These reflections on the church and clergy are drawn from my new book, A Company of Pastors, that will be released in the fall from Amazon and also available on my Web site www.smccutchan.com
These questions and thoughts are part of a two year plan for clergy to make use of stories as a vehicle to discuss issues of ministry while building bonds of friendship with other clergy.
ACCEPTANCE OF THE UNQUALIFIED
How do you respond to theologian Shirley Guthrie’s statement about the church in his book, Christian Doctrine?
“The church is the only ‘club’ in the world that accepts as members only those who are not qualified to belong to it!” ( p. 357)
If you are reading this blog by yourself, quickly write your response on some scratch paper.
If you accept that statement, name two or three ways that it affects your ministry? How does it affect your expectations of members and your view of how to approach your ministry?
As you reflect on what is happening in our churches today, how do you respond to my statement from the book, A Company of Pastors:
“God is neither dependent on our purity nor defeated by the acts of faithlessness of clergy or congregation. Ministry is a complex mosaic of strengths and weaknesses in a confusing and sin-filled world.”
Continue to write your first thoughts on some scratch paper. Writing your thoughts out help them to develop and capture them for later reflection.
Identify three examples from Scripture where God chose to work through imperfect people or groups.
Why do you think God chooses to work through imperfect people, churches, and clergy?
THE MIRACLE OF THE CHURCH
In light of your own experience, how do you react to the author’s statement:
“Ministers are strong and weak, faithful and faithless, as are the members of their congregations. Yet each week clergy gather with their congregation to hear the Scriptures, sing the songs, and pray the prayers that remind them that there is more to life than meets the eye. When we are honest in our confession of sins, we discover that our hope rests in a power beyond ourselves, and there is reason for hope. The miracle of the church is not in our faithfulness but in God’s faithfulness. We are witnesses to how our confused reality keeps being interrupted by grace.”
ENGAGING THE CONGREGATION IN MINISTRY
If your congregation accepted that statement as true, how do you think it would affect their support of your ministry?
What are ways that you might engage your congregation in reflecting on that statement?
AUTHOR’S REFLECTIONS
I keep wondering how our false expectations of perfection affect our ability to work together in the church. We keep using an image of a church that never was as a measure of the failure of the church that is. Since God knew from the beginning the nature of humanity, hasn’t that image of perfection become an idol that we worship rather than worship the God who knew our nature from the beginning and yet chose us for ministry.
