I spent Tuesday morning with a couple pastor friends of mine: Nathan from Good Shepherd and Mark from Sanctuary. After a year of working to plant a new ELCA church in Marshfield, Mark has been worshiping in one of his member's homes now for just over two months. I mentioned our blog and that we had read Ephesians 2 that day. Mark has been preaching on Ephesians 4 since his first worship service.
He made a confession that grabbed me. Based on this verse, "Christ gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ."
Paul seems to have two objectives for us:
1. Be unified
2. Grow up
Like myself, Mark said that he did not have the gift of pastoring. He is much more of a visionary prophet. The problem is that shepherds make people feel comfortable, while visionary prophets make people uncomfortable. I have a friend Dave, a rapper also known as Agape, who says that his ministry is to "afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted and teach about God's grace".
We all have our gifts. They are all important to kingdom building. Even those of visionary prophets. What would the church be without us? =)
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