Transforming Speech
W. Carl Ketcherside
Words may be either servants or masters. If the former they may safely guide us in the way of truth. If the latter they intoxicate the brain and lead into swamps of thought where there is no solid footing. Among the sources of those innumerable calamities which from age to age have overwhelmed mankind, may be reckoned as one of the principal the abuse of words. - Thomas Hartwell Horne
It was Sir Winston Churchill who came up with the famous quip that the inhabitants of Great Britain and the United States were one people separated only by a common language. I learned how true that was when I first went to Great Britain. Up to that time I had always assumed that I spoke English, but after I heard the English brethren speak I knew that one of us did not. Since they were on home territory I gave them the benefit of the doubt.
We form our vocabulary by our thinking and we also form our thinking by our vocabulary. It is true that "as a man thinketh in his heart so is he," but it is equally true that "as a man speaketh so will he become." Most of us are unwitting victims of our speech habits and some of us are unwilling to be, but we have been bound by the skeins of custom and tradition until we are as helpless as Gulliver when wound up in the threads of the Lilliputians.
Let me say that I have yet to meet very many brethren who do not pay lipservice at least to the priesthood of all believers, and the ministry of all saints. When I bear down on that them publicly, and I generally manage to squeeze it in somehow, the preachers who are present nod assent as fervently as they ignore what I say when I leave town.
I am convinced that most of us know we have been maneuvered around by the Enemy until we are trapped into perpetuating a system which is not scriptural, but we feel we must hang on to it or see all of "our gains" washed down the drain. I think the average man hired to be "the minister" of a congregation of God's priests would be tickled pink if the elders told him they were going to put him on the program to take his turn at edifying the saints about once every three months, while other brethren spoke on the other Sundays. There is little danger of that happening in a lot of places because the followers of "the minister" would desert the place like flies when someone gets the Flit gun out. If the preacher didn't speak there wouldn't be anything to complain about while eating the pork roast and browned potatoes.
All of us pay lipservice to the priesthood of all believers but the thought that we should practice it has somehow escaped us in the shuffle until it is as remote as trying to fly to heaven without wings. There is no greater waste of talent on earth today than is found in the average community of believers. If a business concern or manufacturing plant carried on like we do it would have to file for bankruptcy in less than six months. If the physical body never exercised any member but the mouth it would become flabby, futile and frustrated. We've got a big team but no one ever carries the ball but the coach. The rest of us stay in the huddle. When "the board" meets in a lot of places it is to plan more work for an overworked preacher and even then the meeting breaks up in a verbal fight. If the members spent as much energy in visiting the sick and going about doing good as they do in squabbling we could take the world for Jesus. There is no energy shortage in the talk field.
We have not restored the primitive ideal of a community able to edify itself without importing a professional edifier. We have let out the job of building us up in the most holy faith to a building contractor. Instead of having an equipping ministry we have developed quipping entertainers. And the congregation grows larger in number and weaker in ability. We do not seem to distinguish between flab and muscle, and we think that the bigger we get the more righteous we are. The biggest man I ever saw was in a carnival sideshow, but he was so helpless he couldn't even walk. They had to swing him over into a truck with a derrick. People came to see him but he did not do anything.
It is not at all certain that the devil cares how many we take in provided they act like many of those already there. They do not fight him any harder now that they are in the army of the Lord than they did while still on his team. Salvation in Christ Jesus and sanctification of the Spirit mean a great deal more than getting people to walk the aisle and be baptized so that their names may be added to the church roster. Being in the church no more guarantees that you are a Christian than being in a potato patch assures you are a potato.
Of course, one could sit here like I am doing and complain about his brethren until after dark, but it would do little good. So I want to suggest some changes in our spiritual vocabulary which will help us to more nearly do what we timidly affirm we would like to do. If you cannot agree with what I write, praise the Lord anyhow! I will not get uptight because you do not see it like I do. But I'll never die happy without writing it and I am sure you want me to die--happy, that is!
