New Testament thought makes it quite clear - and present-day theological reflection supports the view - that Christian ministry has as its objective the emergence of that final community of persons, human and divine, which will be the eschatological kingdom of God. And modern social psychology has pointed unmistakably to the central role in all human communities of a directive symbol system, a symbol system from which the community draws the vision, the hope, and the motive power by which it shapes its future. In this paper I would like to bring together these two elements of understanding by indicating the manner in which the experience of involvement in Christian ministry is itself such a fundamental symbol through which Christian community will be nurtured and our human history created.

      Before developing this theme, however, I would like to state four prepositional theses. Each of these is a major topic in itself, so time does not permit any amplification; yet I feel that their statement will provide a better understanding of the background views that support - or at least explain - the approach I take to the main topic.

1.    All authentic Christian ministry is a historical participation in Jesus' own ministry. This is not to be understood as looking back and then trying to imitatively reproduce his actions in our historical context. Instead it is meant to discover from study of his historic activity the trajectory of his continuing saving activity, so that we can, at our point in history, bring our activity into conjunction with his.

2.    Ministry to that creative process we call "the Kingdom of God" is not restricted to Christians, though we Christians do believe that the vision and hope coming from Jesus provide a unique ground for such ministry. I mention at the beginning this broader context of religious faith and activity, because in the remainder of my paper I will be discussing ecumenical advance in its more limited expression within the Church of Christ.

3.    Ministry, any ministry, is a function, not an office. And in Christianity it is a function flowing from the impulse of Christ's Spirit; it is grounded in charism. Ministry may often require public authentication. Ministerial responsibility and authority may even be closely connected with office in some circumstances. But it seems that only the charism of governing relates constitutively and reciprocally to office; and even here the very notion of office is drastically changed when it is seen to be itself charismatic.

4.    All truly personal community - and a fortiori any truly Christian community - exists basically, not as a structure, but as a process of sharing, a process of communication. It follows, then, that any intensification of Christian community, including any ecumenical progress, bust concentrate on nurturing the process of Christians sharing their vision of faith and their hope of eschatological fulfillment, as they share the mission of co-creating human history.

      Returning, then, to the main topic, let us first take a quick glance at the reality of Jesus' own ministry. One quite naturally thinks of Jesus' ministry as the various activities by which he served people: teaching, healing, reconciling, challenging, etc. Yet, a more careful examination indicates that Jesus' ministry was even broader and more basic; it embraces all that he was and did. The very heart of Jesus' ministry was to be a revelation, a sacrament, of God's saving action in history. As this particular human, Jesus of Nazareth, he was (and is) God's own redeeming and creating Word spoken in our history - all he did and all the power contained in what he did flowed from this.

      Jesus' whole being as a human was a revelation, and so all that he did (i.e. his entire ministry) was revelatory. To put it into language that has become increasingly current these past years, everything about Jesus and his ministry was a sacrament of the saving presence of God.

      Jesus himself, quite obviously, did not in this manner categorize his understanding of himself and of his mission. The imagery and language he used was that of "the kingdom of God"l he used this pattern of consciousness for his won self-understanding, and he employed it as the central structure of his public teaching. Because of its centrality in his teaching, Jesus' use of "the kingdom of God" has been the object of intense examination among New Testament scholars. Without giving a long defense for choosing it among many competing positions, let me simply accept that explanation that seems to me most plausible, the one proposed by Norman Perrin in his 1976 volume Jesus and the Language of the Kingdom. Perrin bases his explanation upon Joachim Jeremias' studies of the parables, but modifies Jeremias by introducing from Ricoeur and Wheelwright the notion of a tensive symbol. Thus, Jesus' understanding of "the kingdom of God" is not essentially a category of theological understanding; rather, it is a basic image/symbol whose referent is the redeeming and creative activity of God.

