Key Truths for Living Life - logo
key truths for living life,
not as a religious Christian,
but as a friend of God 
  
key truths website
key truths on Facebook
Join Our Mailing List!

Issue 5, Vol. 4, 2010


The Father has a sweet surprise for you on this assignment;
rest and when he calls you to walk on the water to meet him - GO!

Sea of Galilee photo
Walking on the Water

Deborah P. Brunt

Very few people can say they were ordained one day and baptized the next. Even fewer can say they did so without getting things out of order.
 
I'm among the few.
 
Yet, primarily, my story isn't an ordination and baptism story. It's a walking-on-the-water story. It's a God-makes-a-way-where-there-is-none story.
Intriguing surprises
Deborah Brunt photoIn 2007, a pastor surprised me one day by asking, "Would you like to be ordained?"
 
I've devoted my life to serving the Lord Jesus. For 30-plus years, I've served in leadership roles. But no one had ever asked me that question before.
 
Some teach that I cannot be ordained because I'm a woman. In fact, that's the prevailing view in the denominational setting where I served most of my life. About a decade ago, I checked that teaching scripturally - and found some surprising things.
 
In the Old Testament, priests were ordained. Exodus 29 and Leviticus 8 describe the ordination process. Now, Jesus has made all who know him as Lord to be priests! (See Rev. 1:6; 5:9-10.)
 
Further, the New Testament does not prescribe a procedure by which "ministers" are "ordained." In fact, most modern English translations do not once use the word ordained in reference to ministry leaders.
 
The King James Version does use the term - twice of elders (Acts 14:23; Titus 1:5), twice in reference to apostles (Mark 3:14; Acts 1:22) and once of Paul being "ordained a preacher, and an apostle" (1 Tim. 2:7). Each time, the word ordain in the KJV translates a different Greek word. Yet none of those five Greek words means "to admit to the ministry." Rather, elders, apostles and indeed all who serve Christ are "put" where God chooses to put them. They're "appointed" - selected, designated, assigned certain tasks.
 
Jesus uses one of the five words, tithemi, in John 15:16, when he says to all his followers, "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed [KJV: ordained] you so that you might go and bear fruit - fruit that will last - and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you."
 
Paul uses the same term twice in 1 Corinthians 12: "But now God has placed the members, each one of them, in the body, just as He desired." "And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues" (vv. 18,28 NASU).
 
Interesting, isn't it, that the translators rendered the same Greek word as two different English words: God has "placed" church members - and "appointed" church leaders. The original language makes no such distinction.
 
Thus, if we use the term ordain in reference to leaders, we must also use it in reference to the body of Christ. For in Christ, all of us are ordained as priests and as fruit-bearers. In Christ, each of us is set into a certain place in the body - a place God himself selects. Some are set into leadership roles. (To explore whether those appointed as leaders can include women, see my article, "Submit to Such as These.")

Dynamic process
Here's the "procedure": God gifts each of his people for certain works. God chooses who serves where and when. He tells his people - those he's chosen for a particular work and those surrounding them - and together they cooperate with what he has said.
 
Acts 13:1-3 shows how this played out in one New Testament setting. As you read the account, try to imagine, not repeating the same pattern, but experiencing the same dynamic in your church:
 
"Now in the church at Antioch there were prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Simeon called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen (who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch) and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' So after they had fasted and prayed, they placed their hands on them and sent them off."
 
To get in on God's process for launching someone into a certain work, we simply enter God's presence, without any agenda except to worship him. Then, when the Holy Spirit speaks, we hear his voice. We recognize whom he has chosen to do what. Without rushing or balking, we echo what the Spirit has already done: we "set apart" each person for the work God has designated.
 
When we hear and obey God's voice, we experience God's order, which is infinitely creative and delightfully unpredictable. So why do we settle for our order - uniform, staid and hopelessly tied to preconceived ideas?
 
We think a certain person could never do a certain task. God knows he created that person to do that very thing. We think certain qualifications necessary for ministry. God thinks differently: he tosses out some of the qualifications we cherish most and insists on others we've never considered.
 
