Of Serving in Some Ministries

By -
I had a conversation with a friend over the weekend, and we were talking about serving in ushering, or more particularly, leaving ushering as a ministry. On reflection of the conversation, I realised that at least in my own church, we have a tendency to use certain language that betrays how we think of the different ministries. Here's a replicate paraphrase of what roughly transpired during the conversation:

A: I heard that you left ushering 

 Me: Yeah, there were certain circumstances. I was asked to leave so that I can focus on other ministries. 

 A: Yeah, me too. I left sometime back. They asked me, "so when am I going to move on" and I think I got the signal...

Then I realised that we inevitably use words and phrases like "move on" and "advance" and "other ministries" to describe our experience on leaving ushering. Other languages which we used to use back in my younger days are "I will start off with ushering and see where God leads me", "Ushering is a good starting point". I begin to wonder if we are seeing service in ministries as ushering as lowly and we subconsciously rank the different ministries.

But make no mistake. I do and still feel that ushering, given its low entry requirement, is an excellent ground for anyone to start serving in church, on top of what they may be doing within their own lifegroup. What I am feeling uncomfortable is that sometimes we may be tempted to ask someone to "move on" from ushering or other ministries so that they can "advance" to other ministries. If we do so, and I admit I used to bear these thoughts, then what is the message that we are sending to our people? Would it not be surprising that people flock to more prominent ministries like life leadership, worship leading, backup singer etc? And again, just to disclaim, I have nothing against these ministries. In fact, it would have been a waste if someone with their respective gifts are not being allowed to be released to serve in where they can edify the body of Christ the most.

We just need to be cautious that we do not subconsciously rank all these ministries. With regard to this, I can only be reminded of the exhortation by Paul:

4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.- 1 Corinthians 12:4-6
To a church that is increasingly displaying pride over the manifestation of the more "spiritual gifts", Paul stated that different kinds of gifts and ministries are given by the same God and Holy Spirit and thus are all the same before the eyes of God.

And that is the reason why I have argued, when I was still leading the ushering ministry, that ushers are important as they are the first level of contact for any visitors to the church. If the ushers are not serving well, visitors' impression of the church might have been formed before they even get to experience the worship session or hear the sermon.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Parable of the 'Good Samaritan'

By -
Once there was this man traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among thorns, and the thorns spring up and choked him. And as he went on, he didn’t have money, and he met the Queen of Sheba, and she gave him 1,000 talents of gold and 100 changes of raiment. And he got into a chariot and drove furiously, and when he was driving under a big juniper tree, his hair caught on a limb of that tree, and he hung there many days, and the ravens brought him food to eat and water to drink, and he ate 5,000 loaves of bread and two fishes. One night when he was hanging there asleep, his wife Delilah came along and cut off his hair, and he dropped, and fell on stony ground. But he got up and went on, and it began to rain, and it rained forty days and forty nights, and he hid himself in a cave, and he lived on locust and wild honey. Then he went on ‘til he met a servant who said, “Come, take supper at my house.” And he made an excuse and said, “No, I won’t. I have married a wife, and I c
Read more

Of Teaching and Learning

By -
Image
Over the past two weeks, I was invited to attend a block class on "Learning to Teach." After two weeks of class, here are some reflections that I have. We thank God Bro Casey is a pretty humane teacher... :P  Firstly, teaching needs to meet the changing challenges of the 21st century. This is especially pertinent with all the advancements in technology as well as the worldview changes with the generation today. There is simply no room for the teacher to remain stagnant and not be able to keep up with times so as to engage their students and to facilitate learning. Applying to theological education and Bible school, we have to consider what kind of ministers we are training for the churches in the 21st century. If we are training ministers who are able to engage today’s generation, then we need to review the current methods of teaching and train ministers to be savvy in social media and technology and be able to make use of them in their ministries. Reflecting back on
Read more

Of Exegesis, Wedding Preparation and the Whole Lot of Things: Another Reflection

By -
Image
To those who know what happened, the past months since the start of 2016 had been very stressful to me. In the preparation to my impending wedding this coming October, my future father-in-law decided to throw a few spanners into the wedding preparation by declaring that he was not comfortable with me as a life partner to his daughter because I am a full time Christian worker and more importantly because I come from a different family background from her.  The latter means that there are certain practices in my own family which are unthinkable in his worldview on how a family should function. This led to intense tensions between Angelina and myself. To compound the stress, NT Exegesis class was not that easy also and the stress of meeting the deadlines mean that I sometimes did not have the time to reflect deeper into the situations I was facing in my relationship.  However, studying the text of Philemon 15-20 reminded me of the way we should conduct our relationship in Christ
Read more