RESOURCING THE CHURCH FOR ECUMENICAL MINISTRy A ...

simply Christ, poured out and broken for the many.
Paul offers a counter-narrative to the one and the
many who find their identity in Jesus Christ.
Paul goes on to instruct us that the many-ness of
who we are in Christ is the nature of our calling.
Our calling is our giftedness as individuals and as
church. Even there, no one gets to hoard all the
gifts. There are many gifts but the same Spirit. Paul
even says, if you to try to hoard all the gifts, you
couldn’t if you wanted to because they have their
expression and are activated by the one Spirit. Not
by you. The gifts are not doled out by humanity.
This concept is so hard to live into as church. The
Spirit anoints and appoints your giftedness as is
needed in the whole.
Jesus’ response offered a counter-narrative
to our inside voice, and, if we are honest,
to that which everything and everyone
around us affirms.
Let me give you an example. I am a fixer. It is likely
that some of my family-of-origin stuff makes me
want to fix things. It could be gender, even though
my girlfriends insist that my male side is
overdeveloped—because I don’t like to tarry long in
problem identification. My tendency is to simply
solve the problem and move on.
Several years ago, I was serving as director of our
Children’s Church. My Sunday School
superintendent invited me to serve in that capacity
despite my desire to continue teaching Sunday
School. I agreed against my will. For me, I was clear
that my calling was to Sunday School, with young
Johnson • Many Gifts—One Body; God’s Counter-Narrative
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people who listen to you and challenge you much
less than adults.
One weekend, Children’s Church was sponsoring a
bake sale, and we planned to invite young women to
the church to bake on the Saturday before. When
that day came, I received a phone call from one of
the women in the ministry in charge of the bake sale,
advising that the church’s building permit had not
been renewed to allow access that day. Out of
frustration, I hung up the phone, fell to my knees
inadvertently and begin talking to God. I want to say
I was praying, but I said in not so reverent language,
“God, I told you that I didn’t want to do this!” As
clear as day I heard a voice say to me, “But it’s not
about you!”
Humbled and relieved, I called the woman back,
gave her instructions to contact the young ladies
scheduled to come to the church that day, and then
I informed her I would see her at church the next
day. From that moment on, my ministry work in
Children’s Church ran more smoothly with much
better cooperation from the adult volunteers.
Wouldn’t you know that two months later I was
transferred away and called into seminary?
Just when you think you have this thing called life all
figured out, you know your gifts and how you are
going to apply them, the ground beneath you shifts!
God has use of your gifts where they are most
needed. Today, the Spirit is declaring to us a
reversal, a counter-narrative. If we believe that we
do not serve the church out of self-interest, we
deceive ourselves. The Spirit reveals to us our
passion and gifts, using our self-interest to propel
us to be whole—even whole church. We are not here
to beat the Catholic Church at being church, but we
are called to be the church catholic.