It is a thoroughly anti-christian doctrine that the Spirit of God, and therefore the life and governing power of the Church, resides in the ministry, to the exclusion of the people.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The ordinary ministry is that which receives all of its direction from the will of God revealed in the Scriptures and from those means which God has appointed in the church for its continual edification.
From the beginning, this has been a faith-based ministry.
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives.
In order to the existence of such a ministry in the Church, there is requisite an authority received from God, and consequently power and knowledge imparted from God for the exercise of such ministry; and where a man possesses these, although the bishop has not laid hands upon him according to his traditions, God has Himself appointed him.
Pastoral ministry is about an ongoing confrontation with the god of this world, with blindness, hardness of heart, remaining sin.
All Church power arises from the indwelling of the Spirit; therefore those in whom the Spirit dwells are the seat of Church power. But the Spirit dwells in the whole Church, and therefore the whole Church is the seat of Church power.
I think we are all trying to figure out what it means to be the Church as opposed to just doing church.
What this denomination stands for is, really, is the universal vision of all people being treated fairly under the law as God sees us in His sight.
Ministry is the least important thing. You cannot not minister if you are in communion with God and live in community.
All Church power is, therefore, properly ministerial and administrative. Everything is to be done in the name of Christ, and in accordance with his directions.