Who is the God Who Calls
Monday, November 20, 2023
12:11 PM
Ministry begins with sender. 
God the Almighty possesses all authority and power. 
 God the Creator shares responsibility for sustaining creation with all persons who accept this invitation through work.  
Ministry takes its place alongside all professions as forms of Co-nurturing creation.  
Ministry excellence like all excellence celebrates the God.  
God of Covenant has demonstrated on-going involvement with persons and concerns for human communities where people can thrive.  
The first question and most persistent question I have asked congregations in the Southwest Region to answer is, "Who is the Jesus people encounter when 
they encounter your church?"  The second question that follows is, "What does it look like when a person starts to be Christ's Disciple?"  These questions are rooted in my conviction that a church is first and foremost a community of faith and that the person at the center of that faith needs to be identified, experienced, and expressed.  To apply a similar rubric to ordination, we might ask, who is the God who calls persons into ordained ministry?  The opening question of a Disciples of Christ covenant of ordination is, "Do you believe that you are truly called by God and the Church to the life and work of ministry in the name of Jesus Christ?" A similar question is asked in the examination of the ordinand from the Book of Common Prayer.  The Bishop asks, "Do you believe that you are truly called by God and God's church to this priesthood?" In the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America an ordinand is asked, "Before almighty God, to whom you must give account, and in the presence of this assembly, I ask:  Will you assume this office, believing that the church's call is God's call to the ministry of word and sacrament?"  In the AME-Zion service of ordination, the ordinand is asked, "Do you trust that you are inwardly moved by the Holy Spirit to take up the Office of the Ministry in the Church of Christ, to serve God for the promoting of His Glory and the edifying of His people?"  The Reformed Church in America's standard ordination service includes the question, "Do you believe in your heart that you are called by Christ’s church, and therefore by God, to this ministry of Word and sacrament?"  Churches consistently make this question of being called by God a central question for ordination. 
-->All Power and Authority belong to God.  
 God the creator shares the work of sustaining creation with humanity.  All professions derive their truest sense of meaning through acceptance of this shared responsibility for God's creation.  In the creation narrative of scripture, God assigned the work of tending the garden to humanity (Genesis 2:15).   Creation involves God's on-going care and concern for the world and the people God has made. The doctrine of creation, though, re-minds us that to each us has been as-signed a portion of creation over which we assert authority. Though God is sovereign God grants us the responsibility to make homes, build hospitals, grow crops and teach children. The doctrine of creation would recognize the ways in which our secular jobs can be understood within the sovereignty God holds over creation.
Dorothy Sayer said, "It is the business of religion to make us Christian people, and then our work will naturally be turned to Christian ends, because our work is the expression of ourselves. 