Tuesday 5 May 2009

Why new converts shouldn't be in upfront ministry

If that title doesn't start controversy and get me flamed i don't know what will.
This whole topic came around through 2 things. a conversation I had with one of the Ministers at church and blog posts on the resurgence.
For some background, on Sunday I was bible reading at church, and had a discussion with the minister preaching about what translation i should read from. I normally read from the ESV but at church we read from the NIV, both great translations. Through the course of the conversation we discussed how new Christians are often shoved into ministry, and often this ministry is Bible reading.
I think this is a sad reflection on how we view certain parts of our communal worship culturally. We put lots of emphasis and practice into our music, but other things (except sermons, which preachers put large amounts of energy into) are often shoved to the side. In reality, the Bible reading and prayer are possibly the most important parts of our time together.
The Bible reading is when the word of God is opened up, and God speaks directly to us, through his word. Likewise prayer is in my view the second most important part, because that is where we, communally speak back to God.
Secondly it is essential that all parts of our services and time together follow scripture as closely as possible, and in that we must view the bible reader as a leader. After all they are reading God's word out to us, and therefore the guidelines for leadership set out in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 must be followed.

While I have stated that I don't think new converts shouldn't be in upfront ministry this doesn't mean that i think they shouldn't be in ministry at all. I think that there are ministries within the church where new converts are essential. I'll write more about this soon.

ja

(Note the list above was taken from the passages listed, however links to passages are from theResurgence.com article on worship pastors by Barry Keldie)

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