The Difference in “Being Sent”
There’s a difference between “being called” and “being sent!”
And it’s important to know what that difference is!
Biblically speaking, God’s call is not to “go” somewhere—it’s to “be” someone by God’s grace. He calls us first to himself so that he might send us to others.
And as lay persons in the church, we are to be sent into ministry.
And because of our “credentials” in Christ—being called by God and being sent by the Church—we have ambassadorial status from God. I doubt that business leader, Peter Drucker was thinking about lay ministry when he wrote this accurate sentence, but it applies to the Church: “The purpose of a team is to make the strengths of each person effective and his or her weaknesses irrelevant.”
Everyone is needed to do lay ministry with the giftedness God has given each one of us!
Something Much Greater Than Ourselves
Ministry never occurs in isolation. It happens when we join our brothers and sisters in Christ, in a mission to the world!
We minister as members of something much greater than ourselves. When the early church sent a person on a ministry, he or she went with the support of all who were part of the Church.
In his prayer in John 17, Jesus says that he had been sent by God the Father into the world. In a similar way, Jesus sent his followers into ministry. Jesus said to the Father in John 17:18: “I sent them into the world, just as you sent me into the world.”
Being sent into ministry means being called, gifted, and trained laypersons on a divine mission, with a specific task. And as we do this task, we function as representatives of the sending party, the Church!
The Majority Choice
What would you say in answer to the question: Whose job is it to do ministry in the church?
I’ll give you three choices:
1/It’s the pastors job.
2/It’s the pastors job, but he just can’t do it all; he’s so over-extended, so we all help him do the job.
3/It’s a shared ministry.
Which one would you choose?
The majority choice is most often #2. And if that’s your understanding of your lay calling in the church, that has to change if we’re to be effective in what God is calling us to do.
You are not “just” a lay person. That undermines your value to the cause of Christ. And frankly, it allows you to be passive—to be uninvolved in Christ’s mission through the church!
Meeting Every Need
Make no mistake—everybody has been given at least one gift that God wants used! What is yours? Or should the question be—are you using it?
God’s plan isn’t for every individual to meet every kind of need.
God plans that all of us working together can meet every need.
Here’s the good news: God has placed within the Body of Christ all the spiritual gifts needed to minister to the many needs within the local church and in the world around it.
Two facts are clear: everybody is gifted to accomplish some ministry. And conversely, thousands of Christians are idle because they’ve never been shown all the possible opportunities.
Let’s begin to share these realities over and over with the people of God until everyone joins—in a ministry through which God’s power and love can flow to heal a hurting world.
A Holy Community
Imagine what could happen if lay people in the church really understood who they are in Jesus Christ?
In his book, The Body, Chuck Colson wrote: “The first Christians worshiped God and lived as a holy community, confirming their character to the demands of Christ rather than Caesar. They didn’t purpose to turn the first-century world upside down. They did so because of who they were.”
That will only happen when pastors are willing to move over, when lay people are willing to move up, and all God’s people together move out!
As part of the laity, you are called to minister. We have to get over the idea that ministry is just for “ministers”—that God’s call is for a select few. The truth is—the Bible renounces that myth with this empowering truth: If you are a Christian, you are called to minister!” Period!
A Royal Priesthood Serving the King of Kings
If you are “in Christ,” you are called into ministry—regardless of how that might strike you in hearing it!
God can do extraordinary things with ordinary believers.
Taking otherwise broken lives and doing something through them that is inexplicable, because everyone is called into the ministry.
In 1st Peter 2:4 and 5, the apostle writes: “And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.”
Amazing titles—“living stones,” “a holy priesthood!”
So what would happen if believers in every church came to understand these titles are for them? A royal priesthood serving the King of Kings!
