Finding Models for Ministry in the Strangest Places

Joan and I finally got to see "My Life in Ruins" and it was a delightful story with beautiful scenery and a message that translates pretty well into ministry: if you are passionate about something, you have to communicate not just knowledge about it but passion for it and for the people you are sharing it with. Of course in the movie, the setting is a tour in Greece (the picture above is actually not Greece but from my trip to Jordan last year). The protagonist is a tour guide played by Nia Vardos (from My Big Fat Greek Wedding) leading a group a hapless tourist through the beautiful sites of Greece. Although she is a professor of ancient cultures with limitless knowledge about Greece, she doesn't connect with the group and consequently the group doesn't care about the historical details that she gives them. ("People don't care what you know until they know that you care.")It isn't until she enters into their hurts and pain and they enter into hers that they start to connect. When she worries less about getting to all the sites and focuses instead on the people entrusted in her care and sharing her genuine passion for Greece, she discovers that she has fun and learns from her new friends in the journey. The movie didn't get very good reviews and it has a few rough spots but it did set out a pretty good model for ministry and Richard Dreyfuss is terrific as a windbag who shares a strange brand of wisdom as he struggles with grief.

Thomas W. Currie in "The Joy of Ministry" wrote a whole book exploring how we can rediscover the joy of ministry even in the midst of pain and struggle. "Here is the joy that the cross has so strangely inserted into our world: the joy of God; the joy of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, whose triune life traces the terms of God's making time and space for us to rejoice in him." Currie is saying that God's own person makes time and space for us so that whatever we encounter in life and death that the triune God is there with us and we are there with each other. Currie says that joy is to be found in the ordinary life of the congregation...and worship is the day of entering into God's joy.

While I am gone, I hope that my friends in faith at Covenant are enjoying each other and the opportunity each week to worship God and to share stories of faith, hope and joy.