“We preach the gospel daily and sometimes we use words.” This is an expression repeated frequently at Yonge Street Mission where I minister. No matter what his or her position, each YSM staff person is expected to be a model of gospel living. The assumption is that we are all called to minister in various ways and God has or will provide us with the training and insight to fulfill our roles with excellence. We are a priesthood of believers. According to our CEO, Rick Tobias, we are the church of the future.
In this setting, to ask whether a theological understanding of church as the “priesthood of all believers” is superior to a comprehension of church as “clergy set aside as special to ‘equip the saints,'” is to ask the wrong question. In my experience and opinion, it is not either/or, but rather both/and. That is why some at YSM are ordained clergy. For if you expect all God’s people to be ministering in the world every day, you have to have teaching elders involved in educating and equipping them to ensure they are adequately and appropriately prepared to minister to God’s beloved.
Jesus taught his disciples to go out into the community to provide healing and hope. Likewise, ordained clergy and elders play the critical role of equipping the whole people of God. For it falls to them to offer people working in the secular world a biblical framework within which to evaluate their motivations, actions and decisions.
Unfortunately, sometimes elements within churches work against this integration. In some, the perspective that the world outside the church is evil and to be guarded against, has led individuals to bifurcate their experience. They accept the necessity of working in the corrupt world, guarding themselves against its influence and relying upon church activities to provide a social life to keep them from being contaminated. In other churches, individuals hand over their freedom to question to clergy leaders and don’t explore their faith in any depth. Rather, they maintain a rudimentary theology that bears no connection to the adult world in which they operate.
In reality, today’s Christians are wiser, better educated, more empowered and capable of making intelligent, theological decisions. They are competent to view their daily reality through a theological lens and to make sense of their work-a-day world through their faith in Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus’ disciples continued to work in the world as fishermen and tax collectors while they spread the gospel, so too Christians of today are exhilarated by the opportunities they have to bring together their faith and their praxis. Longing to fulfill the mandate laid out for them in James’ epistle, they want to integrate their faith and their works.
The emphasis on education in the Reformed tradition serves this model of ministry well, for people want and need to know their Bible and theology well if they are to take their faith into the marketplace in a meaningful way. Whether they take courses themselves, as lay people, or whether they engage in conversation with their teaching elder in an effort to expand their knowledge and understanding, deep learning about their faith is a critical element in the development of a fully equipped ‘priesthood of all believers.’
Fortunately, within the Presbyterian Church, there is a growing acknowledgment that God’s will and work goes on in the world and is performed by ordinary people. At Flemingdon Gateway Mission, Evangel Hall Mission, Boarding Homes Ministry and other such organizations, Christians minister daily to people who are marginalized and oppressed. They do this by providing food, conversation, education, prayer and a wide variety of other supports. Similarly, but perhaps not so evidently, in board rooms, the marketplace, hospitals, educational facilities and on assembly lines, Christians also minister to people who are experiencing challenges and struggles.
Wherever they work, play, or find themselves, Christians have an opportunity and a responsibility to be the face of Christ to, and to see Christ’s face in, those whom they meet. It is only when they are empowered and encouraged to see ministry as their life’s calling as the priesthood of all believers that they will truly grow in their faith.
