Unity in Ministry

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit…But God has so composed the body…that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 
If one member suffers, all suffer together; 

if one member is honored, all rejoice together.” 

1 Corinthians 12:12-13, 24-26

I have been thinking a bit lately on ministry. As I am finishing up my last quarter of my ministry degree, I have been spending a lot of time thinking about what my ministry has looked like, what it does look like, and what it will look like. As Joe and I have been discussing our individual calls to ministry, we have been learning what our corporate call to ministry may be and would be. As I examine my relationship with the Lord, I am reminded of what ministry is and how its ultimate goal is to spread Him. Spread His love, spread His Gospel, spread His justice, spread Him.

I have felt a call to ministry since I was little. But the biggest thing that keeps on coming back to me as I examine and explore that call happens to be the most uncontrollable, unpredictable, and often the most nerve-wracking factor: people. Now as I have grown and sought the Lord, He has revealed to me that my call involves relationships with people. Yet the thing that scares me the most about ministry is people. How does one reconcile that! The body of Christ is so large, and the amount of people on this earth is so much larger. There are millions who have not heard the gospel, and yet there are millions who have and still disagree. There are people within the church who battle constantly over differences of belief, and there are many within the church who show distain or sometimes hatred for people supposedly within the same body as them. How do you deal with this? How do you deal with a church body that may not meld like we wish, that may not work together like we wish, or that purely just does not like one another? How do you deal with root issues like jealousy, envy, hurt, anger, bitterness, lack of forgiveness?  What I came to realize that scared me the most was the unpredictability and vast amount of differences that came with the body of Christ, the body of ministry, and how utterly unequipped I felt to deal with that.

So, what do you do with the body of Christ?

The body of Christ is exactly that: a body. Hearing this passage growing up, I always thought that it meant that everyone has different roles. One Is a teacher, one is an accountant, one is an underwater basket-weaver, etc. Which it does. But recently, I have come to understand it in a different light.

One of the biggest root issues I have found that hinders unity within the church is the issue of jealousy. I was reading a leadership book the other day for a class I am taking, and one of the authors mentioned that he had a love/hate relationship with leadership conferences. Often, there were very good things to learn at these conferences in how to lead his church in a more Christ-like way. But at the same time, he always left feeling inadequate and comparing his ministry to the ministry of others.  He would see the benefits of another’s style of ministry, and began to envy that.  Being a musician and a worship leader, I have felt often the same way. I have played on many teams and lead many teams throughout my time in music. However, I am a musician. I study music. I write music. I love music. I believe that God reveals certain aspects of himself through music that cannot be experienced through words. So I am constantly on the lookout for ways to enhance the worship experience through music. Many times though this means that I participate in worship under another team and I begin to analyze and compare their musical ability, their song selection, their transitions, and then hold it up against the team that I happened to be a part of at that time. This turns into either arrogance because I felt better than them, or jealousy because I envied their abilities. And often, if I did not deal with this jealousy, it began to turn to dislike for that person. How stupid!

It is through these simple issues that bitterness or dislike begins to form. I have seen it, witnessed it, experienced it, and received it in many ways. You know, that high-schooler who just really knows how to communicate with kids, that worship leader who is extremely talented in his guitar skills, that church deaconess who makes the best pies ever, that children’s pastor who is highly creative and creates the best Sunday school lessons, the pastor who is highly effective with his words and almost always seems to have a “convert” every time he preaches, the greeter who always seems to have a smile on her face, the college leader who does well with managing people and being a leader, etc. I could go on and on.

What I have found is that the most effective way to break up the ministry and body of Christ is to break up his body, literally. To divide and separate the members of a body so that there is no longer a unified people but rather a group of green monsters.

At the same time though, how does one deal with the fact that some people just do not get along? That some worship teams are just better than others? That some people have the gift of teaching Sunday school and others do not? That some are gifted in hospitality, and others are gifted in service? We are created differently. We have different talents. We have different characters. We are different.

I guess what I have come to realize is this: We are all made in the image of God, and He uses us all. But sometimes He uses us in different ways. We are all parts. We all have pros and cons, things we are good at and things we aren’t so great at. But we are all working to honor and glorify the same God, and He loves each of us as much as the other. He uses me for His glory just as much as He uses the other Sunday school teacher. He uses my worship team just as much as He uses the other worship teams, because we are all working at leading our congregations into worship of Him. We are a part of the same team. We are working towards the same goal. We were created by the same God for the same purpose: His glory. I have found that when I start to view others as a part of my team rather than my competition, I gained a new understanding of the body of Christ. There are people I do not get along with and that is ok, we are both still working for the glory of Christ. When I see my brothers and sisters in this light, I begin to see them in a grateful light as opposed to a jealous one. I am grateful for the opportunity to serve alongside them for the glory of our Father. I am grateful for the opportunity to observe their ministry and learn from it, but to have my own as well. I am grateful for the opportunities for ministry that God has given me to be a part of. So my question for you is this: what is your “body part” and how are you working alongside other parts to further His kingdom?