The Moderator explains how faith transforms lives.

FAITH works! Faith that works, serves! Our late Queen Elizabeth spoke clearly and warmly of a personal faith that was her guide through life. She also showed remarkable dedication to her country and the Commonwealth, believing that service lay at the heart of her life. Faith that works, serves!

Think for a moment about the word minister – what image does it conjure up? A man or a woman in a clerical collar? Or perhaps it is a Minister of State that comes to mind? In both cases you are probably thinking of people who have a certain degree of authority or leadership.

Now, let’s look for a moment at how the dictionary defines that word, “minister.”

“To attend to the needs of other people; to care for people; to give aid or service to people.”

Is that not a very different way of understanding the concept of ‘ministry’, but is this not in effect what ministry means in the New Testament? Listen to how Jesus puts it when describing himself:

“The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for man” – Matthew 20:28 and, “I am among you as one who serves.” – Luke 22:27.

These are powerful statements by Jesus about not only his own ‘ministry’ but what it means to be a ‘minister’ of any kind – people who give themselves to a life of service. This ought to be true of the whole church and therefore everyone in the church is a ‘minister’ of some kind.

Perhaps the most powerful statement with respect to this is found in the writings of Paul in Philippians 2:1-8:

“Therefore, if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. 33Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, 44not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. “

5 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

“ 6 Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;

7 rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.

8 “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!”

Read and re-read these words and it becomes clear what a minister is – the expectation of every follower of Jesus, to be like him. Graham Kendrick captures it all perfectly in the Servant King song – hands that flung stars into space, to cruel nails surrendered – there is the essence of the nature of Christ and his ministry for and to us.

"Faith is not a transaction that takes place between us and God to save us and bring us into his kingdom forever.

Back to us then. It makes no difference whether we be a queen, a king or the poorest of citizens, if Jesus has touched our lives he calls us to come and serve him and through serving him, serve others – minister to others – care for people in whatever way that is possible.

Faith is not a transaction that takes place between us and God to save us and bring us into his kingdom forever – it is much, much more than that. Faith is what transforms us completely, creating in us the desire to be like Jesus.

Membership of the Church is not some kind of passive activity that takes place where we are ministered to by a few, but the activity of the whole body where we minister to one another in love, using the gifts God has given us.

Ministry? The activity of all of the people of God to one another and to the world around us. ¤

The Rt Rev Dr Iain Greenshields is Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland in 2022/23 and is minister at Dunfermline: St Margaret’s.