A Wider Ministry

"And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem,

in all Judea and Samaria,

and to the ends of the earth." 

 

--Acts 1:8b, New Revised Standard Version

We are not there yet.  We are still in Lent.  We are in the wilderness.  We are nowhere near Ascension Day; and yet, we are always there at the place where the Holy Spirit takes us to people and to places we had not imagined that we would ever go.

I just came home from Cleveland on Saturday evening.  I had been in Cleveland for most of last week, participating in meetings of the General Synod 30 Program & Planning Committee and the United Church of Christ Board of Directors.  My ministry, guided by the power of the Holy Spirit, has taken me to places of services in the wider church. 

Some of my colleagues contend that every Conference Minister's call should stipulate that at least twenty-percent of the ministry be lived in the wider circles of the United Church of Christ or in ecumenical or environmental ministries.  I am not convinced that such wider ministry can or should be legislated by a call agreement; but I do know that one cannot make one's calling body the exclusive focus of her/his ministry.  There are always wider concentric circles to which Christ calls us.  We must utilize our gifts for the upbuilding of the whole Church.

When I was ordained, I had no interest in the New Hampshire Conference.  I was quite content to be a parish pastor along the Mississippi River in a farming community in rural Missouri.  But I served on several Association and Conference committees during those initial eleven years.  My spirit was stretched greatly when it was time to move.  God's Spirit pulled me to a place I had never been--to California, Missouri--a very conservative community both theologically and politically.  I went reluctantly and found there a home and grew to see Christ in my congregants.  I loved my churches deeply.  Service on Association and Conference committees continued during those thirteen years.  The local churches were my calling bodies, but they were always part of something bigger.  The Spirit stirred me into wider ministry in the concentric circles.

In 2006, I was stretched yet again.  I heard and accepted a call to a ministry beyond the local parish.  As the Conference Minister of the New Hampshire Conference, United Church of Christ, I remember with deep appreciation the local churches where I once served.  They inspire me to hope for the best for the churches in the New Hampshire Conference.  I pray for the Spirit to engage us in ministry with people in places where we had not expected to go.  I have traveled to India and Zimbabwe in this ministry.  I have gone to Cleveland many times and to other places where the mission and ministry of the church is first and foremost in people's hearts and minds.  The call of Christ still propels me to a wider ministry.

On Sunday, I will go to Manchester, where I have been invited to speak about the death penalty and my own support of its repeal and abolition in New Hampshire.  The Spirit has taken this quiet, introverted kid from the country and called him to be a witness in God's big, wide world.  It is truly an amazing thing!  I am grateful for every opportunity to serve. 

O Lord Jesus Christ, may I never settle for a narrow ministry.  Continue to open me to sense the stirrings of your Spirit.  Make me fit for service in the wider settings of your church.  Help me to hear the cries and the see the faces of those who need me to minister with integrity and love.  Take me even to Samaria, to the wilderness, to the valley of deepest darkness--and may I follow you there.  Come, Holy Spirit, come!  Amen.