What I'm Reading...Aug 2007

Today, a challenging thought from Barbara Brown Taylor's insightful and imagination-stirring book, THE PREACHING LIFE...

"But affirming the ministry of every baptized Christian is not an idea that appeals to many lay people today. It sounds like more work, and most of them have all the work they can do. It sounds like more responsibility, while most of them are staggering under loads that are already too heavy. I will never forget the woman who listened to my speech on the ministry of the laity as God's best hope for the world and said, "I'm sorry, but I don't want to be that important.

"Like many of those who sit beside her at church, she hears the invitation to ministry as an invitation to do more—to lead the every-member canvass, or cook supper for the homeless, or teach vacation church school. Or she hears the invitation to ministry as an invitation to be more—to be more generous, more loving, more religious. No one has ever introduced her to the idea that her ministry might involve being just who she already is and doing just what she already does with one difference: namely, that she understand herself to be God's person in and for the world." (p. 28f)