At our last clergy day a number of you asked me to spell out more clearly the meaning of the key points of our Diocesan Vision. Therefore, for the next few months I will use this section of the Ad Clerum to address each of the main points of the Vision. These reflections should not be seen as definitive, but rather as an attempt to explain simply and clearly how I understand the main points of the vision. In doing so, I hope that it will help promote alignment around the Vision.

The opening paragraph of our Diocesan Vision, which sets the parameter for the whole of the Vision Statement, speaks of the ministry of all believers. It is significant that in the New Testament the word hierus, the Greek word for 'priest' is used only of Christ, the true priest of the Church, and of the Church itself which, as a body, shares in the priesthood of its head. Jesus is the great high priest (Heb 3:1; 7:26) in whom we, his followers become, as an entirety, a holy nation, a royal priesthood (1Peter 2:9) whose calling is together to declare the wonderful deeds of their Lord. Thus we are all ministers of Christ because we are baptised into Christ and share in Christ's ministry. It is not ordination that makes a priest, but baptism.

In her book, "All Who Minister" Maylane Maybee writes:-

"At baptism . . . we become part of a community that blesses and makes holy the ordinary things of creation through offering and thanksgiving – bread and wine, money and labour, sex and babies, poetry and music, our very selves. We undertake to live in communion with one another, to face and transcend our diversity, to forgive one another, to heal conflicts and resolve differences. Holiness, blessing, reconciliation, forgiveness, the power to offer sacrifice – these are qualities of priesthood, and they are the functions of baptismal ministry."

The ministry of all believers, therefore, is not about doing 'churchy' things, but is about living the incarnation – Christ in our world, in our workplace, in our homes, in the ordinary, everyday things of life, because we are in Christ and Christ is in us. It is about the Christ in us touching the lives of others, transforming the harshness and brokenness of life into moments of sheer grace. The ministry of all believers is the call to each one of us to offer ourselves "as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God" (Rom 12:1) and to "live lives worthy of the calling to which you have been called" (Ephesians 4:1).

This means that the ministry of all believers is exercised far less at church than it is in the world simply because we spend more time in the world. Most of our ministry, therefore, is a ministry of the church scattered (into the world) rather than a ministry of the church gathered. And if that is true, then we should be equipping our people for the task of building God's kingdom in the world.

What I have just said turns upside down much of the way we operate as church. For the reality is that, while the gospel imperative is that we go into the world and make disciples, much of our ministry is based on waiting for disciples to come to us. And where we do draw people in, we generally fail to equip them and send them back out. Listen to the notices in church on a Sunday morning or read the pew leaflet – they speak of an inward looking church where church activity is an end in itself.

Hans Rudi Weber reminds us that . . ."the laity are not helpers of the clergy so that the clergy can do their job, but the clergy are helpers of the whole people of God so that the laity can be the Church." Our task, as clergy, is to equip the people of God to seek and serve Christ in all people. To respect the dignity of every human being, and to strive for justice and peace in all the world. Our task is to activate in those entrusted to our care the true image of Christ that all who meet with them may see the face of Christ and know the love of God.

The Orthodox have a saying that when the Sunday liturgy is over, the weekday liturgy begins. Each week we are dismissed from the altar and sent out into our daily lives to be ambassadors of Christ, to mend what is wrong, to heal the broken and to take God's love to all God's people.

May all God's people truly "Go in peace to love and serve the Lord".

+Brian

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