What is Christian Ministry (Third Proposal)?

Christian Ministry as Empowering and Suffering

When Christ speaks of Himself as the Good Shepherd, he does not mean no one could become a shepherd like Him. In fact, that is what God lamented before. He was distressed to see his people not taken cared of by the appointed shepherds – their leaders (rf. Ez. 34: 1-10). And so, God promised that He himself would become the Good Shepherd for his flock as fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Jn. 10).

I think, the measure of the minister’s good shepherding is when the sheep become the shepherds in return. Nouwen’ description on the Christian leaders is passively taken: ability and willingness to be led . Willingness to be led by whom? The active sense is: the sheep leading the shepherd. Probably, Nouwen’s passive description may not catch your attention. But actually, what Nouwen mean is repulsive. What on earth do you mean ‘sheep leading the shepherd’? It is a disgusting insight! Well, that insight is not originally mine. It is just a rephrasing of this author’s words.

If what you understood of ‘sheep leading the shepherd’ is something a sacrifice of power, it is indeed. For the context of ‘sheep leading the shepherd’ is taken from Jesus’ prophey on the martyrdom of Peter (Jn. 21: 18). Christian ministry entails sacrifice. And the minister does this because of love. Christian minister, if he is in the context of community, must listen to his people. He must learn how to minister the people in a way that the people will not depend on him the whole of their lives. If and if they cannot but depend on you for everything, and you do not do anything to remedy, you are not a good minister. For you do not empower them; you overpower them.

For a minister, in my conviction, should not exert power over people when doing ministry, even if he needs to and even if power is at his disposal. Why? It is because, to minister is to suffer within.

We have this paradigm in ministry that as a leader, we have this amount of power to let people obey and do what we deem is good for them. And so we justify by saying that I use this power for good. Nouwen even adds that this justification is the basis for crusades, Inquisition and slavery (p.59). But I go with the author by saying that even for good reason, one must not use his power of domination in doing ministry.

Indeed, this is a very temptation, because while we say that doing ministry is power free, there is so much power in the ministry. It is a great temptation because, you cannot use what you have. And if it is great temptation, to go against this temptation is to suffer greatly. In fact, after Jesus was tempted to power, he was assisted by angels. That could have drained Jesus’ energy in resisting power over ministry.

As in our case, in ministering to people, we always want to be in control. If not, we feel insignificant and useless. And if things do not come according to our expectation, we resort to short cuts; we resort to power. That is very different with Jesus, who ‘emptied himself taking the form of the slave..(Phil. 2: 7)”. Why? Because we perceive that, as ministers, everything depends on us. We thought that the last card is with us. And if we throw the last card, it must be successful. Or else, everything in us crumbles.

But, ministry is precisely to work with persons and not with functions. God was made man in Jesus, and he suffers a lot by doing so. Ministry means persons not functions. The last card is not with us; it is with God. And so, if everything we do in ministry seems meaningless and fruitless, we have to suffer. We have to continue serving, not changing our identity into a king coming to save what seem to be ineffective without using power. And it is a suffering within. Suffering lies in realizing that actually we are just mere servants. What we are doing has no power if God is not with us. And when everything for the Christian ministry is loss, then it is in that moment that everything is gain. It is good to consider how Peter instructed the Christian ministers of his time:

So I exhort the presbyters among you, as a fellow presbyter and witness to the sufferings of Christ and one who has a share in the glory to be revealed. Tend the flock of God in your midst, [overseeing] not by constraint but willingly, as God would have it, not for shameful profit but eagerly. Do not lord it over those assigned to you, but be examples to the flock. And when the chief Shepherd is revealed, you will receive the unfading crown of glory (1 Pet. 5: 1-4).

The one and only best consolation for all those Christian ministers is that after all, everything we do in the name of Jesus is not irrelevant. God finds it the most relevant.