Recently I was reminded of a simple but profound concept that I heard long ago. My ministry can only extend as far as my prayers. I'd like to focus on two key words in this statement, ministry and prayers.

Ministry
     How you view yourself in this world has a direct affect on how you engage the culture. It is part of your world view. So I will make a very direct statement: All Christians are called to do ministry. Yet many (if not most) believers today think of a "minister" as the professional who is a pastor, evangelist, bible teacher, etc. These individuals do the ministry of the church and the rest are the recipients of the minister's efforts. Yet the bible clearly teaches that the job of apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers is to equip the saints (believers) for the work of ministry (Eph 4:11). 

     The Bible places the responsibility of ministry on all believers, not just a few. Yet, centuries after this clergy/laity invaded the church, it continues to be a mentality that we must resist in mind and deed. A local pastor and friend recently told a story that demonstrates a rather extreme example of this clergy/laity mentality. A colleague of his had preached a sermon, explaining that all Christians are responsible to be ministers. A long-time member of that congregation approached this pastor after the sermon and said (I paraphrase), "Let's get something straight right now. I have two jobs in this church. One is to sit in that pew on Sunday and the other is to put money in the plate when it comes by. We pay you to do ministry."  Few would be as bold as the man in the account above. But many of us, who know doctrinally that we should be ministers, find that we gravitate toward the clergy/laity mentality in common practice, revealing that this battle is real for us all.

     Another pastor I know, who is a missionary pastor in a foreign country, was recently told by the government that his church could no longer meet. They had been meeting weekly on Sundays in a hotel, but now their weekly worship service has been terminated. They have resorted to meeting in several small groups at various times. But in all this, my friend has seen the hand of God. Though he would like to be able to meet corporately again, he feels his church has moved forward and does not want to go back to what they were before. He wrote:
 

This is however very fruitful, as our church now has to "be the church" rather than merely "go to church." ... While we would like to be allowed to meet again corporately, I wouldnever go back to what we had a month ago! We are doing ten-fold more "equipping and training" of the saints now than then. People are really enjoying getting to know others whom they admit they would never have done more with than exchange greeting previously. There is so much more ministry happening now. People seem more willing to invite friends to a home church. They also see very clearly whether or not we are winning the lost. We have looked at scripture to see all the reference to meeting in homes so people recognize this is more of a NT pattern than what we were doing a month ago. We expect to gather in many of those who have stopped attending and start winning many more.

Scattered by Persecution
     My fiend's situation sounds very familiar to a situation that is recorded in the Bible. As the early church was growing and touching lives, persecution arose. Acts chapters six and seven record how Stephen was confronted by the governing powers and was put to death. This initiated a persecution against the church.

(Acts 8:1 NKJV)  Now Saul was consenting to his death. At that time a great persecution arose against the church which was at Jerusalem; and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles.

     This persecution caused the church to be scattered throughout the region and thus expand its influence. We read that "....those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word (Acts 8:4).

     The account of persecution from Acts was apparently used of God to prod the early church toward greater ministry responsibility and outreach. The same might be said of my friend's situation, who had his Sunday service closed down. This begs the question:  Will we Christians wait until our government tells us we are not allowed to meet, or even persecutes us, before we assume the ministry responsibility that God's word clearly tells us is ours?

     This article makes the point that "being the church" requires more responsibility than "going to church." Watch for part two, in which we will look at how to know what our ministry responsibility is. 
 

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