God has prepared good works for us to do in advance, works that he is counting on us to do, that will remain undone if we fail to do them. And one of the principle places he wants us to serve in our church family: we call it ministry.
In this Sunday’s Second Reading St. Paul writes:
Whoever is in Christ is a new creation; the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come. All of this is from God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation.
–2 Corinthians 5:18
We are made new in Christ. God has reconciled us to himself through the Cross. On the Cross he is the suffering servant described in Isaiah. When we serve we are acting like Christ, and becoming more like him. God gives us the ministry of reconciliation. What does that mean?
God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting our trespasses against us but entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.
–2 Corinthians 5:19
As Christ followers God entrusts to us his message of reconciliation. A message that gets communicated effectively through ministry. The ministry of reconciliation means that our service is a deliberate reflection of Christ’s service on the Cross.
It means because we have been redeemed and come to know the truth of our redemption we have a job to do here, in our church family so that others can come to know that truth too.
To keep it simple we have only 5 ministries in which all our member ministers serve: Children’s, Students, Hospitality, Member Care and Operations.
Obviously we could hardly do even a small portion of what we do here without our member ministers. They are the very lifeblood of the parish. But it is not just about accomplishing tasks. All our ministries, parking ministers, greeters, the host team, ops, tech ministers, kids and student ministers, café, member care, and so many others, are all about the ministry of reconciliation.
This weekend is our annual ministry sign up. Our goal is every member a minister….every member from 5th grade up a minister.
Honestly, we’re not quite there yet…but maybe you can help us get there.
Sign up to serve @ churchnativity.com/ministry to learn more about our Ministry Programs contact our Ministry Leaders: tgiordano@churchnativity.com or bmacksey@churchnativity.com