We think "the work to which God calls" people always takes the form of traditional church leadership roles. Yet God calls his people to serve him in a multitude of ways. He defines "ministry" far differently from us. When setting leaders into place, God rarely consults our organizational charts. Rather, he expects us to step into the upside-down, inside-out order of his kingdom.
Unorthodox choices
"Remember, dear brothers and sisters, that few of you were wise in the world's eyes or powerful or wealthy when God called you. Instead, God chose things the world considers foolish in order to shame those who think they are wise. And he chose things that are powerless to shame those who are powerful. God chose things despised by the world, things counted as nothing at all, and used them to bring to nothing what the world considers important. As a result, no one can ever boast in the presence of God" (1 Cor. 1:26-29 NLT).
 
That passage comes even more dramatically into focus if we rethink our definition of "the world." We imagine "the world" to consist of all the peoples who show no deference to the one true God. But Jesus said in John 15:18: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first." So consider: Who hated Jesus?
 
Answer: religious leaders who thought they worshiped the one true God but really served a system connected with God, a system that offered them status and power. To the extent that we give our allegiance to things connected with Christ, rather than to Christ himself, we the Christian church culture also take on the characteristics of the world. With that in mind, reread 1 Corinthians 1:26-29.
Ordination contemplation
Asked if I wanted to be ordained, I didn't know how to answer. I deeply appreciated the pastor's saying, in effect, "We who have watched your life for several years recognize God has set you apart to serve him as a ministry leader." I didn't see anything wrong with using the word ordain to publicly acknowledge that. At the same time, I didn't feel I had to have that particular word pronounced over me in order to validate my call from God.
 
Moreover, deep down, I was afraid. I wondered how many people would count my being ordained a positive thing - a wonderful affirmation that God had set me apart for a certain work - and how many, seeing a woman "ordained," would run screaming in the other direction.
 
After praying and hearing neither "yes" nor "no" from the Lord, I asked the pastor if we could put the matter on hold. He graciously agreed.
 
Several months later, my husband and I moved to another state.  I assumed the opportunity for ordination had passed.
 
Then, in May 2009, I visited the city and church of that pastor. As I sat, listening to the sermon, God interrupted: "It's time," the Lord told me. "Ask him if the door's still open to be ordained."
 
After the service, I did just that. Enthusiastically, he answered, "Yes!" That morning, he handed me forms to complete, saying as he did, "There's no question, you know. You are ordained." Two days later, when I handed in the completed forms, he took out a yellow pad, wrote, "You are now ordained and commissioned," and signed his name.
Scenic route
He said I would receive an official certificate in a few weeks. Months passed. No certificate arrived.
 
That pastor knew and affirmed me. The people with whom I'd been serving knew and affirmed me. But that denomination didn't know me - and they had their procedures.
 
Again, I let the matter drop.
 
In mid-September, I learned of a prayer team traveling to Israel October 1-12. Two days after hearing of the trip for the first time, I signed up. Two weeks later, I sat in a New York airport, meeting my teammates and preparing for our overseas flight.
 
As we exchanged introductions, a man named Kevin said, "I was ordained in Israel last year." Something deep inside me leaped.
 
We spent most of the trip in southern Israel. During the seven-day Feast of Tabernacles, we walked the streets of Old Jerusalem, visited bustling Tel Aviv, picked up smooth stones in the valley where David fought Goliath, stood atop the sobering fortress of Masada, floated in the Dead Sea - and gathered nightly with Christians from around the world to celebrate the feast. Everywhere we went, we prayed.
 
Then, Friday morning, October 9, our tour bus left Jerusalem and headed north on a highway that parallels the Jordan River. As we rode, Judy, one of our team leaders, stepped out of her front-row seat, took the microphone and began telling a story. Fifteen years earlier, Judy had almost died from a brain tumor. After the surgery that saved her life - and still not fully recovered - Judy boarded an airplane, flew to Nigeria and asked a pastor there whom she highly respected to ordain her. He did, during a church gathering that very night.
 
I hadn't thought of ordination since Kevin mentioned it the first day of our trip. Now I clearly heard the Spirit telling me to act. As Judy finished her story and took her seat, I decided, "If she can fly to Nigeria to ask to be ordained, I can walk to the front of the bus."
Divinely orchestrated
That evening at dusk, our team boarded a flat-bottom boat named Faith. With motor purring and Christian music playing from the boat's loudspeakers, we headed out to the middle of the Sea of Galilee.
 
Once there, the boat's crew cut the engines. Jerry and Judy - husband and wife, team leaders, ministers - called me to the bow. The sun hung just above the horizon. A gentle breeze blew. I stood surrounded by 27 people I hadn't even known 10 days earlier. Now I knew and loved each one deeply. We had done far more than tour Israel together. Each day of our trip, we had served the Lord together. Looking into their faces, I knew each one concurred fully with this simple act of setting apart.
 
