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| Offer Them Christ by Kenneth Wyatt |
The walls in pastors’ studies tend to have a certain sameness
about them. There is a wall or two of
bookshelves (these may house books, or may simply be a resting place for
religious knickknacks that the individual has accumulated over the years),
there may be a family portrait or two, there are other reminders of the life of
ministry such as plaques given in appreciation.
There is what one friend of mine calls the “works righteousness” wall
where you find diplomas, ordination parchments and other ministerial
credentialing documents. There is also
usually one item that has a great personal meaning to the clergyperson.
This is mine. It is
Kenneth Wyatt’s vision of John Wesley dispatching Thomas Coke to America to
oversee the Methodist churches there.
The title comes from Wesley’s words of departure to Coke: “Offer them
Christ.” I label this as the item of
great personal meaning for me not because of a particular fondness for Wesley
(although I do possess that) or Coke. Nor
is it a because of any romanticized notion or identification with the concept
of commissioning. This picture pulls me
back to the basics of ministry: Offer them Christ.
There are other very important aspects of the work of a
United Methodist minister. I am coming
up on the start of my 46th year of doing this work. I have undertaken the tasks of preaching,
teaching, administration, pastoral care and a dozen other tasks that we associate
with being a person of The Cloth. I am
the first to admit that the busy-ness of the job can distract or even bog down
even the most conscientious of persons.
So, this portrait draws me back to the basics of my call: Offer them
Christ.
The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church states that “The
mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the
transformation of the world.” (¶ 120)
The painting is a reminder to me that if I am not carrying
out the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19 that all the rest is just noise.
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