      For Jesus, "kingdom of God" does not primarily refer to the structures or persons or situations that one might designate as belonging to God; the primary meaning of the term, around which all these meanings can cluster, is "God's providential activity." Moreover, the activity of God is not to be seen in some abstract or generalized sense, but quite specifically as manifested in that sequence of historical happenings that Jesus (along with believing Jews of his day) cherished as the history of his people. God's kingship pertained first and foremost to his protection of Israel. The God whom Jesus knew and explained in his parables was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God experienced by Moses and David, the God who spoke through Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

      Among the elements that one can most probably ascribe to Jesus' human self-understanding is the awareness that in him and his ministry there was occurring a break-through realization of God's kingdom. Through him God was conveying an understanding of himself which would provide the most radical power for redeeming human consciousness, human value systems, and human freedom. In the various forms of healing that characterized Jesus' public ministry God was himself present as the creative source of revitalization, and Jesus himself experienced this ultimate power of life working in and through him.

      Not that he clearly categorized his understanding of what was happening, for it seems that he himself had to learn - as he faced repudiation by that Jewish religious establishment whose formulation of God's saving action he had been raised to respect, and as his attempts to bring into closer relation the two objects of his love: his Father and his people, brought him hostility and rejection - that the working of the kingdom was paradoxical and mysterious. Even more deeply than the prophetic author in Isaiah 55, Jesus learned that "my ways are not your ways." Yet he could continue with that prophetic passage, which describes the way in which the word of God, like the rain that brings forth the crops, goes forth as an irresistible source of life, and be conscious to the moment of death on Calvary that this life-giving word worked definitively in him. Somehow the meaning and power of the kingdom was present in him and expressed creatively through his words and deeds; he was the sacrament of the kingdom of God. In him the power of God's creating Spirit was bringing into being a new humanity; in his enigmatic ministerial career was being revealed the mysterious way in which God rules history. Namely, by self-giving service.

      As we reflect upon the New Testament presentation of Jesus and his ministry, it is clear that there is no basis for making a distinction in Jesus' activity between what one might call evangelization and social reform. With the prophets of Israel, the word of God that is on their lips is the most radical force for re-establishing social justice; so the teaching of Jesus provides a source of profound social revolution at the same time that his healing deeds are the most forceful word that the saving power of God has broken forth in our world. This convergence of evangelization and social reform, which is formally stated by the New Testament theologians, is already present in the ministerial awareness of Jesus himself.

      Which brings us to reflection about our own Christian ministry. Despite the insights given us by post WWII missiology and by the "liberation theologians", especially with their Christian absorption of the Marxist notion of praxis, we are still not out of the period when dispute is going on as to whether the Church should more properly be involved in evangelization or in social development; as a matter of fact, this issue is one of those that are cited as distinguishing "liberal" and "conservative" Christians. Actually, the supposed opposition between the two goals is - as we have just suggested - apparent rather than real; yet there is need to specify how these two aspects of Christian commitment are not only complementary but coincident. Hence, by chosen topic for today's discussion.

      There are many important and fascinating questions that bear on the matter of Christian ministry; I have selected only one - the manner in which the shared experience of Christian service to the creation of a better world is a sacrament of the kingdom of God. And I use the word "sacrament" quite intentionally and properly; for I see Christian ministry as a revealing word of God - revelatory to those of us who minister, revelatory to the men and women who make up the world to which we minister. Sacrament has always had the notion of "built-in efficacy" in addition to the notion of "providing understand"; and this pertains also to the shared experience of ministerial engagement, for involvement together in appropriate ministerial service will form us into a community of Christian faith and belief. I think it important to stress this last point: if we are involved in Christian ministry we will be more than a community of shared activity, we will be necessarily sharing that vision of human life and destiny which is proper to Christian faith.

      The ecumenical implications of such sacramental experience are immediately apparent: we are far enough along the ecumenical path to realize that our unification as Christians will not be achieved by readjustment of institutional structures. Only the risen Christ is the ultimate source of our unity, for it is unity in his Spirit. And only faith in him, shared at a depth that goes beyond this or that particular formulation of doctrinal beliefs, is the living bond of personal consciousness that constitutes a Christian community. If I may presume to project onto others the experience that has been mine during the past couple decades of inter-denominational conversation, I think that it has been precisely this discovery that our personal faith is directed to the same Jesus as Christ and Lord that has made many of us aware of a bond as Christian, a bond that recognizes but already transcends the barriers to our complete unity.

