Early on in my seminary career, I was asked by a committee charged with my nurture as a fledgling pastor-wannabe about my role models for ministry. “Who,” the committee asked, “did I consider to be an example to follow?” “Who was my role model for ministry?”
I guess it was a reasonable question, but I stumbled over my answer. I tried to get away with simply pointing to Jesus. Hey—what better role model could there be? The committee wanted an answer with flesh and bone, though, and pressed me for another response. I finally stammered out three names: Pastor Rusty at my home church, because he was a good preacher—he really knew how to tell a story; Pastor Deborah at my home church, because she was a great listener who radiated compassion; and Rev. Ed at the homeless ministry downtown, because he cared and he wasn’t afraid to challenge people in the churches to remember people on the edge. Each of these people had a gift for doing ministry that I admired.
I still admire their gifts, but I’ve had a few years to think about it, and I’ve become more familiar with Ephesians 4:11-12. “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” Now I would give a different answer. My role model for ministry (aside from Jesus, of course) is a woman named Yela (not “yellow”, “Y-E-L-A, Yela”).
I knew Yela when I was in college. She was a 5’ 5” powerhouse, full of explosive energy. She always had a twinkle in her eye and an infectious smile on her face. She was smart, she was funny, she was kind. Yela was my volleyball coach my freshman and sophomore years.
I’m going to use volleyball as a metaphor quite a bit, so let me say a few words for those of you who may not be familiar with the game. You don’t need to know a lot about volleyball to follow the metaphor, but a little knowledge may help.
In volleyball, two teams of six players each face each other on opposite sides of a tall net. Like tennis, the idea is to keep the ball in play on your side of the net and force the other team to fail to keep the ball in play on their side. Unlike tennis, each team can use up to three touches to return the ball. Each of the six players has a specialized role, but they also cover for each other as need arises. It is nearly impossible for one player, no matter how spectacular, to take over a volleyball game the way a point guard or a center can take over a basketball game.
To be honest with you, we were not a very good volleyball team by conventional standards. We didn’t win many matches. Our school, in general, was not exactly known for its athletic prowess. (Ours was the only football team ever to be included in the Guiness Book of World Records because the players’ average IQ exceeded their average weight.) My freshman year, only two people on the whole team had even played volleyball in high school. Most of my teammates had never played any sport competitively.
Yela, by contrast, was a gifted volleyball player with years of high-level competitive experience. Her gifts for playing volleyball are not the reason she is my role model for ministry, though. Her gifts for coaching volleyball are.
Yela could have taken one look at this rag-tag bunch of young women—backpacks heavy with math and science books, clueless that there even was such a thing as shoes specially designed for volleyball—and thrown up her arms in defeat. She could have gathered us for a few hours every afternoon and let us bat the ball around a bit. She could have sat back at matches and just watched us get creamed. But she didn’t.
Yela didn’t look at us and see what we could not do. Yela looked at us and saw what someday we might be able to do.
My high school coach gave me an opportunity to play the setter position one day in practice, quickly concluded that I had no talent whatsoever, and encouraged me to stick with underhand passing. The first week of practice my freshman year, Yela observed my stiff fingers, poor hand position, awkward use of my knees, and named me starting setter. It was not my latent potential that guided that decision. It was the team’s desperate need for a second setter. I loved the idea and I was willing to learn, so it was a good match.
Ann was an accomplished athlete, but new to volleyball. Ann probably could have been taught any position, but she was our best bet for a decent middle blocker, so that’s what Yela taught her. Yela recognized the talent and experience Ann brought and taught her how to transfer them to this game. Ann took to the instruction with confidence and gained proficiency quickly. Ann also put the needs of the team ahead of her own desires. She would have seen more offensive action as an outside blocker and hitter, but she focused her energy on excelling in the middle because that was where she was most needed.
Eliza had never played sports before—ever. She was so small-boned and thin that she looked as if any strong wind might blow her away. The first time she attempted to serve a volleyball—underhand—the impact was so soft that there was no sound and the ball bounced before it got to the net. Yela saw a future ace. You never heard so much whooping and hollering as there was from everybody on the team the first time Eliza successfully served the ball, overhand, over the net—shortly before the season ended. By the next season, Eliza had such a soft, yet powerful, touch that opposing teams were left scrambling for serves that floated over the net like butterflies, turning this way and that before fluttering down just out of reach.
Julie was five feet tall, almost. No volleyball experience. Tenacious as a terrier. Yela turned her into a defensive specialist. It wasn’t long before no ball hit the floor anywhere near Julie.
Sue was the other person on the team who had played in high school. Not only did she have experience, she also had skill. Another coach might have been tempted to encourage Sue to try to take over the court. Yela taught Sue to be a teacher and an encourager, to use her skills to make the rest of us better. Sue accepted the assignment to be a teammate and not a star.
I could go on. But remarkable as Yela’s work with individual players was, her work with the team as a whole was even more remarkable.
We may never have become the most skilled team around, but we did become a team. We learned where to be on the court relative to one another in every situation. More importantly, we learned each others’ strengths and weaknesses. None of us was all that great, but we covered for each other’s weaknesses and we played to one another’s strengths. In time, we functioned far better as a team than could possibly be explained by our individual skills. Sometimes we defeated opposing teams of life-long athletes. But even when we lost a match, we lost well.
