BLOG 6.6.19. THE MINISTRY OF ‘LAICIZING’ THE CLERGY
The role of the clergy is rather malleable, depending whom you talk to. Early in the church’s history, the church sacralized its leadership into a priesthood, which somewhat contradicted the apostolic teachings about church leadership in which all were part of Christ’s royal priesthood. The Protestant reformers insisted on the “priesthood of all believers” but that class of clergy endured as being those with something of a different aura that the ordinary laity. I have inhabited this role over the past 60+ years, and have interpreted it in terms of my ministry of equipping God’s people for their 24/7 ministry in the midst of the realistic vicissitudes of each week.
At the same time, I have found that there has emerged a sense that clergy exist on a different plane than laity, and so form a sub-culture of their own, especially if they have graduated from seminary. I discovered in my early days as a pastor that there was a clergy-seminary subculture existing with little sense of equipping the laity for their ministry, and therefore not in any special need of vital communication with them. Given my own focus on the ministry of the laity in the workplace, I found this clergy subculture counter-productive in my quest to communicate as a disciple-maker to the lay-folk for whom I was responsible.
Let’s look at the big picture. Our New Testament message is that God’s new age has invaded this age, … that God’s tomorrow has invaded our today, … that God’s new humanity is being formed in the midst of this humanity that is lost, … that God’s kingdom has come into our present in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It stands to reason, then, that this new humanity needs to be continually equipped in two dimensions: 1) to fully understand the awesome scope of what Christ intends for his kingdom/age-to-come people; and 2) to be continually equipped with a profound understanding of the realistic context of that design.
Allow me to cut-to-the-chase here. This means that those of us who are given the ministry of equipping God’s people have the need to be continually tuned-in to the contexts in which those for whom we are responsible live. We cannot be lost in a clergy world. Rather, we need to be continually in vital, and transforming communication with our community of faith—we need to be continually laicized by those for whom we are given stewardship. This means entering their world, hearing their stories, spending time with them, identifying with the realities with which they live.
This, then, becomes the ministry of the laity to their pastor-teachers. For myself, I sought out time with these friends. I intentionally did not want to be unaware of all of the social, domestic, economic, sexual, ethical, communal stuff with which they lived. So rather than hang-out with the clergy-seminary syndrome, I sought and spent time with the real persons who my flock. I jogged with bank officials and football players. I walked rounds with doctors. My family picnicked with other families. I drank innumerable cups of coffee, and sat over many bottles of beer with those where laicizing me. They became my ministers and gave me the realistic context for my pastor-teacher role. I was off the clergy-pedestal, and so able to equip them for the realities in which they lived. They had become ministers to me so that I could be a better minister to them.
I became truly human to them so that they could become more truly human in their 24/7 world. I encourage my Blog subscribers to enter this ministry with their pastor. Become a minister to your pastor. Invite him/her over for beer, or for lunch. It is so important for the accomplish of our mission as the authentic people of God’s new humanity.
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