      Let me, then, suggest some of the facets of shared Christian ministry as a sacrament of the kingdom of God. The first has to do with what may be the most revolutionizing paradox in Christian revelation: the servant lordship of God.

      The scriptural basis on this point is ample and explicit. It would be hard to find any category of New Testament theologizing that is more prominent than that of "servant". Application of this notion focuses on Jesus himself; and in the pages of the Gospels Jesus is described as applying to himself the ideal sketched out in the Isaian Servant Songs. Moreover, the suggestion that the fulfillment of this ideal must come through suffering and death is highlighted in all four Gospel accounts after the multiplication of the loaves, and the Petrine recognition of Jesus' Messianic character. Whether or not this identification of Jesus as the Suffering Servant can be traced back to Jesus' own affirmative understanding of his ministerial function is still problematic. I think a strong case can be made; but that is not precisely our point here. Suffice it to say that it is a pivotal element in New Testament christology.

      However, there is a deeper level to the New Testament understanding, one which developed at a surprisingly early stage of Christianity's reflection about Jesus. The key text, of course, is the primitive Christian hymn that Paul incorporates in the second chapter of Philippians. Without having to accept a radical kenotic reading of the passage, it is clear that the hymn and Paul are aware of a seeming incompatibility between the deeper levels of Jesus' identity as "Son and his death as a rejected criminal. The resolution of this apparent conflict comes in Jesus' openness (his "obedience") to being servant, even to self-giving in death; for this very servanthood can then emerge and be revealed in resurrection as Lordship.

      I think it is an inadequate understanding of this text to see Jesus' Lordship as a consequence, a reward as it were, of his service; rather, in his death and resurrection service and rule coincide. He is Messiah and Lord; but he is a Servant Messiah and Lord. His triumphant rule as Lord is carried out precisely by continuing service. This view of Philippians 2 as integrating ultimate authority and service is supported by Mt. 20:25-28, which speaks of Jesus' kingdom, but a kingdom where authority is exercised by service according to Isaiah 52.

      Though New Testament theology itself does not explicitly bring together this view of Jesus as Servant-Lord with the interpretation of Jesus as God's Word, this seems a perfectly justifiable step for us to take. Clearly, whatever Jesus does he does as "word" of his Father; the manner in which he deals with people reveals his Father's mode of salvation and providential guidance. So, the fact that Jesus himself exercises authority precisely by his self-giving service reveals the radically revolutionary truth that God's way of ruling is that of self-gift in love. The social implications of this revelation are earth-shaking: the God revealed in Jesus cannot be appealed to as ground or legitimation for the kind of dominating rule characteristic of patriarchal cultures; the very nature of legislation and judgment in human society is altered; and legitimate governing is seen in the context of fostering, as far as is possible, individual responsibility and freedom.

      The writers of the New Testament literature extend the application of "servant" to the members of the Christian communities; as a matter of fact there seems to be a clear catechetical intent in the linking of accounts of Jesus' baptism with the Isaian servant passages, and the text in Philippians to which we just referred is introduced by the exhortation: "Let that mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus." The ideal of "service" which had emerged in Israel as the fundamental response to the word of God continues into Christianity, but is now seen as linked to and sacramentalizing the risen Christ's own redemptive self-giving.

      If we reflect theologically upon this New Testament evidence, it becomes clear that there is no clearer nor more existential word about the here-and-now saving action of God in Christ than our own experience of concerned service of one another. This experience is the prime analogue of God's own action; but it is more than that, it is that in which God's action is taking place. In the experience of serving others one is experiencing God serving these others. The corollary of this conclusion is that a person is deprived of a prime source of religious and theological insight into soteriology if he or she is uninvolved in service to others. Unless I misread them, this is what the liberation theologians are getting at in their insistence on Christian praxis; and i believe it is what lies behind the increasing attention in theological circles to orthopraxis along with orthodoxa. Moreover, it is an indispensable element in responding to "the signs of the times", because there is no way of really grasping the dynamics of present-day social, economic, political, and cultural activity unless one is experientially grappling with the potential and problems of human life today - unless one knows what the times really are, one cannot see their demands. And unless one is involved in social movement with the goal of service, one cannot realistically grasp the nature of God's own involvement in the creation of history.

