How Involved
Are You at Church?

What is this page about?

A church needs people to do things. Somebody must put out the chairs. It is fine to ask who is willing.

The trouble is what the answer now measures. “How involved are you here?” has become a test. High involvement means a healthy faith. Low involvement means a weak faith.

Nobody asks the factory boss, “Do you treat your eleven workers fairly?” Nobody asks the mother of a three-year-old, “How is your child?” Those questions are not on the list.

So what does the list really measure? And what is God doing with the rest of your week?

The short answer

This way of measuring comes from the Middle Ages. The Reformation attacked it directly. In its place it put a teaching called “vocation”.

Martin Luther wrote this in 1520. He was writing against the idea that priests and monks are a higher kind of Christian.

there is really no difference between laymen and priests, princes and bishops… except that of office and work, but not of ‘estate.’

Martin Luther, 1520

In simple words: There is really no difference between normal Christians and priests, or between rulers and bishops. They have different jobs and different work. But they do not have a different rank before God.

Read this carefully. Luther agrees that there is a difference. A shoemaker and a bishop do not do the same job. And the bishop’s job is needed. But the difference is in the work they do. It is not in what they are. The first difference is clear and useful. The second is a ladder with higher and lower Christians. Luther denies only the ladder.

There is a second idea here. God could feed you directly. But he has chosen to feed you through a farmer, a truck driver and a baker. He protects you through a judge and a police officer. He teaches your children through a teacher. These people are not doing “worldly” work while the real work happens in church. They are the way God gives his gifts.

Where the ladder came from

The old idea had a name: “the state of perfection”. A famous teacher, Thomas Aquinas, explained it about the year 1270. He did not say that a monk loves God more than a farmer does. He said that a monk has entered a special state for his whole life, with solemn promises. A farmer has not.

Aquinas was careful. But think what happens when this idea reaches normal people. If one kind of life is officially the way to perfection, then your life is the other kind. Everyone understands what that means.

Old or new? Six sentences

Here are six sentences. Each one says that religious work is higher than normal work. Three are real and old. This page made up the other three in a modern way. Can you tell which is which?

1. “A person is in the state of perfection when he binds himself for his whole life, with solemn promises, to the things of perfection.” Old. This is the idea of Thomas Aquinas, about 1270, in simple words.

1. “They preach that it is a state of perfection, and they put it far above all other kinds of life.” Old. These are the Reformers in 1530. They report the idea so that they can say no to it.

1. “The state of perfection belongs to monks and bishops. It does not belong to parish priests.” Old. This is Aquinas again, in simple words. Think about it. A parish priest preaches, baptizes and buries people all week. But he is not in the higher state. So this ladder does not measure how useful a person is.

Many readers cannot tell the old sentences from the new ones. That is the point of this page. Nobody defends the ladder in public today. But the same idea is still alive.

This is in a public statement of faith

People can find a sentence from Luther for almost any idea. But this teaching stands on something stronger. In 1530 the Lutherans gave a public statement of their faith to the emperor. It is called the Augsburg Confession. Their enemies read every sentence carefully. Three parts of it matter here.

First, it names the ladder and says no to it. Then it says what a complete Christian life really is:

Christian perfection is to fear God from the heart, and yet to conceive great faith, and to trust that for Christ’s sake we have a God who has been reconciled… to be diligent in outward good works, and to serve our calling.

The Augsburg Confession, 1530, Article 27

In simple words: A complete Christian life is this: to honour God from the heart; to have strong faith and to trust that because of Christ, God is at peace with us; to work hard at doing good; and to serve in the place where God has called us.

Look at the order. First honour God. Then faith. Then, third, good works and service in our calling. So our calling is part of a complete Christian life. But it comes third. It comes after God has already made peace with us. That is important. It stops this teaching from becoming a new ladder.

Second, the Confession describes what the old preaching did to normal people:

That the father brought up his offspring, that the mother bore children, that the prince governed the commonwealth - these were accounted works that were worldly and imperfect.

The Augsburg Confession, 1530, Article 26

In simple words: A father brought up his children. A mother gave birth to children. A ruler governed the country. People counted these as worldly works that were not good enough.

The three examples are a father, a mother and a ruler. This was a complaint against the preaching of that time. Anyone who has heard the same thing in our time should think about it.

Third, the Confession calls normal life good. It says that lawful public life is a good work of God. It lists being an official, being a judge, being a soldier, buying and selling, owning things, and marrying. It says the Gospel does not destroy the state or the family. The Gospel wants them to be kept, because God made them.

The masks of God

Luther used a strong picture. He was explaining a psalm about God feeding the birds. He asked what all our work is.

These are the masks of God, behind which He wants to remain concealed and do all things.

Martin Luther, on Psalm 147

In simple words: Our work in the field, the house and the city is like a mask. God stays hidden behind it and does everything himself.

A mask is what an actor holds in front of his face. The mask is not the actor. Two things follow.

1. Normal work is very great. The worker is the tool that God uses to care for people. This is true even if the worker has not noticed.
2. The mask is not the face. The worker does not get the praise. God does.

