This is a case for public ministry. There are lots of cases out there (feel free to share one in the comments), and in some cases what happened in my story may never happen. But this is a case for public ministry. And by "public ministry" in this post I mean for the minister to conduct work in public places; to be seen. I know there are other definitions for the term but here it is about how our work engages the wider community.
And the point is simple - ministry belongs in the wider community. It's good to be in the office sometimes too. It's good when churches are open, accessible, and when people come in looking for help someone is there to help them. But it's also good to be out. It feels safer in our office where we control the environment, but that is also quite a "come" mentality when Jesus gives us a "go" commission. We belong in our mission fields. More than that, it asks a lot of a person to come in some respects. It's not easy to ask for help or seek spiritual guidance. It's harder to have to travel somewhere because now the person has to make the full initiative. How easy is it to put off going to the doctor, the dentist, getting a therapist, or calling your parents for help? It's hard to make that extra step. But once we are with the doctor, dentist, therapist, parent, or pastor there is far less standing in our way of saying what is wrong.
Public ministry enables us to be accessible to people who may for a variety of reasons be in need of spiritual support. By going out into the public sphere, we are already engaging the world. This is especially true when we are in some manner identifiable as pastors. It may be a clerical collar, it may be the bible you carry around everywhere, it may be that you meet for a religious purpose in a public square (like Bible study at the coffee shop), it may be that you are in a small town and everybody knows you are a pastor. Whatever the reason, when people know we are spiritual leaders and they are in spiritual need, public presence helps create the opportunity for them to be brave enough to seek spiritual help.
Here is a story I offer as an example. I'm part of a gathering of pastors that regularly takes place in a restaurant. We meet, eat, study the Bible, discuss theology, engage with community leaders and more. The group is a wonderful expression of ecumenical unity and has allowed for various means of cross-denominational fruitful ministry outcomes. It helps various communities of faith know what else is going on/troubling other communities of faith. It also keeps all of us pastors in the public sphere, especially with the staff who wait on us each week.
This Sunday our reading from Acts includes the story of the spread of the church to Macedonia with the start of the church in Phillipi. They journey there in part following a dream where a Macedonian cried out for them. The last two weeks our readings from Acts included Peter happening to be near Joppa when Tabitha dies allowing him to come quickly to help her and Peter telling how his time in Joppa led him to a new group of people who were not currently counted among the church - the Gentiles and the home of Cornelius. The early church did much of its mission by happening to be somewhere or going to places where people are hurting and crying out. The church today must also be seen, it's ministers also need to be available to those crying out.
On one occasion, one of those staff members at that restaurant lost someone in her personal life. I learned this because she happened to ask me to keep her family in prayer, which led to us talking a bit about what was going on that needed prayer. It turned out the individual who passed away was actually someone we had on our prayer list for several weeks in our church. It was a moment where the people we pray for (even when we do not know them but pray for them at the request of a member) intersects with the lives we know in our wider world. It reminds us why those prayers matter. And in that moment I was not a customer, I was a pastor. So I offered to do more than keep her family in prayer, I offered to do so with her there in that restaurant. We waited for a moment where there would be no work distractions, and we took a brief time of prayer together.
Had I not been there, perhaps she would have made her way into mine or another pastor's office seeking prayer. Perhaps not. What I do know is she knew she had someone who would pray and she asked for prayer. If you ever wonder why I or other pastors spend time out and about or what we accomplish I wanted to share with you one brief tale about how we make a difference by being in our community. It didn't grow my church nor do I expect that it totally changed her life. The moment itself didn't even last long. It wasn't why I was there in the first place. But it happened, and such happenings are holy in that they set something and some time apart to turn to the God who was already there.
We can share good news in the community by more means than going door to door asking if you've heard about Jesus, or holding signs and yelling into microphones in protest. Those forms generally don't turn hearts anyways. But rather, when simply by doing our religious business in proximity to people who need it, we give room for the Spirit to work. I should be clear, this can easily go beyond pastors too. Such public ministry can happen in an office between two co-workers. My point is that I and other pastors spend time being seen, and known, and trusted in part so that when crisis, guilt, questions, or just plain ol' opportunity arises in the lives of people around us, they know the church is there for them. They don't need to drive to its office and come in, but could run into its ministry in their everyday, hungry spiritual lives. The truth is, this is how God is; not just boxed into our beautiful temples but walking through the city streets and country fields. We don't come to God, God comes to us. Heck, God went so far as to take on flesh and live among us. That's why we got so many of these temples built all over the world! Because all over the world people find God, and as in ancient times build an altar to this God for others to see and for us to worship and remember the one who came to us.
I work in the public because this ministry belongs to the public. Many don't want it there for a variety of reasons but it belongs there. The earth is the Lord's and all therein. This is just one case for doing so. As a pastor it is one of those moments that remind me why I was willing to answer God's call into this gig in the first place. I love God's people. I love how much God loves God's people. I want God's people to know, believe, feel, and experience the love God has for them. It brought me many miles from my home to a new town, a new church, where I have an office I did not have before. And it brings me every week out of that office as well so that I can find myself before more people. And each time, whatever else I'm doing, I'm waiting.
And sometimes - not always, but sometimes - that waiting proves its worth and I get to be a part of God's loving work in our sometimes cruel world.
