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The Ministry of the Ordained pt. 2

© Susan Padezanin

Within the ranks of Christians who share in ministry, there are persons who are ordained to a lifetime of ministry of Service, Word, Sacrament, and Order. What is the ministry to which candidates for the Order of Elder in the Church are ordained or for which they are set apart? It is described as a ministry of Service, Word, Sacrament and Order.

The ministry of Service means that elders are still to practice the deacon-like qualities of love, help, and care to those around them. What is the ministry of the Word? This is the ministry concerned with teaching and preaching the Word of God. So preaching and teaching stand as primary functions of the ordained minister. The subject of this preaching and teaching is to be the Word of God. While the phrase the Word of God is often popularly identified with the Bible, we should note that the two are not synonymous.

The ministry of Sacrament, as its name implies, involves the authorization to administer the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. This function is one that clearly casts the elder in the sacerdotal role of priest, the keeper of the holy of holies. Finally, to be ordained to the ministry of Order is to be authorized to equip the laity for ministry, exercise pastoral oversight and administer the discipline of the Church. The reemphasis here on the concept of ministry; one of the ordained minister’s primary tasks is to prepare and equip the lay Christian to engage in ministry. The ministry of Order also includes exercising exercising pastoral oversight; elders must not become so involved with equipping the laity for ministry that they forget to minister to the people under their care.

The ministry of Order lays upon the elder the necessity to administer the discipline of the Church. Sometimes elders resent this last requirement, as its seems to put them in the place of representing the heavy hand of the institution. But most elders, when they count up the high privileges that have been affected to them by the institution, are happy and proud to administer its discipline; they recognize that is not something handed down by the hierarchy, but something that has been hammered out by the delegates elected by them to the General Conference and it represents the best thinking of hundreds of dedicated laypersons and clergy of the Church.

The last requirement of the ministry of Order, then, makes two things clear; that ordination as elder is not only to the high and holy and priestly tasks, but also to the mundane and that no person should seek ordination who is not willing in some sense to be an institutional person. This is intended to mean only that he or she has some measure of belief and trust and confidence in the ordaining authority.

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