A common perspective of church members is that those who are employed by the ministry are the ones who do the ministry. Church employees created this misconception themselves. First the priests of the Roman Catholic church, followed by the pastors and preachers of the protestant reformation, clergy have led the charge to take on all responsibility for ministry. The more recent evolution (in the last 100 years) of full-time church employment only served to perpetuate the mistaken idea that only those paid by the Gospel should be working for the Gospel. Churches became, and still are today, entertainment and self-help venues. 500 years ago the founder of the protestant revolution surfaced the notion of the priesthood of all believers, but most people have chosen to serve God mostly in an advisory capacity.
In a recent sermon I offered a challenge. I first pointed out that if the entire staff (8 full-time paid, 3 part-time paid, 2 part-time volunteer, 5 paid nursery workers and about 12 pre-school and PDO teachers) at GUMC were to seek to make a difference in the lives of 4 neighbors we would impact 120 families in the next year. However if every home represented at GUMC were to make that a priority we would make a difference in the lives of over 1,500 homes this year. If we continued that trend and they did as well we would impact 7,600 homes next year and 38,000 in the following year. That's a significant impact on our community... now let's start talking about changing the world.
We can't allow our churches to go on relinquishing our God given ministries, the ministries of all believers, to those who do this for a living. Churches must be a training ground for missionaries who are sent into the world to change it.
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