      By the very nature of things, effective service must for the most part be carried out as part of a group, especially in our world where only a systemic approach to social ills can come to grips with basic problems and solutions. And also by the very nature of things, this cooperative service forms us into serving communities: it is a shared goal that most effectively generates communities and sustains them in vibrant existence. If those participating in a serving community do so in the context of responding to God's word in Christ, they share not only common concerns and activities but also that vision of human life which comes in Christian faith; they are Christian community in a genuine sense, no matter how external structures may still to some extent divide them denominationally.

      Having suggested briefly that a faith-inspired concern for others that finds expression in appropriate self-giving is the very heart of Christian ministry, I would like to look at some specific expressions of this ministry. Let me begin with that which is most ultimate and to which therefore all other ministration must contribute - this is the ministry of forming community. By saying that this is the most ultimate I am referring to the fact that the final purpose of all human history, including all Christian ministry, is to bring into existence that community of persons, human and divine, which will be the definitive stage of the kingdom of God.

      Clearly, we are still at some distance from that ideal realization of human community, and in this penultimate condition - if we are even close enough to be considered penultimate - we are meant to be engaged in creating appropriate human community. It is trite to say that there are many dimensions to such community - economic, cultural, political, religious or ideological, etc. - and that all of these demand a specific expression of ministration, so that increased equality and dignity and justice emerge for all humans. But whichever of these ares of ministerial involvement draws our special attention, there are certain basic principles that must be kept in mind.

      First, we must still beware of placing excessive reliance on structural changes. In saying this, I am in no way backing off from the critically important emphasis on a systemic approach to social change - given the immensity and the inter-locking of the economic and social forces at work in our world, nothing but a careful and large-scale grappling with the systemic causes of evil can be effective. What I mean to say is that, even in our highly systematized and technologized society, people and their understandings and their attitudes and their motivations and their decisions are what most need to be reformed.

     Important as they are, structures can neither create nor constitute community, though poor structures can be a hindrance and appropriate structures a help. Genuine community can only come about through personal sharing because community consists in some form of communication. I think it is profitable to contrast this more existential view of human community with the idea of "human nature" and its correlate "natural law". Helpful as it is in governing our understandings about humanity, the idea of "human nature" is just that - an abstraction that does not exist as such and which can, if its abstractness is not recognized, lead to a homogeneous view of humanity which is regarded as an ideal that one tires to implement through monolithic legal and societal structures. Our human commonness is not something of which each of us has a piece, it is something that is in process of being created as we learn increasingly to communicate with one another. We can become a human history by sharing with one another our distinctive individual histories. Abstruse as this point may seem to be, I think it is of major importance for any discussion of Christian ministry, because it is precisely this unifying process of personal communication that must be ministered to if there is to be movement towards human fulfillment. Not to belabor the point, but I think that we are here in contact with one of the pivotal shifts in present Christian (and human) thinking.

      Secondly, accuracy of understanding is basic to doing anything lasting and effective. Granted that we must become even more open to one another in our ideas and attitudes and vision; granted, too, that we must learn to listen more carefully; there is no genuine contribution to human community that comes by sharing error or confusion. Only truth can function as "word of God". Even with our best efforts to clarify our ideas, even with careful use of technical methodologies to search for truth, we fall short of the goal of precise knowledge in many areas - but without such effort and care we drift as a society into uncertainty and befuddlement and eventual division. Just as error and ignorance and prejudice are the enemies of true human community, so the search for insight and correct understanding, a search that we must undertake in union with one another, is a basic component of our ministry to community. In proportion as we humans discover truth, the truth itself will unify our consciousness.

      Let me pass on, then, to a more specific aspect of what we have just mentioned, namely, the ministry of communicating our faith vision as Christians. Another name for this is, of course, evangelization.

      Evangelization as a ministry is ever new, ever old; within Christianity it is a prime illustration of the basic social tension of continuity and discontinuity. The Gospel, which in its essence is identical with the risen Christ himself, remains the same yesterday, today and forever; but the form in which this Gospel is preached must be as varied as the varied cultures of humanity and as changing as human history itself. Which means that the Christian community, at our point in history, must discover ways of announcing the good news so that our contemporaries may hear what it truly is.

