The Ministry Myth

by Gary Morsch with Eddy Hall

In the months that followed, I often testified, "God has called me to be a minister." Church members encouraged me: "You'll make a fine preacher, just like your daddy."

Then, several months later, I felt that God was calling me to work in the field of science. I was confused. Did God call people to be more than one thing?

I went to my dad. "Dad, can a person be a minister and a scientist at the same time?"

My dad thought for a while, then said, "Sure."

"What do they call someone who is both a minister and a scientist?"

"Well, let's see," my dad said. "I guess you would say God has called you to be a research minister."

I had no clue what that was, but it sounded good to me, so for months I testified in church that God had called me to be a research minister. Eventually an older Christian advised me that there really was no such thing as a research minister and pointed out that God surely intended for me to go into "the ministry".

Never again did I stand in church and say that God had called me to be a minister. Though my call was as strong as ever, I had painfully learned that to mention my call publicly was to invite pressure to become a professional pastor, evangelist or missionary. I didn't believe God was calling me to be any of those things, but I couldn't explain how that could be true if God had called me to be a minister. So, I just quit talking about my call.

I had long assumed that once I finished high school, I would go on to a Christian college, but when graduation came, I found that I couldn't do it. How could I go to college when I was confused about what God wanted me to do? How would I know what to study?

My turmoil led me to do something untypical for a good Christian kid. I was not yet a pacifist, and I joined the army. It seemed an unlikely choice, but God used my time in the military to begin to clear up my confusion. Wherever I was stationed, I got involved in a church, teaching Sunday school or working with the youth group. For a while, I even served as a supply pastor. God was beginning to show me that being a layperson didn't keep me from being a minister. I came out of the army ready to attend college and prepare for ministry--as a layperson.

I was beginning to understand that the confusion I had laboured under for years was because I had believed what I now call the ministry myth: Ministry is just for ministers--and "ministers", of course, meant only ministry professionals.

Once on campus, though, I found the ministry myth alive and well. I was often subtly reminded by well-meaning students and professors that a Christian serves God best as a ministry professional. Chapel speakers often challenged us to say yes to God's call to professional ministry. Rarely did any challenge us to say yes to God's call to minister as laypeople.

Then, during my third year, I sensed God leading me to change my major to premedicine. That surprised me. I had secretly longed to go into medicine, but had never seriously considered it because I didn't think that would be ministry. But God made clear to me that I was to minister through medicine. My pastor confirmed this when he told me, "As a doctor, you will have opportunities to minister to all kinds of people in the community that I will never be able to reach as a pastor." And so I spent the rest of my schooling preparing for ministry as a medical doctor.

The high cost of the myth

My experience is not unique. The ministry myth has been so widely believed for so long that it has no doubt kept millions of Christians from seeing themselves as ministers and recognizing what God was calling them to do. And it has crippled the ministries of countless others by causing them to misinterpret God's call.

Although my friend Mark knew that laypeople could minister, he bought into the version of the ministry myth that says, "God can best use those who are in professional ministry." Wanting to serve God as effectively as possible, he quit his job, spent three years in seminary, then joined a church staff.

In his new position, Mark was responsible for supervising the ministries of others. He quickly discovered that administration was not his gift. "I'm most effective in one-on-one ministry," he says. "Rather than coordinating existing ministries, I'd much rather be bringing new people in. I'd thought joining a church staff would give me more time to do that, but in reality it limited the time I could spend doing what I did best."

Mark resigned his church staff job and became an insurance agent. "Though I didn't realize it when I went into insurance," Mark says, "this is a perfect job for someone like me whose passion is to work with hurting people. Whenever an elderly client loses a spouse, I get a phone call. When any of my clients divorce, they have to come to me to change their insurance papers. Whenever one of them has a car accident, a fire or a serious illness covered by a policy I carry, the client comes to see me. I have lots of opportunities to talk with people in crisis. Most of them don't know Christ, and I can often share the source of my hope with them. Just a few weeks ago, I told my wife, 'I've never before felt God using me in ministry like I have lately.' "

The ministry myth led Mark into a professional ministry position for which he was not gifted. It was only when he saw that God could use him more effectively as a layperson than as a ministry professional that God was able to put Mark's ministry gifts to fullest use.

An unbiblical division

Not at all. The New Testament teaches that God has given every Christian one or more spiritual gifts for ministry. Paul wrote, "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. . . . To each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good" (I Corinthians 12:4,7, NIV). Peter wrote, "Serve one another with whatever gift each of you has received" (I Peter 4:10, NRSV). Though in the Old Testament only a select group of God's people served as priests, in the New Testament church all believers are priests (I Peter 2:5,9).

God does call certain people to lead in the church, and their leadership is critical to the church's effectiveness. But Scripture does not single them out as "the ministers". Rather, it emphasizes the ministry of all believers: "The gifts He gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry" (Ephesians 4:11-12, NRSV, emphasis added). The call of church leaders, then, is not to do the work of ministry so we don't have to, but to equip us to do ministry.

Christ's hands in a broken world

During World War II, a statue of Christ that stood in the centre of a French village was shattered in the fighting. Villagers carefully saved the pieces until the war was over, then rebuilt the statue. Once it had been reassembled, the people found that Christ's hands were missing. They weren't sure what to do. Should they leave the incomplete statue standing, or should they take it down? Only after someone placed a small hand-painted sign at the statue's base were the villagers able to agree that the statue should remain standing. The sign read, "Christ has no hands but ours."

God has called you and me and every other believer to be his ministers. If we don't do it, no one will.

Gary Morsch, a physician in Olathe, Kan., is founder and director of the Center for Lay Ministry. Eddy Hall is a church consultant from Goessel, Kan. This article is adapted from their book The Lay Ministry Revolution: How You Can Join (Baker Books).