Feedback on My Incarnational Ministry at Weaver Markets

If you read this blog regularly, you probably have figured out that I consider myself to be reasonably faithful to the founding vision of the Church of God and to the talk of the Rosenberrian CGGC, though I despise and reject the Rosenberrians' walk.

I am still an ordained CGGC pastor, though I use the powers and privileges of that ordination in about the same way that Paul used his Roman citizenship--merely as a tool to enable him to have a greater impact as he took his gospel into the world.

I am not currently pastoring a church.  In fact, I reject, with all the passion I can muster, the pastor dominated leadership culture that has taken over the CGGC--and most of contemporary Western evangelicalism. 

As far as the so-called church is concerned, I now participate in two gatherings of disciples which have devolved out of what was the very traditionally seeker-sensitive ERC CGGC congregation called Faith Community Church.

I do not really serve in a leadership role in those gatherings.  Others are more verbal in the gatherings and provide more direction to the groups than I do.  I endeavor to be great as a servant in those gatherings and not to be a leader in the Christendom way.

If I do have a ministry, it is a viral one as one of the employees of Weaver Markets in Adamstown, PA.  In that ministry, I'm just bill.  I do several jobs in the store.  And, despite what my employers consider my tasks to be, I consider my real job to be that of embodying, as the Spirit gives me opportunity, the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount.

To leave the pastorate and to take on such a ministry is risky.  It's not always a pleasure, though, by the end of the day, it is usually a joy.  And, I often wonder if I make a Kingdom difference in what I do.  I usually feel that I don't, though I learned a long time ago to distrust my emotional take on how I impact others.

Recently, I received an email from a coworker which contained these observations about me personally:

You definitely have a wonderful way about you that draws people to you. Your level of intelligence and personal inner peace are what made me want to get to know you better as a friend. I think you are a terrific person, and a rare man among men and I don't even know you that well yet. The world needs more Bill Sloats! :-)

Oivey!

I never made that sort of impact while I was tucked away in my study for hours on end preparing sermons and running from house to house doing pastoral visits to shut ins or visiting the hospitalized members of my church.

Maybe there is more to this sort of Kingdom ministry than I could have dreamed.