is great but the laborers are few are typically prayers for Him to raise up and redirect people who are part of the vocational clergy. Nothing is wrong with these prayers—we need people to sense God’s call to full-time Christian service. But in subtle but nevertheless real ways, we take for granted that real ministers are “paid clergy” and real ministry is “those things the paid clergy does”. We often equate the terms “clergy” and “ministry”, and to do so is not only harmful and destructive—it’s unbiblical! Every time we refer to the vocational clergy as “the minister”, we drive nails into the coffin of the priesthood of the believer. For the priesthood of the believer affirms that all God’s people are ministers. All of us have been called by God and been given gifts and graces He wants to use to expand His Kingdom.
The apostle Peter puts it this way:
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by humans but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For in Scripture it says: “See, I lay a stone in Zion, a chosen and precious cornerstone, and the one who trusts in him will never be put to shame.” Now to you who believe, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” and “A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall.” They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:4-9)
In this paragraph, Peter relates six terms or titles that apply to us as followers of Jesus Christ. He says first, in verse five, that we are “living stones”. His point is that Jesus is the Cornerstone of an ongoing construction project designed by God—the building of His Kingdom—and you and I have been called to be a part of it. God has gifted us, summoned us, and equipped us so we can be a vital part of it. We may not be able to see it or hear it, but there’s a construction project going on around us that is greater in scope than we can possibly fathom. God has something special and specific for each of us to do.
Second, he also says we are to be a “holy priesthood”. As I mentioned, a priest is an intermediary—a representative of God to man and man to God ... a middleman, if you will. So Peter’s point is that this building project is about is developing a people who can be middlemen to a needy world—men and women who can bridge the gap and bring God’s presence to bear in situations and upon lives that would otherwise miss out. God wants us, as people who’ve heard and responded to His call upon our lives, to carry His presence into the world as ambassadors of His reality to people that are unaware and walking in darkness.
At the end of the paragraph, Peter strings together four titles when he says we are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God”. He’s talking about us! Each of us is a chosen, selected person ... a priest of the sovereign King ... a citizen of a holy nation ... one of God’s own people!
Why have we been granted this status? “So that we might declare the praises to him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light”. We’ve been chosen by God to make known to the world His wonderful, redemptive acts—what He’s done for each of us. We’ve been tapped on the shoulder to reveal to a dying world the depth and reality of His love. We’re all needed in this effort. We’re all valuable. We’re all part of a special Kingdom and have been set apart for ministry.
There was a time in the Old Testament when the priesthood was limited to the descendants of Aaron. In the book of Leviticus, where God lines out the specifics of the religious rituals and practices of ancient Israel, time and again we read the phrase “Aaron’s sons the priests”. At that time, the priesthood was confined to a select group of people—the descendants of Aaron. But we read in the book of Hebrews that the Old Testament rites were temporary and a day would come when a new covenant would be established and a new priesthood would be formed. What Peter is saying is not only that that day has come, but we are that priesthood. You … me … all those who’ve come to know God personally—are priests. We are ministers who have been called of God.
I believe churches where everyday men and women are recognizing that call, responding to that call, and pouring their lives into fulfilling that call are ones that are open to experiencing the renewing breeze of God. Renewal happens in churches where “the priesthood of the believer” is not just a theological tenet we buy into intellectually, but where it’s put into practice—where people take seriously the fact they are called by God and give themselves to those areas where their pain at the lostness and brokenness of people intersects with their desire to do something tangible and specific about it.
I do not believe it is the pastor’s job is not to grow his or her church by 3%, 5%, 7%, or whatever metric you choose. That’s not what God has called him or her to do. His or her primary job is to connect you with that which God has designed for you to do and then equip you to be effective in that role. We read these words in Ephesians:
So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:11-13)
And we read these words in Philippians:
Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose (Philippians 2:12-13).
The job of the pastor is to assist each person in the working-out of that which God has worked-in—to create an atmosphere where each person can discover and respond to God’s call upon his or her life and then be equipped to be the best person possible when it comes to responding to that call.
One of the keys to renewal is a belief in the priesthood of each believer that goes beyond an easy believe-ism that says “every member a minister” but still views the pastor as the “real minister”. Renewal happens among a people with a belief in their personal priesthood so profound that they are serving with a sense of calling that is every bit as engaging and consuming as that possessed by the professional clergy. For the reality is that God has a call tailor-made for every one of us. He has, by our personality make-up and life experiences, equipped us to do something that, when we recognize it and say “yes” to it, provides us the ultimate fulfillment this side of heaven. It’s just a matter of discovering it and doing something about it.