Roles
Ministers may perform some or all of the following duties:
- assist in co-ordinating volunteers and church community groups
- assist in any general administrative service
- conduct marriage ceremonies, funerals and memorial services, participate in the ordination of other clergy, and confirming young people as members of a local church
- encourage local church endeavors
- engage in welfare and community services activities of communities
- establish new local churches
- keep records as required by civil or church law
- plan and conduct services of public worship
- preach
- pray and encourage others to be theocentric (that is, God-focused)
- preside over sacraments (also called ordinances) of the church. Such as: (1) the Lord's Supper (a name derived from 1 Corinthians 11:20), also known as the Lord's Table (taken from 1 Corinthians 10:21), or Holy Communion, and (2) the Baptism of adults and/or children (depending on the denomination)
- provide leadership to the congregation, parish or church community, this may be done as part of a team with lay people in roles such as elders
- refer people to community support services, psychologists or doctors
- research and study religion, Scripture and theology
- supervise prayer and discussion groups, retreats and seminars, and provide religious instruction
- teach on spiritual and theological subjects
- train leaders for church, community and youth leadership
- work on developing relationships and networks within the religious community
- provide pastoral care in various contexts
- provide personal support to people in crises, such as illness, bereavement and family breakdown
- visit the sick and elderly to counsel and comfort them and their families
- administer Last Rites when designated to do so
Read more about this topic: Minister (Christianity)
Famous quotes containing the word roles:
“A concern with parenting...must direct attention beyond behavior. This is because parenting is not simply a set of behaviors, but participation in an interpersonal, diffuse, affective relationship. Parenting is an eminently psychological role in a way that many other roles and activities are not.”
—Nancy Chodorow (20th century)
“It was always the work that was the gyroscope in my life. I don’t know who could have lived with me. As an architect you’re absolutely devoured. A woman’s cast in a lot of roles and a man isn’t. I couldn’t be an architect and be a wife and mother.”
—Eleanore Kendall Pettersen (b. 1916)