Midnight Mini-rant on Ministry

Hamo’s latest post stirred up my thoughts again about how we view ministry. I always appreciate his humility and transparency.  His description of his former role as “minister” in comparison to the relational way that he and his wife now minister reminded me of the series of 5 or 6 posts we did here awhile back, starting with the post What Is Ministry?

Bob’s post this week of a letter concerning women in leadership has been like a small burr under my saddle. I typed and deleted a few comments on the post and eventually gave up. According to the letter, the women are serving within the church in relational areas of ministry. However, the men in power are wringing their hands over whether these women should be “restricted from participating in the highest level of leadership.”

“Faithful to scripture”, “honor the work of the Spirit”, blah, blah, blah.

Yes, it looks like a gender issue. But in a way, it is so much more. Our church structures often produce really stupid ways of relating to one another and totally twisted ideas about what ministry is.