Pastor Raimundo dos Santos Correia of the North Brazil Union baptized more than one thousand people in one year.
When the news reached me, I was a bit skeptical. Perhaps there was some exaggeration. I left for the Maranhao district to find out for myself. What I found astounded me. Here was just an ordinary pastor but a pastor with an extraordinary vision.
When he assumed the pastorship of a twenty-church district, Pastor Raimundo felt overwhelmed by the burden. He prayed. He immersed himself in his Bible. He consulted various sources of inspired wisdom and council. Finally he turned to his members. He wanted a group of men and women willing to be lay ministers. When He had his group, he trained them in the basic skills of church leadership and evangelism. He entrusted them with the care of the congregations. Soon these lay leaders began training others, who learned to perform most of the ministerial responsibilities in the local congregations. Pastor Raimundo became their supervisor.
From this simple plan of lay training and empowerment, Pastor Raimundo's churches are experiencing explosive growth year after year. Laypeople conduct evangelistic campaigns, baptismal classes, and stewardship programs. Then Pastor Raimundo baptizes the thoroughly prepared candidates. This program has brought prosperity both in membership growth and in the spirituality of the churches. His members are full of enthusiasm.
Every believer trained for ministry
Pastor Raimundo's program is successful because the principles on which it is based are guided by God. "God expects His church to discipline and fit its members for the work of enlightening the world.... There should be no delay in this well-planned effort to educate the church members."1 "In every church the members should be so trained that they will devote time to the winning of souls to Christ.... Let those who have charge of the flock of Christ awake to their duty, and set many souls to work."2
Naturally, lay members who receive this training must then find outlets for service. "What can we expect but deterioration in religious life when the people listen to sermon after sermon and do not put the instruction into practice? The ability God has given, if not exercised, degenerates."3
Ministry is the ultimate objective of the church's life. Every believer in becoming a part of the Christian community must submit to the service of God. "The church is God's appointed agency for the salvation of men. It was organized for service."4 Ministry, then, is crucial to the very nature of the Christian church, and it is by conversion that every member becomes a part of the ministry of the church. "He who becomes a child of God should henceforth look upon himself as a link in the chain let down to save the world."5
Every believer a minister
In Scripture we find that some ministries or gifts are designed to equip other members of the body for their own ministry (see Eph. 4:11, 12). No ministry is placed above another, and there is an interdependence of ministries. So, the apostle Paul could climax his great vision for a serving church with the following words: "Every part [doing] its share . . . causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love" (versel6,NKJV).
Now comes the question: Who really does ministry and for whom? Paul's letter to the Ephesians makes it clear that Christ has given to the church a system of ministerial reciprocity each part serving and equipping every other part for the greater and overall service of the church (verses 1-16).
In one edition of the Revised Standard Version (1946) a "fatal comma" was inserted between the first and second classes of people mentioned in verse 12: "to equip the saints (,) for the work of ministry for building up the body of Christ." This comma would lead us to think that the previously mentioned gift of "pastors and teachers" had the distinct responsibility for ministry. But erasing that comma, making it read "to equip the saints for the work of ministry" an entirely permissible translation change would return the emphasis to the gifts rather than offices of ministry, thus including all in the act of equipping the church.
John Stott says that this emphasis brings into focus the immediate and ultimate purposes of the gifts. The immediate purpose is "to equip the saints for the work of ministry" (RSV, 1971), and the ultimate purpose is "for building up the body of Christ."6 Stott goes on to show that this places ministry within the scope of not just a few "bossy" clerics but in the hands of "all God's people without exception." He further criticizes the traditional model of the church as a pyramid, with the pastor perched precariously on its pinnacle, like a little pope in his or her own church, while the laity are arrayed beneath in serried ranks of inferiority a totally unbiblical image. Not much better is the bus image, with the pastor as driver and the laity as passive passengers being taken to a pastorally appointed destination.
The biblical image is that of a body with no hierarchical system but one of pluriformity with each part properly working for other parts and receiving its sustenance from all the others. Let us take this another step and look at Paul's image of unruly children (Ephesians 4). He paints a graphic picture of a family of children in a chaotic condition. His imagery then shifts to boats on a stormy sea devastated by the waves and wind. No child or parent, no boat or fleet captain, is able to do anything to right the situation when there is no center with power and control.
The center Paul points to in Ephesians is Christ. He pictures Jesus as the head of a body. If everyone who is part of the body of Christ grows up into Him, allowing Him to be whom He is, then unruly members are bound together, and all formerly tossed ships find their anchor. All of this illustrates graphically that there is only one "head" or center of authority. And from that head every part receives its sustenance and power to substantiate all other parts.
The traditional method of equipping for ministry did not take this route. It supposed that clergy are the representatives of Christ, teaching and ruling the obedient masses. This wandered completely outside of the biblical method of ministering, where every part of the body ministers to all other parts, while pastors equip all others to serve and receive service.
Consequently, according to Ephesians 4, the whole body grows as each member serves with his or her God-given gifts. The exalted Christ pours these gifts on His church, not as adornments but as edifying means for service. Each member receives and gives his or her gifts for equipping all others.
In summary, we see both from the Bible and the example of Pastor Raimundo in Brazil that ministry involves enabling one another to be effective and complementary members of the body of Christ, the church. In a healthy church there is not a part or section of the body that ministers alone while all other segments are ministered to. All are ministers with special gifts for ministry, and all ministries are essential for corporate service, growth, and unity in the church of Christ.
1 Ellen G. White, Christian Service
(Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Pub.
Assn., 1947), 58.
2 Ibid., 61.
3 Ellen G. White , Testimonies (Nampa, Id.:
Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1948), 6:425.
4 Ellen G. White , The Acts of the Apostles
(Nampa, Id.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn.,
1911), 9.
5 Ellen G. White, The Ministry of Healing
(Nampa, Id.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn.,
1942), 105.
6 John R. W. Stott, God's New Society
(Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1979),
166-168.
