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