God asked the church to be a community of people sharing a common purpose in fellowship, continually growing in faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God. Paul describes the church as “His body, the fullness of Him who filleth every thing in every way” (Eph. 1:22).
God calls us into His body for the purpose of establishing a saving relationship with Him and community with one another. The Holy Spirit convicts our minds and leads us to repentance and plants us within the church.
Water baptism marks our entrance into the body of Christ and also symbolizes the baptism of the Holy Spirit experienced by a new disciple. “I tell you the truth unless a man is born of the water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5). The Holy Spirit is the vital life force of the church.
When the church serves the world it is an expression of the love of Christ to the world. It is the body of Christ serving the world’s needs and being used by the Spirit as an agency of salvation.
Thus, the church is a servant body. It was created for service. It serves the Lord in praise, serves one another in love and serves the world in humility. “For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared before hand that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10).
God calls every member of the church into ministry. The church is a kingdom of priests set free to minister for Christ. Our priesthood is to each other within the church and to the world. A Pathfinder director, like any other church officer, is a ministering servant of God.
It was during the middle ages that the clergy became distinct from other members, as a superior element in the church. The biblical concept of laity includes all believ- ers as ministers in the body. In actuality, however the church body still has a great distance to go before effectively applying this concept. You should view the work of Pathfinder director as a ministry to which God calls people; it is His will operating in their lives.
God supplies each person in the church with the resources for ministry—scrip- ture, spiritual power, God’s character, and spiritual gifts. A Pathfinder director is equipped for his or her ministry by the gifts received from the Holy Spirit. These spiritual gifts are special abilities given by the Holy Spirit to make your ministry effective and build up the body of Christ.
