Pastoral ministry – in leading liturgy, in counseling, in preaching and teaching, in day-to-day encouragements and exhortations, in discipline – can only be accomplished by faith. That is true in several ways.
You have to believe God’s word to dare to do the things ministers are required to do. By what right do you claim to declare absolution, that someone who has sinned against God is forgiven? By what right do you claim the ability to tell humans what God loves and what He hates? By what right do you presume to preside at the table of the Lord – to allow some people to commune and to exclude others, or even to invite people to Another’s table to eat the bread of God?
If these acts are not authorized, then this is blasphemy. Either God gave a gift in the laying on of hands, or pastoral ministry is sheer presumption. To fulfill the shepherd’s calling, you have to believe that you are a gift with authority to give God’s gifts to God’s people.
You need not only to trust God’s authorization, but to trust that He is active in His gifts, as He promised. How can words, a little water, bread and wine, transform individuals and create a community? How can these things put humans into contact with the living God? How can you in all your weakness and sin do the work that God has assigned. You can accomplish this only by trusting that the Spirit acts where He promises to act.
The growth and maturation of the church doesn’t depend on you. You are God’s gift. You plant, water, speak, serve, but God gives the increase. Therefore, do not fear. Trust and shepherd.
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