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 The vision for this venture is something akin to an
upside-down church. Much of the thinking behind this site and its
sister eLearning site www.equipforministry.org
comes out of debate in the church in recent decades,
trying to affirm every-member ministry, the priesthood of all
believers, the ministry of the whole people of God and other expressions of the same concept. It has also
been stimulated by reading and study about cell church. There
are legitimate questions about whether or not a North American or South Korean cell
church model can work without adaptation in other cultures. But the concept of a church where
all the central life of the church - people, plant, activity - exists to
resource the people of God to live Christianly in the world has very much
to commend it. This is somewhat different to models of church in which the laity are
involved in the central life of the church by being licensed to preach, or
to assist with the pastoral work.
This does not mean that no activity should happen in the
centre, or that the church should not gather. A balanced church will
have the right mix of up
- in - out activity (‘up’ in worship, ‘in’ in nurture and
building a caring community, ‘out’ in social responsibility and
evangelism). But all is targeted on seeing God's kingdom come, day by day,
both in the church and in the world. As the priest said to dismiss
the congregation at the end of the service we attended in
France recently, “Bonne semaine” (have a good week).
This is saying nothing more than the key verse of
scripture 1 Peter 2:9: you are a ... royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God's own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him
who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.
The ‘priesthood of all believers’ is, of course, much written
about. So much so that one hardly needs to make a theological case
for all baptised Christians to be viewed as ministers. Yet if
the report Called to New Life prepared for the Board of
Education of the Church of England 5 is anything to go by, we are a
tragically long way from all believers even feeling entitled to minister
God's grace. Perhaps, along with the growing amount of books and
educational resource material that is appearing, this web site may have a
small part to play in every Christian knowing that they are 'called to the
ministry', and equipped to serve that calling.
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