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June 9 - June 14, 2022
The Church is a community, not an organisation or an institution; a community of men and women formed by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and his impact in the world, and constantly being transformed by the activity and outpouring of the Holy Spirit.
‘The ministry of the Church is the ministry of Christ.’2 Each person is then called to discover their part in it.
it is not that leadership is not needed in the Christian community, but it will be of a different type and character. It is godly, servant leadership that is required.
‘Receive the cure of souls which is yours and mine’. This, too, is significant. It dramatically signifies that the mission of the Church – the care of the souls of that parish – and it must be noted it is parish, i.e. everyone who lives in that locality, not congregation – is shared by the bishop and the priest who is the bishop’s representative in the parish extending their ministry of oversight, pastoral care and leadership in mission.
A priest’s job is to break open God’s word and to celebrate the sacraments of the New Covenant. Nothing is more basic, nor more important, for one called to priesthood and therefore to servant leadership in the Church of Jesus Christ.
‘With all God’s people they are to tell the story of God’s love … they are to discern and foster the gifts of all God’s people’.11 The priest is not the one who does all the ministry, but the one who ensures all the ministry gets done.
That is why a priest never stops being a deacon, and that priesthood is built upon it.
The Christian vocation is not to be a servant or a shepherd, but a servant and a shepherd,
To be a sentinel is to be someone who watches and prays, someone who stands on a tower and scans the horizon. It is a lonely and often unpopular vocation. It requires great determination and perseverance. It is a prophetic as well as a contemplative task. To be a steward is to be someone who is entrusted with responsibility to look after things, to manage, organise and protect them. The priest is steward of the gospel itself and, even more daunting, of the flock of Christ.
a deacon is a servant, always pointing beyond themselves, and always putting the needs of others first.
Being a deacon is not a stepping stone, but a foundation stone. It is not the apprenticeship year that has to be endured before the real thing – priesthood – starts. It is the foundation upon which everything else is built.
The ones at the centre, the ones upon whom great responsibility will be laid, are the lowliest, the servants. The stoles around their necks are best understood as towels of service.
Another way of expressing this is to say that the deacon is always looking for the Master’s return, and searches him out, especially among the poor, the oppressed and those who are powerless themselves.
To be a shepherd is to be a leader in the Church, but it is also to be a leader who is constantly investing in others.
We lead because we have been called, and because we are striving to live a virtuous Christ-like life, that is itself the verification of our ministry.
‘to be forgiven is only half the gift. The other half is that we also can forgive, restore, and liberate, and therefore we can feel the will of God enacted through us, which is the great restoration of ourselves to ourselves.’
With all God’s people they are to tell the story of God’s love.1
to be a living signpost whose own life directs others to the way of Christ.
Our own lives are the best announcement of the gospel.
Before people can respond to the gospel they have to hear it and understand it and see it demonstrated as a saving reality.
Every church must be a school for disciples.
So, what is a sentinel? The job of a sentinel is to scan the horizon. To look. To discern. To see what is coming. To interpret. To guide. To announce. To warn.
The Christian minister as sentinel is one who watches over and guards the Church, but also one who is under the watchful guardianship of God and is looking as much to God as to the people; indeed, is one who cannot watch out for the people unless looking to God.
Far above any particular skill or expertise, even more important than education or management technique, the most crucial pre-requisite for church leadership is the pastor’s holiness and life in Christ.
Priesthood is not a set of clothes that is put on in the morning and taken off when you go to bed, but a new identity that is, for those God is calling, the fulfilling of the baptismal vocation to be clothed in Christ.
Hospitality, food and drink, the innate democracy of the table where all sit as equals are things which of themselves and in their own quiet way breed reconciliation and healing.
I am volunteer and recruit;
Every sermon that every minister preaches must first be preached to themselves. And if it doesn’t address the cancer in our own soul, and if it doesn’t convert us, and if it doesn’t challenge us to rise up and follow in the path of discipleship, then it won’t heal, convert or challenge anyone else.
‘Find enough time to sleep, find enough time to pray, and then do what you can.’
Love is itself the medicine of the gospel, and the summing up of all that God is, and all that God is doing in Christ.