1. We need to quit talking about people "entering the ministry" when we mean taking up preaching as a profession, or means of livelihood, or both. Any service we render for Jesus is ministry. The brother who mows the lawn at the meetinghouse is a minister. A mother who takes care of her children and rears them in the fear of the Lord is a minister. The sisters who meet and make quilts for the home for the aged are ministers of God.
We enter the ministry when we are baptized by the Spirit into Christ, and if we do not, there is something seriously wrong. The word minister is merely another word for servant, and just as a soldier enters the service the day he is inducted, so we enter the service of the King the day we pledge allegiance to Him.
2. We need to quit talking about people volunteering for "full time service" when we are referring to them accepting a special assignment. This makes it appear that the saints who do not march up and stand in front at "the altar call" are not full time servants. But God has no shift workers and no part-time workers. Anyone who is in Jesus is in him day and night, body and soul. The very act of having Christians come up and volunteer for "full-time service" creates the impression that those who do not are not obligated completely. But just as a soldier who enlists is a full-time soldier, so every Christian who has enlisted is a full-time soldier. You do not turn Jesus off like you do the gas burner or the faucet in the kitchen sink.
3. We need to quit talking about people "leaving the ministry" when they get tired of trying to find sermon outlines for Sunday and go into the real estate business or start teaching biology in high school. A man who sells real estate is God's minister in the real estate firm. If he is not he probably would not be God's minister in the pulpit either. One who teaches languages in a public school is as much God's minister as one who preaches on Sunday.
Every Christian is a minister, every child of God is a priest. All of us claim to believe that, but if you think we do, let someone change his card from reading John Doe, Minister; to make it read John Doe, Priest, and see what the elders do to him. But why not? If you can take one word that applies to all of the saints and appropriate it for your embossed calling card, why not take another one? But a person who quits preaching as his job may not "leave the ministry" at all. He may exchange one field of ministry where he feels inept for another where he can function with greater latitude and success. You only leave the ministry if you leave Jesus. I know some men who are preaching and who would be Grade A automobile mechanics. Why should they continue to stay in the pulpit where everyone is gritting his teeth at them when they could repair automobiles for the brethren and win their smiles, whether they had teeth or not?
One need not quit working in a factory to "become a minister." Paul was as much a minister of Christ when he was sewing tents or riding a plank in the ocean after a shipwreck, as when he was standing on Mars' Hill telling the Athenians about the God who made heaven and earth and all things that are in them. Luke was as much God's minister while prescribing for patients, as when traveling with Paul. Zenas was God's minister while practicing law. We have been trapped into thinking that ministry consists of making talks in a holy place, a dedicated structure, a temple made with hands, but that may not really be fulfilling our real vocation.
Elton Trueblood hit the nail on the head, and hit some of us in the same place, when he pointed out that it was a neat device for people to hire someone to be their minister, thus relieving all of the ordinary members of ministerial responsibilities. He adds, " But this way lies death," and then he tells why. You ought to read it in that engrossing book, The Incendiary Fellowship.
4. We need to quit making a big furor over those who propose to prepare for certain kinds of ministry to the exclusion of those who expect to pursue other avenues of service. It may take more intestinal fortitude to teach a third grade in a ghetto school in the inner-city in America than to hie off to some place in Africa as a missionary. Let me explain further. I know a congregation which takes particular pride in the number of preachers it has started out, through the years. And it had phenomenal success. This is the constant emphasis and pressures are brought to bear on young people in high school to make plans to "prepare for the ministry." They are urged to keep alive the tradition and "not let the church down." In almost every meeting where visitors are present someone proudly mentions the number of men who have "entered the ministry."
Every year a dinner is held to "honor recruits" and high school graduates who have enlisted for "full-time service" are seated at the head table with their parents and grandparents at a special table nearby. Each recruit is presented an expensive Bible after being lauded for his decision. But no one mentions those high school students who have resolved to devote their lives to teaching history, majoring in sociology, or serving as research technicians in the field of space exploration. Yet if these latter live for Jesus and witness to his impact upon their lives they may do as much to change the hearts of men as those who are granted acclaim.
