What is Secular Ministry?

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss.
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
Interlude
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
What then is this thing I keep talking about that is “secular ministry?”

I could be cutesy and say something like, “Secular ministry is doing ministry the same way Jesus did it, outside the religious institution.”

That IS part of the definition, of course, but it’s more than that.

To put this all as simply as I can-

secular ministry is doing God’s work of living the Good News among those who may not be in or involved in the church- and doing it with no connection to the work and ministry of the church. It is being in times and places where the Gospel may not be spoken or might be challenged if it was.

I have always been an articulate person, who, even though shy, has been able to stand before a crowd and speak. For that reason I was always chosen to give the “message” whenever our youth fellowship did worship. After every time someone would invariably come up to me and say something to the effect that I belong in the ministry.

I would smile, say thank you, and add, "but I could have a greater witness not being a minister." Why should that be? I felt that people were less real when the pastor was around. Therefore a non-clergy could be places and have openings that a clergy could never have.

In that are the roots for what I am today calling “secular ministry.” You are able to impact people who would never be inside the church or even be available for discussions on spiritual matters.

One of the underlying groundings of this is that people are in need of hope, promise, grace, and love – unconditional acceptance – where they are, not where we want them to be or think they should be. It’s kind of like doing what God has already done for us. While we were still sinners, Paul reminds us, Jesus came. He didn’t wait until we were perfect or even repentant. If he had waited for that, well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.

We live in a secular world. Perhaps more to the point, we live in a world that often ignores or struggles against the sacred even though it is right there in front of us. It is a world dominated by non-spiritual values such as war, consumerism, fear, wealth, poverty, crime, addiction. You all know the list. Yet at the same time, the non-spiritual values are in fact spiritually driven. They often seek to fill the holes left by spiritual desires and drives for meaning, hope, and purpose.

In other words this is a world that is just like the world has always been. Jesus promised that the time of the coming of the Son of Man would be like the days of Noah. People will be eating, drinking, marrying. Normal. The world Jesus walked in was just like the world we walk in.

It’s also the world we all work in whether we are in the church or not. These things are the roots of what I have talked about not missing about the church. We just try to hide it better or mask it or deny it inside the organization.

Anyway, let’s talk about ministry. In our Western, Christian view, this is what the clergy do. We have developed a whole language that makes that clear because, alongside ministry (no adjective attached) we have “lay” ministry as if one (the one without the adjective) is more essential to the church than the other. The dichotomy goes back to the pedestal problem, but reveals the deep division that often exists between clergy and members.

From this problematic point of view the ministry is what is done most of the time by professionals inside the church for the benefit of the church. Once in a while we may talk about some outside ministry but most of the time ministry is what happens within the doors; things that people have to come to get so they can be ministered to.

One of the questions I have often batted around in conversations with church people (non-clergy-types) was, “Do you see what you do in your daily work life as ‘ministry’?” More often than not I get a quick “No” even from people who work in the service sector where they are helping people. “Of course not,” is often the unspoken reply. “I don’t work in the church.”

Every now and then someone will surprise me. “Sure,” one person said. “No matter what I’m doing I’m doing it for God and helping others hopefully see God through me.” This person worked in industry.

So let’s look at the heart of the word, not its current usage. Here’s its etymology from Dictionary.com and the Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper:

1297, "one who acts upon the authority of another," from O.Fr. ministre "servant," from L. minister (gen. ministri) "servant, priest's assistant" (in M.L. "priest"), from minus, minor "less," hence "subordinate," + comp. suffix *-teros.
Meaning "priest" is attested in Eng. from c.1315.
The verb is from c.1300, originally "to serve (food or drink)."

Servant. Right from the words of Jesus about what his followers are supposed to be. We have no problem thinking of that when the pastor calls him/herself a “servant.” That’s what they’re getting paid to do. But we have a difficult time when we move outside the church. I had people tell me I would always be a pastor or minister because that’s my personality. I would challenge back and say, “But you’re a minister, too.” To which they would often respond. “No, that’s not the same thing.” Only the ordained do “real” ministry.

Others have asked, “Why did you leave the ministry?” I always respond, “I didn’t. I just changed the location.”

Which should be every Christian’s response.

More next week as we continue to look at secular ministry- life in the world- and what we can learn and experience.

Interlude (1)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor. Section Two was about what I don't miss.
Links to earlier sections:
Introduction
1. What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3
2. What I Don't Miss: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
So Far, What Does This Mean?
One of the readers of this series asked me the other day- “So, you aren’t going back, are you?” That seemed to be his take on what I was saying in this series. I guess it would be possible to read it that way. I have spent a good deal of time talking about what I don’t miss. But I also spent a great deal of time about what I do miss.

But both of those miss the point.

This is for me, in essence, a reflection on the church and it’s role and place in our world. One thing that I have never doubted in these 3+ years of secular ministry is that I still care very deeply about the church and its future. I spent 30 years serving God through the church- and at times serving the church just because that was my calling from God.

In that is the pivotal point in the issues of whether I go back into parish ministry or not.

Calling.

I have told denominational leaders since going on leave of absence that I will consider any call sent to me with an open and prayerful mind. I am still a minister of, a clergy of the church. If God wants me to be in that position again I will be in that position again. I have learned through experience not to close doors on God and “never to say never.” I have no idea where this reflection will lead me personally, though. It is a mental and prayerful examination of what it’s like on the outside looking in. It is an attempt to say where I see the church and what I think might be some insights into its future.

