What does a 'real' one look like?

Having only recently become a ‘real’ minister I have one definite concern about my future ministry. One of the common responses that I get from people that I meet and subsequently discover that I am a church minister, is, ‘Gee, you don’t look like a minister!’ I hope that I never do look like the minister that they have in mind.

Now, firstly, I want to know what a minister looks like. Is it that fumbling fool personified by Rowan Atkinson or perhaps the witty and irreverent Rev Geraldine in the Vicar of Dibley? If I had to choose between the two, Geraldine wins easily.

I have a hunch that we have a growing number of people in our congregation who might get a similar response to the one that I receive from time to time. My bet is that when they mention in company that they enjoy being a part of our church, people will look at them somewhat shocked and say ‘You mean, that you’re a Christian and you enjoy church?’

Perhaps a key thing about evangelism for us today is changing people’s assumptions. People have set ideas about church stuff and our role is to change that thinking. We are either seen to be stuffy, judgemental (or perhaps simply mental?), happy clappy or after people’s money. Whatever the assumption, an overriding thought is that we are basically an irrelevant part of today’s society.

One of the cornerstones of our faith group is that we are generally a bunch of people who enjoy a party! When I think of the church and food I think of terrific tomato and / or egg sandwiches. Go to any older well established church and my bet is that at any function you will get these sandwiches on white bread of course. We don’t do tomato sandwiches!! That’s why people were thrilled with afternoon tea at our Ordination Service – no sangers!

Jesus did food quite a bit. We find him at a wedding or a dinner with various people. He did lunch with Zacchaeus once and made a banquet out of a few loaves and fish. When it came time for his death he had dinner with his mates and then left that meal as a memorial for us all.

In Genesis we find that in the middle of the garden was planted the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Now, it appears that these trees ‘were pleasing to the eye and good for food.’ If we go from the first book of the Bible to the last, we find that in Revelation 2:7 the tree of life is still there providing nourishment for the believer. Food seems to be an important part of God’s plan.

The key to our sharing of food together is all about who else do we share it with? Wherever and whenever possible we must be sure that most of what we do overlaps with the lives of others. If we just party in isolation we may be guilty of perpetuating the myth that the church has nothing to say or do with ‘normal’ people.

You see when people say that they don’t like a minister or a Christian, maybe they have never really seen one before and this is our opportunity to plant a better and more realistic image?

Cheers - John