who helps who?

As with many of my books, I started my journey between these covers over a year ago, but became bogged down due to the author's "big" language (not an easy read). Some pages have more footnotes than text.

However, the title and message of the book are of special interest to me and now that I've begun a sermon series on work it is timely to begin "working" my way through this volume. The big point appears to me to be that the clergy/laity distinction is not Biblical. That the whole people of God are called and ordained to minister for God.

Today, the following quote from this book impressed me. "Rather than having the church assist them to do the work of ministry, leaders are assistants to the rest of the body to empower them for their service in church and world."

You may feel like yawning and saying, "that's what I believe already". But, do we really? If beliefs are the underpinnings of our actions, do our actions and church structures reveal beliefs that truly see all members of the church as the "real" ministers?

Would anything about our modern "church" life look any different if we really believed this idea?
If so, how might it look different?

Should we be supporting the ordained, or ordaining the ordinary?

work-it's dignity

What does this mean? What is work? What's its value? Why do we spend the majority of our waking ours engaged in this practice?

I'm "working" (no pun intended) on a sermon series on work. I give much credit to this effort to a fellow colleague in pastoral ministry, Ryan Bell, who has prepared an insightful series of sermons on work that have "scratched part of an itch" in my thinking about life in our world and how spirituality integrates with it.

This week the focus is going to be on Genesis 1 and 2 and the respective 2 Creation stories and what they teach us about work.

Story #1. God creates humanity in His image as His crowning work and blesses us with the responsibility to be co-rulers with Him in the care of God's good creation.

Story #2 God partially creates the world, but then pauses to create humanity because He "needs" (or wants) help to continue His good work.

In the one story humanity is portrayed as an image of God called to do God's work of ruling.
In the other story humanity is portrayed as a product (by God's power) of the same stuff as the rest of creation-dirt. Then we are called to till (or serve) our fellow creation by which we are surrounded. We are called to be co-creators.

Now, what is an important part of "creation" in our world today?
Social systems.
Agricultural production and care
Material production.
Service industries.
Family care.
Procreation.
Environmental care.
Spiritual guidance.
Politics
Art
Music
Anything that creates and highlights beauty
ETC!
I'm simply grasping to think about all the aspects of our world that "make the world go round" in a positive way.

The ultimate point I'm trying to get to is that much of human work is really a dignified Godly calling because it's participating in what He's created us to do. It's what He does.

This isn't to brush aside the fact that much human work is extremely undignified. But it's highlighting the idea that following God's call and blessing can be an integral part of what takes up the lion's share of our lives.
What if we truly viewed work this way?
How might this cause us to live our ordinary lives?