Minions

   (Posted from Miami)

Ok, I’ve got one more; after "Armenians, Armanians or Arminians." And I say this knowing that everybody hates puns and that puns are like, the lowest form of humor, but…how about, "Our minions?" If you slur the words together they kinda sound like "Arminians." Don’t they? Work with me on this one.

"Minions" conjures up the image of "little" insignificant people. Of whom there are none. There is no such thing as a minion in God’s Kingdom. We’re all blown full of value by the breath of God. Which brings me, through an admittedly tortuous and tenuous path, to ministry and this lay/clergy divide thing. I don’t even like the word, "laity," it sounds demeaning. Last week I asked someone smarter than me what word we could use instead of "laity" and he looked at me like I was just plain stupid and said, "how about ‘believers’?"

Brilliant!

I love it! We’re all the same, we’re all believers.

Now, I know there are different gifts, I know there are different tasks, but those are not differences of essence, they’re differences of a secondary taxonomy. In fact, the lay/clergy divide thing doesn’t speak to whom is in ministry or not. Aren’t we all ministers? Didn’t Abraham Lincoln say something about the "priesthood of all believers?" Or maybe that was Jefferson, I always get those two mixed up. I think it was the one who nailed the 39 articles to the door of the cherry tree.

Be that as it may, all believers are ministers, and here I take my stand. Minions Rule.

Brilliant!