Dr. Walter Liefeld (1927-2023) encouraged my love of Holy Scripture. From him, came great insight into how to read a passage and to understand God’s meaning in order to make wholesome applications. Not only was he my teacher, but he was also my boss. From 1982-1984, I was his graduate assistant.
Dr. Liefeld taught me to study and to research. He strengthened my abilities with the Greek language. He put me in front of graduate students and helped me learn to teach. Most importantly, he put me to the task of researching his particular interest on the call to ministry and women in the Church.
My wife and I will be eternally grateful to God for the lives and influence of Walter and Olive Liefeld.
Imagine my joy to discover recently that another book on ministry was written by Dr. Liefeld and published in 2015. The title is intriguing, “Direction: A Biblical Perspective on Being Called and Sent by God.”
We speak much of a call to ministry on both laity and clergy. My mentor writes that the Bible gives more attention to being sent by God. Even the classic call story of Isaiah 6 does not use “call” words per se. The crescendo is in the prophet’s response, “Here I am send me.”
The book raises a question for me as I serve in the Global Methodist Church. Can anyone describe him/herself as called who is unwilling to be sent?
We speak of a call to ministry upon the laity. However, many members are more likely to leave worship with little sense of being sent. Our dear laity desire to care, to be kind. Too few, I fear, see themselves as sent by God to their neighbor and to the stranger with the Gospel.
Our clergy must give a call statement to the Board of Ministry. If one is in a discernment visit with a Staff Parish Committee in hopes of an appointment, he or she will need to articulate a call. Yet I also fear that too few have a powerful sense of being sent.
Paul defends his role as an apostle in 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. On first reading, my thoughts are of “apostle” as a role of spiritual authority in the Church. On second reading, I remember that the meaning of “apostle” comes from the verb “to send.” To be an “apostle” includes a keen sense of being “sent.” Because of this inner conviction, the Apostle endured imprisonments, five occasions of thirty-nine lashes, beatings with rods, stoning, privation, hardship, shipwreck, and more. His argument is that how hardship is faced, accepted, and endured is evidence of one’s sense of being “sent.”
Why endure discomfort, embarrassment, privation, and suffering? Because one is “sent” to a people who needed to the good news of Jesus Christ.
The one, holy, apostolic, and catholic Church is a “sent” church. Lay persons may not be ordained, but every lay Christian is a “sent” Christian no less than every clergy person, who is also “sent.”
Romans 10:13–15 (NASB) declares,
13 for “WHOEVER WILL CALL ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.”
14 How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher?
15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, “HOW BEAUTIFUL ARE THE FEET OF THOSE WHO BRING GOOD NEWS OF GOOD THINGS!”
Rev. David Banks
Conference Superintendent