Ministry is a Practice
Prepared message given as part of Three Rivers worship on Zoom, 14 May 2026.
One of the first things that I think is important to acknowledge in terms of what we see here is that there's a naming of ministry as all three kinds of things. Service within the meeting, accompaniment of others, alongside them as they're doing ministry and public witness. Beyond the meeting all of these things can be thought of his ministry, not just one.
And we're gonna spend some time in the coming weeks diving more deeply into those things. What does service within the meeting mean? What does accompaniment mean? What does public witness mean? But for today, I think it's important to just say, these are all kinds of ministry and I wanna lift up particularly the work of accompaniment that is walking along some.
Aside someone or kinda traveling with them. A practice that historically is sometimes referred to as eldering, that is a kind of ministry in its own right and it is important for the spiritual health of our meeting that we have people accompanying as well, stewarding that kind of ministry. When we talk about wanting to support ministry, it isn't just vocal ministry and speaking and meeting for worship that we're talking about.
So that raises the question what are we talking about? And the, the document suggests that ministry is this, this is a definition offered: ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and spiritual gifts. Because there's so much packed into that sentence. Pretty much what I'm going to do for the rest of our time in this message is just walk through each of those words and look around and see what's in there.
So we'll start.
The practice
Ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and spiritual gifts. That suggests that ministry is not a static title that you achieve or some permanent state of being. It is an ongoing thing, a practice. When we use the word practice, we mean more than just a habit, right?
Practices are actually the seed beds of our imagination. The repeated, embodied actions that shape what we as a community believe is possible, desirable and real. The texts reminds us that ministry isn't defined by a specific class of actions. It's a comment on the kind of attention and intention put into it.
A practice is deeply situational. It involves our bodies, our shared spaces, our virtual spaces, and our physical ones, and our relationships. And adapting to the moments we find ourselves in. A practice implies repetition, yes, but also experimentation and a willingness to learn and change.
By practicing ministry, we aren't just expressing what we already believe, we're actively building a shared world together, figuring out how to serve and normalizing the fact that we won't always do it perfectly. We are a forgiving audience. So ministry is a practice because it's never truly finished. It requires our continuous participation, our willingness to try, and our commitment to keep showing up for one another.
By treating ministry as a practice, we give ourselves the grace to learn as we go. Trusting that our repeated efforts are what slowly cultivate the ground for God's work among us. Ministry isn't a title or role thing so much as it is a way of being with each other and being with God, and so that leads to what's next.
We have to talk about intentionality. Ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and spiritual gifts. Intention seems to be important. That isn't to say that sometimes amazing things don't happen and are good and are blessings to us all. They do, but it seems different than when intention is a part of it.
When I think about this, I often think about when a baby coos loudly in a meeting for worship and seems happy and makes a noise of contentment. It might please everyone and we all might take some joy and comfort from it, but it does seem different than something offered with intention and preparation. That isn't to devalue the baby's noise. They're part of our community too. But something changes when we know that someone has been carrying something with them a long time intentionally. Whether it's speaking and waiting worship, serving on a committee, or setting up chairs for a dinner church, actions become ministry when done prayerfully with attention and intention.
Intention transforms what could be an everyday activity into an experience of spiritual refreshment and growth. When we're intentional about preparing for worship, for example, we don't just come here to recharge or to find a quiet space. Sometimes we might need that and sometimes that is fine and good. Absolutely. And other times. Our regular practices of prayer, of devotional reading or spiritual friendship done outside of meeting, prepare us for the times we're together. Why do we want to keep those spaces intentional? Why would we want to prepare? Why would we be so intentional about getting ourselves ready for worship?
So that our time together can be one of sharing abundance and harvest rather than a place for everyone to come and plug in and charge up. Doing a good thing is good and doing a good thing with forethought and intention that it will be of service to the community and to others, and to the common good, and to God, is part of what makes that doing look more like ministry.
That brings us to....
Stewarding
ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and gifts. The ministry document notes that the word stewarding has a lot of meaning packed into it. I think that's true. Stewarding is this active tender work of caring for something precious. The text offers a much longer kind of unpacked version of the word.
What does it mean to steward leadings and spiritual gifts? It means nurturing and exercising these gifts and ordering your life. So that this attention, nurture and exercise take increasing priority and yield a sense of meaningfulness and joy. Stewarding means that we take responsibility for what has been given to us, cultivating a space where vulnerability and risk are possible so that growth can happen.
It's also important to recognize the difference between simply having a gift and stewarding one. If we just had it, it might be a latent capacity. It might be something I possess or that you possess, but stewarding on the other hand, is an active relationship with that gift. It means understanding that the gifts we carry are not permanent possessions to be hoarded. They're not us, but they're resources entrusted to us for a time all things can be for a season, especially a life in the spirit.
For me, for more than a decade, I stewarded a gift of vocal ministry in waiting worship. My meetings united with that sense of gift. I had a travel minute and I went all over the place of North America trying to faithfully exercise that gift.
