Ministry

How many times have you heard that every Christian is a minister? I heard it often growing up, and I guess it made sense some of the time. However, in my culture, paid ministers were very different from the "member ministers." Pastors wore suits, even when it seemed extremely uncomfortable to do so like when attending a prayer breakfast or doing lawn work. Pastors had great hair too, while the other church members just tried their best. Pastors also spoke with a hint of King James as if they had been born in 16th century England but moved here when they were 3 or 4. Then there is the movement that led many pastors to believe that they were actually CEOs so they needed to present themselves as corporate giants. Even today these things are true about many pastors. But why?

I am sure that part of it is a cultural expectation. Pastors should be the best dressed because they represent God, and God loves our best. Included in this is the idea that the first thing you should notice about a pastor is his or her piety which I supposed means that he must always be serious as if one wrong step will send someone to hell. This culture may come out of the fact that our pastors should be better than us because we know ourselves and we need to be able to aim higher.

Another part of our views on pastoral piety is found in history. In church history priests and clergy were often powerful economically and politically. We also have in the back of our mind the picture of monks walking somberly around a gray backdrop praying silently to themselves. The historical pictures and influences perhaps frames some elements of expectations for what clergy should look like.

Sometimes I forget that I am a minister. I suppose that I am still getting used to it. I am still trying to figure out what it means to be act like a minister in non-ministry times, or if there is even such a thing as a non-ministry time. How does a minister act at Walmart? How does a minister treat his or her waitress? Is the behavior required of the minister any different than it would be from another Christian? The answer is probably not, but there is this feeling that my "ministerness" should be evident wherever I go. In Leviticus the priests were definitely set apart. Their guidelines for living were stricter, and their responsibilities much more serious. As we use the phrase 'every member a minister' I think that it is important to invesigate why these feelings exist and how they impact the people in the pew.