Calling is a tricky idea to deal with in the church. When it has a small “c” it is generic. It is what any Christian can be “called” to do for God. We have the other one with the capital “C” which has come to mean service to the church. I am not sure I like that dichotomy. It doesn’t appear as if Jesus did. It ends up with power or prestige or more-vs.-less holiness. When I get to the end of this series I may perhaps have a better idea of what that means to me.

But next week I will move on to the next thought- what I mean by secular ministry. Until then, I reflect on the idea of calling by remembering what one of my guides- Frederick Buechner -
has said about calling:

The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.

That is what this is really all about for individuals and for the church.

What I Don't Miss (Part 3)

Section One of this series dealt with what I miss now that I am doing "secular" ministry after thirty years as a parish pastor.
Links to
Introduction
What I Miss: Part 1, part 2, part 3

Section 2 is all about What I Don't Miss
Part 1, Part 2
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side."
--James Baldwin

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Putting together what I don’t miss in as clear and careful way as I can is that the institution has, in many instances, lost its mission. We can see the roots of that in the other two things I have already talked about- the sense of control and the entitlement of Christendom. Let me explain.

Thirty-five years ago when I entered the parish ministry we thought we still lived in Christendom. Underlying that is the belief that everyone, with a couple exceptions here and there, was a Christian. Some may be of one type, some may be of another, but underneath it all we are all the same.

Since everyone around here is a Christian, the mission of the church is really to be found in far away places where the non-Christians (sometimes called heathens or pagans) live. Mission festivals celebrated this work. We collected money and other goods to ship over there. Once in a while a son of the congregation became a missionary (or a daughter married one) and went overseas from where we got all kinds of letters and updates and sometimes an interesting show when they came home on leave.

My Moravian denomination was built on this work. Overseas mission was- and still is- essential and honorable work and definitely not to be overlooked. When the Moravians in 1731 decided to send missionaries to the West Indies they were thought to be crazy. They became the first Protestant missionaries. When they came to America in the 1740s they did so to bring the Gospel to the Indians. They often treated them well and did not participate in most cases with the oppression that was building.

Most American denominations have supported mission workers around the world. They never thought that the mission field was actually growing around them while they lived in their understanding of Christendom. Pretty soon, however, more and more different types of Christians showed up. A community that had once had only three churches now had seven. Denominational loyalty became more difficult- or the flip side- even more determinative. When you feel under siege, you circle the wagons. Little did we realize that the siege wasn’t even happening. We were slowly finding ourselves as outside the thought of many people.

That’s where the control sets in. And blaming. And inward looking. In the centuries of Western Christendom, though, we lost our understanding of who we are. We are not the anointer of the king or the political partner of an ideology. We are not a place for US. We are a place to go from. We expect people to come to us- hence we have to advertise. In reality, if I read Jesus correctly, we to be a community we leave from to bring the least and the lost and hurting and hungry and naked and imprisoned back to join us.

Mission. We don’t have it. We don’t want it. The people we bring in might be dirty or different or obvious sinners or drunks or …. We still use the language. We still think we are doing that mission. But too much of the time we are not.

I am saddened by that. I do not miss it for one moment. Or more to the point, I do not miss trying to convince us (yes, me, too) that we should be about something else.

Please don’t misunderstand me. As Philip Yancey said in a recent column in Christianity Today, a lot of good things DO happen in the church.

The world is full of pain. The prosperity promised on religious television must exist in some alternate universe from what I encounter as I visit churches in person. For all its faults and failures, the church offers a place to bring wounds and to seek meaning in times of brokenness and struggle.

It is a shame that we cannot do that more often to those beyond our current boundaries, boxes, and fears. I dream of a time when we can rediscover the incredible power, strength, peace, hope, and joy that mission work can bring. Not to mention the even more unbelievable feeling of doing God’s work.

Before taking up the next phase of this series by looking at the idea of “secular ministry,” let me repeat a story that I have used before. It was the Preface to the classic Introduction to Pastoral Care and Counseling by Howard Clinebell. When I first read it in 1972 I was overwhelmed. It has set the definition for my ministry (though not as well as I would have liked at times.) I would preach it every three years or so, even if they had heard it before. It is that important to me. It speaks today as well as ever.

"The Parable Of The Lifesaving Station"
On a dangerous seacoast where shipwrecks often occur there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was just a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea, and with no thought for themselves, they went out day or night tirelessly searching for the lost.

Many lives were saved by this wonderful little station, so that it became famous. Some of those who were saved, and various others in the surrounding areas, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time and money and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought and new crews were trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some of the new members of the lifesaving station were unhappy that the building was so crude and so poorly equipped. They felt that a more comfortable place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea.

They replaced the emergency cots with beds and put better furniture in an enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular gathering place for its members, and they redecorated it beautifully and furnished it as a sort of club.

Less of the members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired lifeboat crews to do this work.

The mission of lifesaving was still given lip-service but most were too busy or lacked the necessary commitment to take part in the lifesaving activities personally.

About this time a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat loads of cold, wet and half-drowned people.

They were dirty and sick, some had skin of a different color, some spoke a strange language, and the beautiful new club was considerably messed up. So the property committee immediately had a shower house built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club's lifesaving activities as being unpleasant and a hindrance to the normal pattern of the club.

But some members insisted that lifesaving was their primary purpose and pointed out that they were still called a lifesaving station. But they were finally voted down and told that if they wanted to save the life of all various kinds of people who were shipwrecked in those waters, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast.

They did.

As the years went by, the new station experienced the same changes that had occurred in the old. They evolved into a club and yet another lifesaving station was founded.

If you visit the seacoast today you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are still frequent in those waters, but now most of the people drown!