But several years back, that gift seems to have been rescinded. And now I rarely, if ever, speak in meeting for worship without having something prepared like this because I'm no longer led and able to speak spontaneously from the spirit. And so I don't. The season of my stewardship of that gift of vocal ministry done spontaneously has ended.
It was hard to see it go -- hard to feel like something wasn't wrong or that I had somehow done something to turn it off -- but I've taken comfort in remembering that gift wasn't mine. I was stewarding it for a time. I hope I did well by it. And now there are other things to tend to. So whether a season of stewardship lasts for a decade or a day, the invitation is to always hold it lightly and faithfully.
And how do we know what it is that we're being asked to steward in any given season? How do we recognize what to pick up and what to lay down? That brings us to the next piece.
Leadings
Ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and spiritual gifts. So what exactly is it? We're stewarding First, we're stewarding leadings.
The text among other things, describes leadings as a nudge from God. A leading is a pull towards faithful action. These nudges can be really different, I think, for different people, and where a nudge leads depends on the different gifts that are being stewarded, the passions that the person has and the vision of the person receiving it.
Within our tradition, our leading is often considered a conviction or a sense of direction that we experience is coming from Spirit. It's the bridge between our own inward spiritual lives and the outward expression in community. And it's important, I think, to distinguish that a leading is different than just a personal inclination, a sudden burst of ambition, or a clever idea that we've reasoned out intellectually.
Sometimes it's easy to confuse genuine divine guidance with our own human ego or self will, especially when we want to do good things. And because of that, friends have long recognized the importance of testing these leadings, these nudges. That's partly why discernment is so important.
While leading is often first experienced individually, we don't hold them in isolation. We're accountable to each other when we grapple with a leading. It's a Quaker practice to bring it to others. For corporate discernment, we might request a clearness committee, a small group of friends who will practice deep prayerful listening and ask clarifying questions to help us explore the truth of the leading. We also might do this informally at first. But however it happens, if a leading continues to grow and is affirmed by the meeting, it may mature into a concern that the entire community adopts and supports.
The purpose of a leading, I think, is never just about our own personal growth or enlightenment. It's a call to faithful obedience that draws us back over and over to enact ethical and social and spiritual change in the world. So the leading is our direction. It's our goal. We're called to something. Well, what's the engine? Where is the flow of the current of life coming from for this whole ministry thing? Well, that's spiritual gift. Ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and spiritual gifts. Scripture is a guide again here from 1 Corinthians 12, 4-8. Paul says, now there are a variety of gifts, but the same spirit and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the spirit for the common good. Notice the word manifestation in there. In the language of the New Testament, that word means taking something that was hidden and making it visible, bringing it out into the open. It's the tangible evidence of the invisible spirit at work.
Now that can radically broaden what counts as ministry. A friend's pastor or a person speaking a message is exercising a gift. Sure, but so is the person organizing a protest, teaching children serving to organize things, providing pastoral care, or making sure the meetings bills are paid. I love the metaphor that this manifestation of the spirit is like breath on a cold mirror, right? The Greek is the same here. You can imagine this, the mirror is you and then the gift comes visible on it, right? God breathes God's breath and it gets foggy. And we could say, "oh, the mirror is fog." But the mirror didn't make the fog. The fog came from someone. It's a manifestation of the someone, but we identify it with the mirror. Same word in Greek. The gift didn't come from the mirror. It came from my breath. The gift didn't come from me, it came from God. It came from the breath of God on me. That's why we talk about stewarding gifts, rather than owning them.
The gift is real. It is in you or on you, but it's not you. It's not yours. It's God's life moving through you for the sake of us all. When we hold our gifts this way, there is less need for jealousy and shame. We don't have to compete with what we haven't been given, and we don't need to hide what we have. We simply tend to the breath on the mirror, tend to the gifts we steward and trust that it's for the common good of us all.
At Three Rivers, we believe that at every moment there is the possibility that God may call any of us into service. And because these gifts emerge in community and ultimately are for the community and the public good beyond the edges of our meeting, we cannot steward our gifts in isolation. We need each other to notice them, to name them, to call them forward, and to invite other people into the exercise of those gifts for the common good.
So as we prepare to explore in the weeks to come, ministry within ministry alongside and ministry beyond in the coming weeks, I invite you to sit with this definition today. If ministry is the practice of intentionally stewarding leadings and spiritual gifts, what does that mean for you? Put two queries in the chat to bring into small group.
As always, you're invited to sit with them or anything else that emerges for you first.
Broadly, how does this understanding of ministry sit with you? Does there seem to be any life in it? Is there anything else in it?
And second of all, more specifically:
What season of its stewardship are you currently in? Is this a time of active cultivation or a time to let the field life fallow? What is the spirit inviting you to gently pick up and what is it time to lay down?
