|
Saturday 20th September
@ Durham Cathedral
A welcome addition to
our Reader team in
St. Gabriel's church in the licensing of
Lilian Clark |
We
are not commissioning you to ministry; that happened at your baptism.
We are not commissioning you to be a caring person; you are already called
to that.
We are not commissioning you to serve the church in activities,
committees, organizations; that is already implied in your membership.
We are not commissioning you to become involved in social issues, ecology,
race, politics, revolutions; for that is laid upon every Christian.
We are commissioning you to something smaller and less spectacular: to
read and interpret those sacred stories of our community, so that they
speak a word to people today; to remember and practise those rituals and
rites of meaning that in their poetry address people at level where change
operates; to foster in community, through word and prayer, that encounter
with truth which will set men and women free to minister as the body of
Christ.
God grant you grace not to betray your ministry but to uphold it, not to
deny but to affirm it, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
(Adapted from a prayer of the Methodist Church
in Singapore) |