So this teaching lifts up the job and keeps the worker humble.

This has a practical side. Luther explained the prayer “Give us today our daily bread”. He said it covers everything we need for life in the world. He said we must pray for rulers and government, because God gives us our bread most of all through them. He even said that a ruler should have a loaf of bread on his flag and not a lion. Bread is what the ruler’s job is for.

So when someone hands you something you needed, you can say two true things: “Thank God” and “Thank you.”

What the Bible says

The first man whom God says he filled with his Spirit was a craftsman. He worked with metal.

I have called by name Bezalel… I have filled him with the Spirit of God, in wisdom, and in understanding, and in knowledge, and in all kinds of workmanship, to devise skillful works, to work in gold, and in silver, and in bronze

Exodus 31:2–4 · World English Bible

In simple words: I have chosen Bezalel by name. I have filled him with the Spirit of God. I have given him wisdom, understanding, knowledge and every kind of skill, to make beautiful things in gold, silver and bronze.

The gift of the Spirit here is skill in work.

Men in jobs with a bad name were told to stay in them. Tax collectors worked for the foreign rulers, and people knew them as cheats. They came to John the Baptist. They asked what they should do. Soldiers asked too.

He said to them, “Collect no more than that which is appointed to you.” Soldiers also asked him, saying, “What about us? What must we do?” He said to them, “Extort from no one by violence, neither accuse anyone wrongfully. Be content with your wages.”

Luke 3:12–14 · World English Bible

In simple words: He said to the tax collectors, “Do not collect more money than the law says.” Soldiers asked, “And what must we do?” He said, “Do not take money from people by force. Do not accuse anyone falsely. Be happy with your pay.”

John does not say one word about leaving the job. The change is inside the job.

The Bible calls a ruler God’s servant. Paul writes that the ruler is “a servant of God to you for good” (Romans 13:4). He says the same about the men who collect taxes (Romans 13:6).

Paul tells Christians to stay where they are. He says it three times in eight verses. One of them is: “Let each man stay in that calling in which he was called.” (1 Corinthians 7:20) And he says to stay there “with God” (1 Corinthians 7:24). So God is inside your place in life. He is not somewhere beyond it.

Two things this teaching is not

It does not allow everything

A person could say, “My job is my calling from God. So everything I do in it is God’s work.” Then a boss or an official could do anything. The Augsburg Confession stops this. It says Christians must obey the authorities “except when commanded to sin”. Then they must obey God and not people.

So your place in life gives you a duty. God’s commands tell you what is right and where the limit is. “It was my job” tells us who must answer for an act. It does not tell us if the act was right.

It is not an easy Christianity

This is the strongest argument against the teaching. “My job and my family are my Christian service.” A comfortable person would love to hear that. But three things in the teaching stop this.

1. The measure is your neighbour. A job that serves only the worker is not service, whatever you call it.
2. The duties are many. Count your places in life: husband or wife, parent, child, worker, neighbour, citizen, church member. List the duties of each one honestly. This is not a lighter load than a church duty list.
3. The teaching does not promise that the work will feel good or be noticed. God’s work often looks small and wasted. Nobody claps for ten years of quiet honesty at work. Nobody claps for a parent who stays patient for the four hundredth time.

And the work earns nothing from God. We are made right with God by grace, through faith. So our work is not a gift we lift up to God to get a better place. It is a gift we hand to the person next to us who needs it.

Does this make the pastor unnecessary?

Someone may ask: “If a judge is God’s servant, and a mother’s work is holy, why do we need a pastor?”

The same Confession that removed the ladder also said that the ministry is something God set up. God gave the work of teaching the Gospel and giving the sacraments, so that people may come to faith. And nobody should teach publicly in the church or give the sacraments without a proper call.

The reason is simple. Your calling is the place where faith serves. It is not the place where faith comes from. Nothing you do at work gives you faith or forgives you. Those gifts come from outside you, through the Word and the sacraments. So the pastor’s work is not just one of many good ways to spend a Sunday.

Being a church member is also one of your places in life. It has duties: to be there, to hear, to receive the Lord’s Supper, to help pay the costs, and to help when something needs doing. A hard job does not free you from these, as it does not free you from being a father.

What is special about the pastor’s work? He preaches in the name of the church. He gives the sacraments. He must answer for souls. None of this says that he is a higher kind of Christian.

Where this page ends

The best part of this teaching is that it changes the question. The new question is not softer. You cannot answer it by being busy. Only you can answer it.

Check it yourself

1. Read Exodus 31:1-11, Luke 3:1-20 and 1 Corinthians 7:17-24.
2. Read the Augsburg Confession, Articles 16, 26 and 27. Then read Articles 5 and 14. They are short.
3. Read the other side: Luke 10:38-42 (Mary and Martha), Luke 5:1-11 (men who did leave their work), Matthew 19:16-30 and Acts 6:1-4. In Acts 6 the apostles will not leave the Word to serve at tables. This is the hardest passage for this page.
4. Ask yourself the question in the gold box.