Word Confusion

I staff the Commission on Ministry in our Presbytery which involves helping congregations, pastors, and “specialized ministers”  in transition or trouble.

I also staff the Commission on Preparation for Ministry which involves helping seminarians discern their call and prepare for professional, institutional ministry.

The following words are tossed out and repeated innumerable times every day of my life:  minister, ministry, church, call, lay, elder, commissioned.

Theological Word Confusion abounds.

People say “lay” as in “lay leader” or “lay preacher” to include ordained ruling elders.  But actually ordained ruling elders are not laypeople. They Are Ordained – at least in my tradition, the PCUSA.

People say “minister” or “ministry” meaning the person with the MDiv degree or the work of the institutional pastor.  But actually, every Christian/disciple of Jesus/baptized believer is a minister and we are all engaged in ministry.  This is not a PCUSA thing.  This is a Biblical thing.

“Church” has devolved into being a building (in spite of this 40 year old Avery and Marsh song) rather than a people.  Again, the Bible always refers to “church” as a people, never as a building.  But every day, someone in my life refers to the brick building with the steeple as the church.  “Let’s meet at the church.”  “I was in the church.”    They are talking about a building.

This is frustrating, and not because I’m obsessed with Dictionary Correctness.  It’s frustrating because it impacts our understanding of what God calls us to do and be.  All of us who are baptized into the Christian faith are called to ministry.   All.  Of.  Us.

Not all of us are called to professional ministry, but all of us are called to serve in some way in the name of Jesus Christ.  All of us are called to serve to make earth as it is in heaven.  This is good news.

We who are baptized and called are the church.  Some of us are elders – elders who teach people or elders who  rule in terms of leadership. All of us have been commissioned.  So is it too much to ask that we recognize these things in the way we talk?