There is nothing wrong with having a dinner for those who are going to minister for Jesus, but it should be held for all of them, and not for a special caste. The one who presides might well say, "Tonight we have met to honor four young people who are graduating from high school and want to pursue the ministry in which they enlisted at the time of their baptism in Christ Jesus. One expects to be God's minister in proclaiming the Word on campus, another in operating a Shell service station, still another in coaching athletics, while another will be driving his father's garbage disposal truck." Granted this may not enhance "the image" of the church, but the last will certainly improve the state of the community. And it has been my experience that those who carve out an image, always end up bowing before it and worshipping it.
I know you think I threw that "garbage truck" bit in for kicks, but I did not. I want to tell you a story of using a garbage truck as a pulpit from which to share the good news. It did not have a sign on it "Gospel Chariot" like you see on some "church buses" running around town on Sunday. But it was a gospel chariot just the same.
One of the most interesting men I have ever met firmly believes that God has called every Christian to share the good news. He never "studied to be a preacher" and I doubt that he even finished high school. If you were out shooting preachers (and I hope you are not), he would be the last one you'd fire at, and you might not aim at him at all. He doesn't look like a preacher and he doesn't act like one. About the only thing he has in common with preachers is that he eats a lot. But I confess that I have learned things from him that no "clergyman" ever taught me. He has a heart of gold but his courage is solid brass. He is one of the best psychologists I have ever seen.
He started three congregations by just going door to door in as many areas, and talking to people with such genuine warmth and concern that he won their confidence and started home Bible studies all over the place. Every time he baptized thirty or forty and they were going real good someone would move up from Georgia or Alabama and want to bring in a preacher from down home to "set the place on fire." All three places were successfully bombed and embalmed by "down home preachers" who got everyone into a bit fracas and then headed back to the promised land that flowed with grits and red-eye gravy.
A lesser man would have become discouraged, but this man was too simple for that. He knew he was called to be faithful, not successful, so he just kept on and left the final account with God. He developed a real burden upon his heart for a resort area where many came to spend the entire summer, leaving Jesus at home, if indeed they ever knew him. He resolved to plant the cause in the area with God's help, so he sat down and talked over the strategy of conquest with his wife, a motherly soul who never placed an obstacle in his path. He agreed that he should get into some kind of work which would enable him to visit every house regularly and where the people would like to see him come and even welcome.
While he and his wife were praying a thought struck him like a coconut dropping from a palm tree. Everyone welcomed the garbage man. The longer he stayed away the more anxious they were to see him. If he missed them they would call him up to see what was the matter. So he bought a garbage truck from a city firm which was glad to sell an old one. He had some notices printed soliciting business. On the back of the cards were the words, "Jesus will be asked to be my partner in this business as he has been in all else I have done. I shall try to treat you as I think he would want me to."
He got all of the business he could handle and people came out to talk to him about his card. Then he had a small folder printed, very neatly done with the words on the front page reading, "I can clean up the mess in your driveway but only Jesus can clean up the mess in our hearts." In less than six months seventeen people were gathering every Sunday in his living room to break bread in memory of Jesus. If you had a hundred garbage-men like this in a state you'd start a hundred new congregations and no one would be bugged by a financial drive to get them going.
Since we are all priests let's start acting like priests. This doesn't mean to turn your collar around but it does mean to reverse your thinking. Look around you. Study the congregation and community. What needs are there? How can you best serve those needs? What can you do that will count for God? Let's straighten up our vocabulary and straighten our lives. Let us quit saying, "There he is Lord, send him!" and start saying, like Isaiah, "Here am I Lord, send me!"
Kokichi Kurosaki, in his book One Body in Christ, points out, "Man is a creation of God and God does not create like a factory, by mass production." You are a minister of God, but you are a unique minister of God, and thus, your ministry will be unique. If you do not carry it out no one else can.
