A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article, with a map of the route from Prince George to Hope, appears below. J. H. (Hans) Kouwenberg is Editor of Channels.
Almost every time I travel down and back up Highway 97 south and north from Prince George to Vancouver I wonder about our ministry in the towns along the way. In that 500 mile stretch of B.C. the major towns or cities seem to be about 60 miles or so apart. Not as closely populated as that heartland of Presbyterianism found in southern Ontario!
Prince George is a city of 72,000 and Quesnel, a city of 15,000, is 72 miles down the road. And then there are the little villages (sometimes only with a couple of family houses) in between: Red Rock, Stoner, Hixon, Strathnaver. Then comes Williams Lake, the next major city, a “Cariboo” cowboy town of about 12,000. And more little “stops” along the way: 150 Mile House, Lac La Hache, 100 Mile House, 70 Mile House (these names breathe the history of the old Cariboo Trail to Barkerville and the gold that once was found there!), then Clinton and Cache Creek – the gas-bar junction where the TransCanada from Kamloops “takes over”, Highway 97 now becoming Highway Number 1. Following along the Thompson River we now encounter Ashcroft, Spences Bridge. Lytton (often the hottest spot in Canada) and, then, alongside the historic Fraser Canyon, we meet Boston Bar, Spuzzum, Yale and, finally, Hope. All of these towns along the highway (and more, north, east and west) are within the 1,000 mile stretch of the Presbytery of Kamloops. But not one Presbyterian church is to be found remaining in even one of these towns. Who ministers to these people?
Keen Pentecostal, Evangelical Free, and Baptist folk, and, of course, the long-established cultural enclaves of Anglican, United, Mennonite and Roman Catholic are found in some of these places along the way. But, many of these towns have no Christian ministry and certainly no strong Reformed witness. Does that concern us?
Why is it that we have not been able to re-penetrate the small frontier towns and villages of the west? For what I have found along “my” stretch of the highway is true throughout the west. I would suggest to you that it is because we have over-professionalized our ministry and under-utilized the laity of the Church. Let me explain what I mean.
Our fine concern for a professional, academic, and well-trained ministry has led us to the possibility of idolizing “professionalism”. We take a university graduate (already a product of three to four years’ urbanization because of the locale of his/her studies) and put him/her through another three years of urban enculturation in the big cities where our seminaries are found. By the time they graduate, they usually do not prefer the “boonies” of the country places. They look for a place where they can be stimulated and stretched as well as minister. And, oh yes, their spouses, also often university graduates, will need a place where they can be happy and find work. Ministry and mission are often secondary concerns.
Nor is this professionalism only a product of our education. We emphasize it in our theology – how we explain or rationalize our position. As good as our recent testimony of faith “Living Faith” (Wood Lake Books Inc., 1984) is (and I, for one, think it is very good!) we emphasize in the section on “God’s Church” the ministry of Word and Sacrament, the office of ruling elder, and “specialized ministries” (7.2.3, 4, and 5) while paying only lip service to a broader sense of ministry among the whole people of God. How can a contemporary statement of faith not develop this?!
Admittedly the section on “ministry in God’s Church” begins beautifully with these mighty words:
The Lord continues his ministry
in and through the church.
All Christians are called
to participate in the ministry of Christ.
As his body on earth
we all have gifts to use
in the church and in the world
to the glory of Christ, our King and Head. (7.2.1)
However, the rest of the section, disappointingly, goes on to stress the “special tasks / in the equipping of saints / for the work of ministry” (7.2.2). No models of adequate or abundant lay ministry are lifted up. Don’t we really, usually seek to pull up special ministries, including the sacrificial, yet “professional” service of the Order of Diaconal Ministries, Ministry of Word and Sacrament, elders and other professional church workers, instead of calling forth and finding a place for more and more diversified yet equally valuable ministries of the whole people of God? Don’t we thereby relegate “lay ministry” to the status of amateurs? Don’t we see them as those who do it for the love of it, but. really, they don’t know what they’re doing? And don’t we keep them that way by refusing to encourage their calling and training? And are we not thereby guilty of the sin of professionalism: seeking to promote our own ministry instead of the ministry of those among whom we minister? And don’t we even, therefore, attack the ministry of the One who ministers to us all and who gives us the ministry?
I’ve recently read for the first time a book that I’m sure should be a classic: Hendrik Kraemer’s A Theology of the Laity (Westminster, 1958). I’m told that it is one of the only books written on developing a theology of the laity in the last quarter century. Certainly it is the only major Reformed study of the idea. This book still abounds with prophetic and powerful, suggestive insights, even 27 years later! It should not be out of print, as it presently is. It’s a book to read and reread. Shared ministry, women in ministry, lay ministry, everybody’s ministry, it’s all there! True, Kraemer could have paid more attention to the whole stream of Anabaptist to Plymouth Brethren tradition in seeking to recover real lay ministry. He only mentions this tradition once and neglects to follow up on it; however, quite possibly he knew little about it. Nevertheless, besides this major omission, one should not quibble. I like the book!
Kraemer rightly points out the “subsidiary treatment or great neglect, by the professional theologians of the laity as a distinct part of the full scope of the church” (p.10). Indeed the laity or laos, the whole people of God, are the church. Even then, in his time, Kraemer noted new outbursts of lay participation and lay movements in the church. These are now crying to be recognized and released into fuller ministry in the church. Kraemer persuasively argues for a clear “theology of the laity, not for the laity” (p. 12). I shouldn’t even be writing this article. Others of God’s people should!
Why have we not yet listened to his words? If we were to develop well-worked-out ideas of the ministry of the laity, it’s true, the Church would have to change. Structurally, too. But we would be giving the people of God their “status”, their dignity and due, and we would be surprised at what they could do. We would not be spending as much time determining clergy and professional church-worker status. But as the whole people of God were given opportunity to assume their rightful place, there would be much challenge to each other in seeking new and greater areas of competent, Christian ministry.
And some of those small towns “along the way” might receive their ministry too!