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Rev. Katie Givens Kime

Former Associate Pastor for Adult Ministries, Trinity Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, GA
FTE Ministry Fellow ('02)

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June 15, 2010

Ministry as Poetry

Some words get pummeled nearly to death.  Some words are a well-meaning team of letters that strain hard to hold the meanings we pile upon them.  Some words have it easy: “dandelion,” “mouthwash,” and “clarify” don’t have too many multiple meanings.  They are not asked to express holy things, or things beyond language.  But how can the words “Jesus” and “God” bear all we ask them to hold?

In the world of ministry, “spirit” and “love” and “life” and “you” and “me”…these poor words have been asked to mean so many things, hold so many nuances, bear so many burdens that they have neck cramps and blistered hands.  

Words and ministers have something in common: both are called to point towards something beyond.  We can’t teach everything about God, we can’t preach all of who Jesus is, we don’t have great counsel for every psycho-theological problem.  But we can point.  Sometimes being a minister means just pointing in the right direction.

In some ways, ministers are asked to be poets. A poet sees the beauty, despair, and truth that lies just beneath the surface of everything from the routine church committee meeting to the phone call, “the doctor told me the tumor is malignant” to the baptismal water streaming down the baby’s forehead to the frustrating parking lot conversation.

I heard Thomas Lynch say recently that “gravity,” “grave,” and “gravid” are three words that all occupy the same page in the dictionary…and isn’t it ridiculous to ask one page to hold all those words?  And sublime?  He said, “I mean, when you start mixing pregnant women and corpses, you know you’re playing in the deep end of the pool.”

Sort of a shocking way to put it, but you know what he means.  This ministry gig is both ridiculous and sublime.  Ridiculous that we should be entrusted with so high a calling, so amazing a task, so rich a life.  Sublime that we’re never alone, but rather joining God to do this work.

See Also:

Rev. Katie Givens Kime's video on "Why Ministry Matters"