Gifted and Called

July-August, 2002

Maurice Martin

In my work as Director of Congregational Leadership Development, I am immediately confronted by the paradox of leadership in the Mennonite Church. On one hand, we prefer to think of our pastoral leaders as brothers and sisters, resisting the notion that they have a status that sets them "over" or "apart" from the rest of the people in the congregation, while also resisting giving them titles.

Traditionally, in the "Old" Mennonite church in which I was raised, pastors were called from the congregation, going from "the plough" to "the pulpit" overnight. They were then, and are still seen to be "one of us." In the 1970s many church bulletins carried the masthead statement "Ministers - Each Member of the Congregation," a practice which is still carried on in many congregations. Yet we also license or ordain our pastors to "set them apart" for their ministry role in the congregation.

In more recent years all across the Mennonite Church we have moved towards greater professionalism by our leaders. They train for ministry, then seek ordination. Equal, but different? Having authority, but responsible to the people? One of us, but set apart? And in the midst of the congregation, living with this paradox, is this larger group of people known variously as "the laity," or "the average person in the pew." So we need to grapple with what it means to describe people as "laity" while also speaking, as Luther did, of "the priesthood of all believers." We live within a paradox. Is it one that we need to resolve? I suggest rather that we simply need to do what James Lapp invites us to do, "name it and own it and live creatively and fruitfully with this paradox."

II Corinthians 5: 11-21 has become a significant passage as we discern more clearly what it means to be a "missional church." Here too is a lovely paradox. We are both recipients of God's ministry of reconciliation, and we too are ministers of the very thing which we have received by God's grace (vs. 18). Our ministry is a gift which each of us has been given. In that sense, our baptism is our "ordination." In any case, we are each called to exercise the spiritual gifts with which we have been endowed (Ephesians 4, I Corinthians 12, Romans 12). We need to apply these to each member, calling out gifts for the ministries of the church. Each of us has been gifted and called.

About twenty years ago Cal Redekop, in his Benjamin Eby lecture at Conrad Grebel College, spoke of the meaning of work. He reminded us that as Christians we have an overarching vocation, to live life under the rule of God and to, like Jesus, "do the work to which we have been called." The Work might be to heal, to teach, to feed the world, to produce useful items, etc. But in all we do, as Christians we ask ourselves how this fulfills our Christian vocation (calling). Only after these two layers have been defined, can we think of what "job" we might do. John H. Neufeld echoes this thought when he reminds us that everything we do has the possibility for transformation and newness of life. "If we are to build the laity for ministry, we must count as significant all of their lives, not just their 'church' lives."

In this postmodern generation, there is an increase of people who would like to minister in the midst of the congregation, but not as "professional" ministers. For them, and for each of us, we need to define as our Anabaptist forebears did that ministers are God's people, living in faithful discipleship, gifted and called. I pastored most recently in the Bloomingdale Mennonite Church in Ontario. There they no longer speak of "committees" but rather of "ministries." There is the "Worship Ministry," the "Christian Education Ministry," etc. I rather like that; it reinforces the fact that many in the congregation besides the pastor are gifted and called. And let us never lose sight of our Christian vocation in all of life, as well as in the life of the congregation. For that, there is no separation of "clergy" or "laity."

The pastor's role? To lead a gifted people, to ensure that gifts are used to build the body of Christ, to encourage and facilitate, and yes, to give spiritual direction. We do not need to become "headless Mennonites" by diminishing the role of pastoral leaders. Rather, let us not make so sharp a distinction between pastor and laity, but have a continuum of gifted people, guided by the Spirit. So today, when there is a shortage of pastoral leaders, we return to the possibility of "lay ministers" in congregational life and work. Let us not do this by default, but by design - each of us living out our Christian vocation in our walk with God and each other.

In a workshop at the Saskatoon Assembly I will invite further discussion of this topic. In particular, I want to engage participants in vigorous debate and discernment about whether "laity" is a term which we want to embrace, or whether we can discover a better term for us as Mennonites which does not so much separate clergy and laity as it has traditionally done. Come prepared to share your thoughts and experiences.

-Maurice Martin