Saint Luke's Lutheran Church

As you might expect, I have been thinking about staff a lot lately. Within the past month we have said, "Farewell," to three staff members here at St. Luke's, and we have installed a new Director of Music Ministries. This is the first time that we have had full time music director. Today is another first. Today we install Tim and Annie Reynolds as our missionaries in Cameroon, where Tim will teach at the Lutheran School of Biblical and Theological Training. We are doing this because St. Luke's recently became a Missionary Covenant congregation, pledging $5,000.00 a year to support Tim and Annie as ELCA missionaries to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Cameroon.

Mission work today is much different than it was when the first Lutheran missionaries came to Cameroon 80 years ago. It is different because the world is different, as illustrated by a story I once heard. (This isn't a true story but it makes the point.) A group of missionaries were traveling through a jungle which was home to several tribes of cannibals. Suddenly they found themselves surrounded by very hostile looking natives armed with spears and knives. Afraid for their lives, they all froze - not knowing what to do. Then one of the missionaries remembered the butane lighter he had in his pocket. Pulling it out, he held it right in front of the chief and struck the flint. As the lighter burst into flame, the natives all stepped back in amazement. "It's a miracle, it's a miracle," the chief declared. "A lighter that lights on the first strike!"

Western missionaries no longer arrive in foreign countries with amazing technology that the people there have never seen before. Nor do they arrive with a message that the people there have never heard before. When Adolph Gunderson, the first missionary to Cameroon, arrived in 1923, he worked as a parish pastor - preaching sermons on Sundays, baptizing new converts, and establishing local congregations. Today indigenous pastors are doing these things. And they are better able to do these things, because they know the culture, and the people are more open to one of their own. So today, foreign missionaries are much more likely to be teaching at seminaries helping to train indigenous pastors and evangelists, or working as doctors and nurses in church related hospitals, or even teaching farmers how to build ponds and raise fish.

I hope you are as delighted as I am that St. Luke's is going to have such a missionary as part of our staff. Thinking about staff brings me back to our reading from Ephesians 4. Here Paul says that Christ "has given some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers." This is a list of staff positions in the early church: apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. The titles may be different today, but the roles are the same.

Therefore, it is useful for us to consider what Paul has to say about these staff positions. The first thing to note here is that these staff members are called and appointed by Christ himself. When God needs a pastor, God does not ask for volunteers. When God needs a missionary, God does not ask for volunteers. When God needs a teacher, God does not ask for volunteers. No, God calls women and men to fill these positions. Being a pastor or teacher or missionary is not something that you can choose to do yourself. It is not so much a job as it is a vocation. It is not so much a career as it is a calling. It is not just a way to make a living; it is a way of life.

This has always been the way it works. When Jesus gathered his first disciples, he did not ask for volunteers either. Walking along the shores of Galilee, Jesus saw Andrew and Peter, James and John fishing on the Sea of Galilee, and he said, "Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men." When he found Matthew sitting at his desk in the tax collector's office, he said, "Follow me." They heard the call and the responded. Tim and Annie have also heard that call. Now, Tim told me that he resisted the call at first, but it is not easy to say "No" to God - and it is not a very good idea. Once you have been called, you really don't have much choice but to serve.

The second thing to note here is that those whom God calls, God also equips. God never calls anyone to a task without providing the gifts that are needed to accomplish that task. Sandy and I ate dinner with Tim and Annie last night, and I can tell you that I am confident God has given them the gifts they need to be missionaries in Cameroon. I do know, however, that when God gives gifts for the work of ministry, they are seldom fully developed. More often than not, they are talents and skills that need to be developed and honed through training and discipline. Tim spent four years at the Seminary training to become a pastor and teacher. He and Annie spent the last year in France learning the language he will use to teach at the seminary in Cameroon. As you well know, your education is not complete. You will learn more as a teacher than you ever learned as a student, and that process of growing in your faith and in your understanding will continue for as long as you live and serve.

This passage from Ephesians invites us to think not just about the missionary staff that we install today, but about the ministry staff that is already here at St. Luke's. I suspect that there is as much confusion about the role of ministry staff in local congregations as there is about missionaries serving in a foreign country. Reflect for a moment on what you expect of the ministry staff in this congregation. What do you expect of us pastors? What do you expect of the Director of Music Ministries or the Director of Youth and Family?

Paul suggests that our role here is much the same as Tim's role will be at the seminary in Cameroon. Tim will not be preaching and teaching the people of Cameroon directly, but he will be training pastors and evangelists to preach and to teach. Paul says in Ephesians that pastors and teachers are to equip the saints for the work of ministry. Did you hear that? It is not the staff's responsibility to do the work of ministry, but to equip the saints, that is the members of the church, to do the work of ministry. It is your responsibility to do the work of ministry; it is our responsibility to equip you to do that work.

Now, when you hear this, some of you may be feeling a little like Billy did his first day in first grade. At lunchtime, he got his things together and went to stand by the door. His teacher said, "Billy, what are you doing?" "I'm all ready to go home," he said. "But, Billy, this is first grade, not kindergarten," she replied. "In first grade, we don't go home in the middle of the day. We stay until 3:00." Billy looked at her in disbelief, then put his hands on his hips and said, "Who the heck signed me up for this?"

And that's the point. Billy did not volunteer for first grade, and you did not volunteer for the ministry. Like Tim and Annie, you have a calling. That's what Paul means in 4:1 when he says, "I urge you (you - that's the Christians in Ephesus; and that's the people of St. Luke's) . . . I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received." That's why in the bulletin when it lists the ministers of this congregation, it says, "All members." It doesn't say "volunteers" - it says "ministers." When you teach Sunday School or Christian Life Club or Catechism, when you serve as one of our many Sunday servants, when you sit on the Council or a committee, when you work at Degage or Leonard Terrace or Habitat, when you help out in the office, when you do a servant event, you are not serving as a volunteer, you are serving as a minister. That means that you have a ministry - you have a vocation - you have a responsibility. And you are accountable for how you do your ministry - not to me, not to someone else in this congregation, but to the one who called you. You are responsible to the one who gave you life and who gave his life for you on the cross.

If you are sitting here today saying to yourself that you do not feel God calling you into any kind ministry, then (let me say this as clearly as I can) you are not listening. Every baptized Christian, every disciple of Jesus Christ is called into some ministry. If you do feel God calling you into ministry, then you need to answer that call and take up that ministry. And don't worry about whether you are capable or not. God does not call anyone to a task without providing the gifts that are need to accomplish that task. The God who has called you into the ministry will also gift you for that ministry.

So as we install Tim and Annie as part of our staff, called to be missionaries serving in Cameroon, may you also recognize your call to be a minister of Christ Jesus serving in Grand Rapids. And with Paul, I urge you, I beg you, to live a life worthy of that calling you have received. Amen.