This week I have had two completely different conversations about the same issue.
I spoke with two ministers from two different churches in the same area and both told me that because their churchwarden moved out of the suburb they had no one with the capacity to serve as church treasurer.
One minister bewailed the fact that professionals from wealthy suburbs never take the gospel seriously enough to be downwardly mobile and move to his suburb for sake of being a servant of others.
The other pastor said it was his responsibility to raise up someone to train to be treasurer.
Both the comments have some truth, but are not the whole story.
The first minister is on to something about living of the life of faith we profess.
There are all sorts of reasons why moving to a needy area is inappropriate for a particular person, but that the practise is so uncommon that it makes me wonder whether we have a common way of thinking that says "I will go so far for the gospel, but there are areas that are out of bounds or not even considered".
Isaac Watts was right in his great hymn When I Survey as he concludes "love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul
my all
". To those who have capacity and opportunity we need to ask "why don't you go and serve as a missionary to our own city?"
The weakness is the first answer is that ministers so often think that their job is to find the people for tasks and then unleash them in the task. This is too small a view. Our task is not just to find people for ministry, it is to under God, create ministers. Rather than complain about the absence of capable people; their very absence gives the room for others to be recruited into and trained for a variety of ministries.
Of course all this requires a long lead-time, planning and preparation without much fruit for a considerable amount of time. But this is our task.
It was lovely to hear the comments of the second pastor because he had understood that God has given to His people all they need, and so it is his task to help people to serve.
The problem with the second pastor's comment was that he saw this task as his. It is not solely the pastor's task. This is the task of every Christian - to help others be willing to serve, to train them to be servants, and then equip them for service. This way of thinking needs to become part of the ethos of our life together.
So what is the ethos? Part of it is that every member will work alongside another, sharing the joy of service, and helping them to find ways to minister. Perhaps if this was more of our ethos my two friends wouldn't be in the position they are now.