Holding up his Bible, Jerry began, "God has already ordained you. We're just affirming it."
Ordination photo
The whole trip, we had marveled that our small team included three Deborahs. We'd laughed because the three of us had continually gravitated together. That particular day, we had dressed almost alike - solid black (or navy) and white.
 
Jerry called the other two Deborahs to stand beside me. He asked each to lift one of my arms. He told me, "In the ministry to which God is calling you, you will need others standing with you, holding up your arms, as Aaron and Hur held up Moses' arms."
 
Jerry, then Judy, spoke briefly. Six others followed, their remarks simple, yet each hitting the mark like a well-aimed arrow. To close, I requested that we do a prophetic act based on the story of Deborah and Barak in Judges 4 and their song in Judges 5. We three Deborahs  turned so as form a triangle, facing outward. Then, the men in the group all cried three times in unison, "Awake, awake, Deborah!"
 
In response, the three Deborahs shouted: "Arise, Barak! Arise, Barak! Arise, Barak!" (see Judges 5:12). Our voices rang out across the Sea of Galilee and then died into silence just as the sun set.
Beautifully transposed
The next day, Jerry baptized all three Deborahs and several other team members in the Jordan River. It wasn't the initial baptism for any of us. But for me it signified rising to "walk in newness of life" (Rom. 6:4 NASU) in a specific way. At my previous baptism, I had identified particularly with one segment of the body of Christ. The day I was baptized in the Jordan, I identified fully and equally with all Christ's body. Coming up out of the water, I felt his pleasure.
 
Similarly, God so orchestrated my ordination as to commission me to serve all the body of Christ. Jerry and Judy lead a nondenominational ministry. Those who joined with them to affirm God's call on my life were Jews and Gentiles who live in a variety of places and worship in a variety of churches.
 
How stunning! How moving! Jesus Christ took me to the place where he himself walked on water, to set me into a new season of ministry. He took me to the place where he himself was immersed, to declare over me that I am chosen and marked by his love.
 
Today, he wants me to pose a question you may never have been asked: "Do you want to be ordained?"

If so - if you want to be set into the works for which God created you: "Consider your calling." Literally: "See your calling" (1 Cor. 1:26 NASU, with margin). Your calling doesn't hinge on how powerful or influential, smart or strong you are. It doesn't hinge on accepting particular roles in particular structures.
 
Rather, your calling hinges on him who calls. HE chooses "what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important" (1 Cor 1:28 CJB). See HIM. Keep looking to him. Live a life that worships him. Then, when you least expect it, he'll call you by name and tell everyone within earshot what he's ordained for you to do next.
 
As you hear and obey his voice, he'll delight you with his unpredictable order, his illogical wisdom and his exuberance in making a way where there is none.
Postscript
The day I arrived home from my Israel trip, I found lots of emails in my inbox - among them, a note my friend Amy sent the day the trip began. It said,

"The Father has a sweet surprise for you on this assignment;
rest and when he calls you to walk on the water to meet him - GO!"

 . . . . . . .
 
Photo album of pictures from my "walking on the water" experience.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, Today's New International Version™ TNIV �. Copyright � 2001, 2005 by International Bible Society �. All rights reserved worldwide. Also quoted: The Complete Jewish Bible [CJB]. New American Standard Bible Updated [NASU]. Holy Bible, New Living Translation � [NLT], copyright � 1996 by Tyndale Charitable Trust. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers. All rights reserved.
Related info

Ordination photo
Other articles by Deborah
Submit to Such as These: The greetings in Paul's New Testament letters - the ones translators have altered and we often bypass - reveal some surprising things about who is to submit to whom.

Preach It, Sister!: Today, many would say that everyone has a responsibility to evangelize - but only a few select males can preach. Yet, scripturally we cannot have it both ways.

Photo album
Walking on the water: Very few people can say they were ordained one day and baptized the next.
Interact
 
 
. . . . . . .

Subscribe

 

E-columns: Subscribe to key truths e-column, Perspective e-column, or both.
 
Changes of email address or e-column preference: If you already subscribe to key truths or Perspective: Change your email address or change which columns you receive by clicking on the Update Profile/Email Address link at the bottom of this email.
 
key truths Open Gates logo 09 
 
 
 
 
� 2006-2010 Deborah P. Brunt. All rights reserved. 
 
Key Truths, Open Gates LLC