The Ministry of Life

Yesterday as I typed an email to someone I told her that God had called me into full time women's ministry... I shuttered as I typed those words. Here's why: Last Saturday, after talking about dreams and what/who we have let hold us back I had someone ask me a question. She said, "I guess my dream would be to have a vineyard with my husband, but is that ok... you know that my dream isn't ministry." (ok that was paraphrasing it was a week ago and I'm sleep deprived.) Anyway, it was right before I had to get people ready for lunch so I quickly answered "Of course! Everything we do has an impact on the Kingdom."

For a week now I have been wishing I would have forgotten about the logistics of getting 45 women in the lunch line and taken the time to talk about this. Here's the thing.. wait for it... WE ARE ALL CALLED TO MINISTRY... YOU ARE CALLED TO MINISTRY... unbunch your panties while I explain.

We are all, in fact, called to women's ministry, to children's ministry, to men's ministry, to feeding the homeless and giving to the poor... BUT  guess what it's not called ministry it's called LIFE.  

Whether you're a lawyer, a stay at home mom, a nurse or a farmer.... WE ARE ALL CALLED to work for the good of the kingdom! We are NOT called to compartmentalize "work", "family", "friends"  and "God". Sometimes I think the label of "ministry" makes the masses feel justified in NOT living a life purposefully devoted to Kingdom work because "ministry" is meant for those with a special calling set apart from "real" life.

If you have decided to love Jesus... guess what???? YOU ARE AUTOMATICALLY inducted into the MINISTRY OF LIFE... It's weird how words can unintentionally create barriers. If I don't label what I do as ministry, but rather as life, is it any less important? It feels less important, but that's called pride, and that's my own issue. When someone asks what I do what do I tell them??? "Well, I wipe butts and occasionally do dishes, oh and I love women..." How do I classify what God has called me to without the label of "ministry"... does it even matter? There's a bit of sexiness in the word ministry... somehow implying ministry is a program that I sacrifice to be a part of... something that only really spiritual people can lead. It can be a barrier... a divider... sometimes even an obstacle built on pride...

Not long ago I saw a friend from our pastoring days. Knowing that my hubby now works for a hospital system and no longer a church or official ministry he asked, "Does CJ miss being in ministry." I said "Not really, because our lives are ministry." I don't think this guy meant anything by his question, but it made my blood boil. Just a few weeks before CJ had been called to anoint a patient with oil and pray for healing because the chaplain was busy... this is life... is it less ministry because he works for a secular organization???!!!! As bosses and employees, as mothers and wives and daughters, as patrons at a restaurant or shoppers at Target... every second of everyday we are called to move the Kingdom forward and to love others by using the gifts God has given us... hmm hmm... M-I-N-I-S-T-R-Y!!

Paul was a tent maker by day and still managed to blaze as an apostle, preacher, teacher, and healer and lived ministry.  This is in NO WAY a dig to those in paid full time "ministry", we should as a community financially support our pastors! We should support the great organizations that spread the Gospel!!! The danger I am warning about is adopting an attitude of complacency in life because we don't bear an official label of "such and such" ministry. We are all called to work together... we are all a part of the body of Christ! When we no longer default to letting the "pros" handle the heart ache and ickiness of the world, when we can no longer hide behind the great excuse of being "unqualified", when we stop sitting back and expecting a chosen few do 99% of the work... and realize WE ARE THE WORKERS... WE ARE THE LEADERS... WE ARE THE MOUNTAIN MOVERS... HOLY CRAP people!!! the enemy will cower and the gates of Hell will be stormed... how glorious that day will be!

|FIGHTING WORDS|:

1 Corinthians 12:12-26 (The Message)

12-13You can easily enough see how this kind of thing works by looking no further than your own body. Your body has many parts—limbs, organs, cells—but no matter how many parts you can name, you're still one body. It's exactly the same with Christ. By means of his one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which he has the final say in everything. (This is what we proclaimed in word and action when we were baptized.) Each of us is now a part of his resurrection body, refreshed and sustained at one fountain—his Spirit—where we all come to drink. The old labels we once used to identify ourselves—labels like Jew or Greek, slave or free—are no longer useful. We need something larger, more comprehensive. 


14-18I want you to think about how all this makes you more significant, not less. A body isn't just a single part blown up into something huge. It's all the different-but-similar parts arranged and functioning together. If Foot said, "I'm not elegant like Hand, embellished with rings; I guess I don't belong to this body," would that make it so? If Ear said, "I'm not beautiful like Eye, limpid and expressive; I don't deserve a place on the head," would you want to remove it from the body? If the body was all eye, how could it hear? If all ear, how could it smell? As it is, we see that God has carefully placed each part of the body right where he wanted it. 


19-24But I also want you to think about how this keeps your significance from getting blown up into self-importance. For no matter how significant you are, it is only because of what you are a part of. An enormous eye or a gigantic hand wouldn't be a body, but a monster. What we have is one body with many parts, each its proper size and in its proper place. No part is important on its own. Can you imagine Eye telling Hand, "Get lost; I don't need you"? Or, Head telling Foot, "You're fired; your job has been phased out"? As a matter of fact, in practice it works the other way—the "lower" the part, the more basic, and therefore necessary. You can live without an eye, for instance, but not without a stomach. When it's a part of your own body you are concerned with, it makes no difference whether the part is visible or clothed, higher or lower. You give it dignity and honor just as it is, without comparisons. If anything, you have more concern for the lower parts than the higher. If you had to choose, wouldn't you prefer good digestion to full-bodied hair? 


25-26The way God designed our bodies is a model for understanding our lives together as a church: every part dependent on every other part, the parts we mention and the parts we don't, the parts we see and the parts we don't. If one part hurts, every other part is involved in the hurt, and in the healing. If one part flourishes, every other part enters into the exuberance.