There is a hierarchy in the church, though we do not usually mention it. It is not a hierarchy of money (though that sometimes surfaces). It is not of temporal power, though that rears its head as well, in certain places and times.
Edwin LeapPerhaps it is better called an aristocracy. Despite Luther’s assertion about milkmaids serving God as they milk, we assign greater value, and greater honor, to some groups than others.. For better or worse, at the top sits the missionary and just below, the pastor.
I know this because I am the son of a pastor, and have met missionaries. I know this because I have young people of my own, and have seen and heard the hints to them. Children and youth in the church are often nudged, gently and not so gently, into “full-time Christian service.” It is suggested that whatever they may feel called to do, there is nothing higher than being a pastor or overseas missionary.
It is evident when missionaries visit, or when young people declare their intentions to go to seminary. It is evident when a church sends one of its own into ministry or missions. There is adulation and celebration. There is a sense that at least one of them is doing God’s work.
This may seem harsh, but ask yourself this question. If a child comes before the church and says, “I’m planning to be an engineer,” or “I’m hoping to be a reporter,” is there the same sort of thrill? And I mean a child who is a believer, a young person on fire.
Is there excitement about their prospects? Is there a delight that one of our own may be a believing businessman, a successful entrepreneur or a published professor? A God-inspired architect or a holy airline pilot?
The thing is, we seldom commission our young to be soldiers or scientists. We rarely, in the vast evangelical world, have services blessing their careers as academics, or as physicians. We rarely honor them for their future work as young mothers, mechanics or carpenters, though our Master had no degree and worked with his humble, glorious hands in remarkable, eternity shattering ways.
In so doing, we make a huge mistake. We take every work, every form of honest, hard, necessary work, physical or mental, and we reduce it to rubble beside the great monolith we have made of “Christian” callings. Is it any wonder that church members so often leave evangelism and youth work and every other kind of teaching to the pastor? They learned, very early, that their work was less holy, less vital and they did the math. Christian work is for Christian workers.
How much better if we had said, if we now said, “Whatever God calls you to do is your full-time Christian service. You may raise children for the Lord. You may teach the poor and unloved in public school. You may build bridges and roads, cars or aircraft, to convey families safely – and convey the gospel. You may defend the weak, rifle in hand. You may drive a bus and smile at the lonely. You may research the universe and confirm the faith, or introduce it. You may do many things; all of them are blessed by the Father if you do them for his kingdom. Go forth and serve him in whatever you do, and speak of him in whatever mission field you find yourself.”
Just as every army needs cooks, drivers, fuel-handlers, quartermasters, doctors and all the rest in addition to men who pull triggers, the church is no less. The goal is not our own positions of prominence. The goal, fellow soldiers, is to win the war. And we can only do it when we go to that place God calls us, and gifts us, to go.
If God calls us to the mission field, hallelujah! If he calls our children to the pastorate, bless them! But if he calls them to computer repairs, forestry, nursing or pool installation, it is all the same. God will use them, and us, where he will, and we must celebrate that.
Besides, in the end I suspect that we will learn (on that great day) that the greatest soul from our congregation never traveled further than her wheel-chair, nor spoke much more than a groan, but that her prayers were endless artillery in the assault on the gates of hell.
When that happens, we’ll see just how inverted our aristocracy, our “churchistocracy,” really was as we find (to our surprise) that our earthly jobs are no longer necessary in the eternal kingdom – and as we are each given the most important work of our lives: to glorify and enjoy God forever.