As individuals and as a team, Yela never let us dwell on the disappointment and frustration of what we could not do. Instead, she saw potential that we could not see and encouraged us relentlessly to move toward that potential. Under her coaching, we developed skills that we never knew we had. Under her coaching, we constantly improved, in our individual skills and in our ability to play as a team.
That’s why Yela is my role model for ministry—not because of her gifts for volleyball, but because of her ability to bring out the gifts in others.
It isn’t the pastor’s job to do the tasks of ministry. Though certain tasks may fall primarily to the pastor, it is the pastor’s job to equip God’s people for ministry—“to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”
Last week, we installed a new class of elders and deacons, and ordained two men into service as elder for the first time. Though certain tasks fall primarily to elders and to deacons, it is not their job to do the work of the church. It is their job to equip God’s people for ministry.
Which brings me to verse 7 of Ephesians 4. “To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”
If Christ brought you to Calvary, then Christ has given you a special grace to serve in a way that is needed at Calvary.
You might have all sorts of unique talents. The special grace Christ has given you for service at Calvary may be among those talents—or it may be something completely different.
You might think you have a particular gift for doing ministry, but no grace for leadership. That may be true. Or it may be that Christ intends to use you as a teacher and an encourager, to leverage your gift to bring out the best in others.
You might think you have no special talent at all. You would be wrong.
If Christ brought you to Calvary, then Christ has given you a special grace to serve in a way that is needed at Calvary.
You have a specialized role to play that no one else can fill. There isn’t a superstar available who is ready to take over so that all the rest of us need to do is feed him the ball.
You have a specialized role to play that no one else can fill. Your brothers and sisters will learn to cover for your weaknesses and play to your strengths, but you can’t hide in the corner of the court and hope the ball doesn’t come your way.
You may think, or maybe even hope, that your role is not all that essential. But your role is essential, because the effectiveness of the most visible ministries at Calvary are completely dependent on the effectiveness of the most invisible ministries.
In volleyball, it is usually the hitter who gets all the glory, for it is the hitters who score most of the points. But the best hitter around can do nothing if the defense behind her doesn’t keep the ball off the floor.
In the church, the teachers and preachers and leaders are the most visible. But the best teachers and preachers and leaders can do nothing if the communion elements are not provided at the right time and the mailings don’t go out and the bulletin boards are out-of-date and the heater breaks down and the bathrooms don’t have toilet paper and visitors aren’t made welcome and prayer doesn’t undergird it all.
You have a specialized role to play that no one else can fill. If Christ brought you to Calvary, then Christ has given you a special grace to serve in a way that is needed at Calvary, so that the body of Christ may be built up.
Which brings me to verse 7 of Ephesians 4 again. “To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.”
Three inferences can be drawn from this promise. The first is that if Christ brought you to Calvary, then Christ has given you a special grace to serve in a way that is needed at Calvary, so that the body of Christ may be built up.
The second is that if there is a particular ministry for which Christ has not provided a corresponding grace within our congregation, then it is not a necessary ministry, at least not now.
This one can be hard to accept sometimes. It’s easy to become so attached to ministries that once filled a vital and effective purpose that we in the church begin to think that we need to keep doing those ministries forever. The time can come that, long after there is no one left who has any passion or grace for a particular ministry, that ministry continues on the backs of those who feel duty-bound to make it happen.
To each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned it.
I believe it is safe to trust that if Christ does not raise up someone with the passion and grace to carry on a ministry, then that ministry is not essential.
For example, Frona has announced in recent weeks that several months remain unfilled on the sign-up sheet for setting up the refreshments for fellowship after Sunday worship. Some of you may hear this as blasphemy, but let me make the following suggestion. If there is a month in which no one is led to sign up, then there is a month in which refreshments at fellowship time are not essential to our ministry as a church.
Of course, some discretion is required. For example, we have to have a treasurer. It is not an optional position of service and ministry within the congregation. So far, Christ has always raised up a person and graced him or her for this ministry. I trust that Christ will continue to do so.
If there is a particular ministry for which Christ has not provided a corresponding grace within our congregation, then it is not a necessary ministry, at least not now.
The third inference is like unto the second. If Christ raises up a person within our congregation and graces him with the passion and gifts for a particular ministry, then there is a good chance that Christ is calling this congregation to that ministry.
Of course, discretion is required here too. One of the tasks assigned to the elders is to discern the direction and timing of Christ’s leading. Though one person receives a special grace, the timing may not yet be right for the congregation to pursue that new ministry.
I trust, however, that we would do better as Christ’s people in this place to err on the side of turning people loose to serve as God leads them, rather than putting up roadblocks. I trust that we who are in leadership would do better to err on the side of equipping and encouraging people to serve as God leads them, rather than stubbornly clinging to what we have always done before.
I trust, too, that I am not telling you anything that you do not already know. Calvary is as open to trying new things as any congregation I have ever come across. That, too, is a special grace from Christ.
Do have a special grace that you think there is no place for here? Don’t keep your light under a bushel. Speak up. Do you have a special grace for graphic arts or dance or evangelism or youth or organization or research or something else?
I trust that Christ did not err in giving you that special grace.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