      The mention of "evangelization" tends immediately to direct our ministerial interests outwards, towards those outside the Church who have not yet heard the Gospel. This certainly is the technical sense of the term (as distinguished from such other activities as catechesis), but it would be a mistake not to see the first task we face as one of evangelization within the Church. How large a proportion of Christians have never heard the Gospel would be impossible to ascertain; but every indication is that it is large. In many ways this is not too surprising when one considers the huge numbers of people involved, the vague acquaintance with Christianity provided so many "born Christians" as they grew into maturity, and the inadequate instrumentalities that have been employed to instruct Christians about the meaning of their presumed faith. Surprising or not, it is a scandal that stands in the way of effective preaching of the Gospel to non-Christians; and so it is a major need to which we must minister.

      At the risk of seeming unrealistic, I do not intend here to talk about what are ordinarily thought of as the practicalities of this situation such as better training of those who catechize. Instead, I would like to broaden out the context and talk about the ministry of sharing our Christian consciousness with one another. And I do so because I am more and more convinced that it is at this level we are most deficient in preaching the Gospel, and least the kind of communicating community we should be. Moreover, I think that the signs of the times point to this area as one which is ripe for the harvest: what I am referring to quite specifically is the worldwide phenomenon with Christianity of a charismatic awakening. No matter what judgment one may wish to pass on this or that particular charismatic movement, one thing seems to me indisputable: what is happening testifies to a deep-seated longing that people have to share with others their deepest convictions and hopes and enthusiasms and apprehensions, to draw strength from one another and assurance in the midst of a risky world, to be able to believe openly without fear of being ridiculed as irrelevant or naive.

      What we need, then, is to minister to one another as Christians by sharing, in a wide range of situations, our experience of what it means to be human in relation of God's saving action in Jesus the Lord. If the Christian faith one has is the genuine article, it touches at the very root of his or her self-identification and sense of self-worth, and so there is no deeper level of self-giving than to share with another what it means to be Christian. Jesus' redeeming act of self-giving is his sharing in risen life his own Spirit, that Spirit which is the privileged expression of his identity as Son. It is by communicating our faith consciousness with one another that we share increasingly in this same Spirit and become a believing community. Moreover, it is this profound self-gift that we most deeply share in ministry to one another, but it is this self-giving that is the sacrament of God's saving act of service.

      The particular expressions of this broad ministry are many. Perhaps most radical is the communication of faith that occurs in a Christian family, for it is here that personal intimacy and trusting openness to one another should most easily and genuinely happen. Obviously, there is no way of programming or structuring this familial ministry, except in the most general way - what must happen is that two elements come together in a life process, genuine faith and belief possessed by the members of the family and a real love for one another. Beyond the family one can point to all the human interchanges, conversations, meetings, where, for the most part quite informally, Christians express honestly and unassumingly their understanding of what human life is all about. All this is, of course, obvious and has been mentioned again and again as basic to the ministry of evangelization - my point is that, if this were really to happen among Christians, the very heart of the formation of Christian communities would be taking place. And, with all due respect for the more structured and official endeavors to achieve reunion among Christians, this basic sharing of faith among Christians is the foundation and only ultimate hope for reunion of the Church.

      Since Vatican II there has been considerable talk about the prophetic character of the Church - and rightly so, because no ministry was more central to Jesus himself than prophecy and no other ministry was seen by the primitive Church as more basic. If this recent stress on the Church as prophetic is to be more than the newest ecclesiastical and theological jargon, real communication of faith must begin to mark our Christian communities. And without being unduly negative, I think we can agree that we have a long way to go in this regard: well-organized parishes, active campaigns of social involvement, a full calendar of various religious activities and group meetings - all this is good, but it is busy work and a body without spirit unless there is a growing consciousness among us of being Christian together. We cannot fulfill the prophetic responsibility of proclaiming to our world the fact that God works salvifically through his Word and his Spirit unless we ourselves as a community of believers are keenly aware of this.

      Certainly, we would hope that those in official positions in the Church would exercise this kind of prophetic leadership, but none of us can absolve himself or herself from this ministry. Prophetism is not grounded in office; it is grounded in the basic gift of Christian faith. Each of the baptized bears the task; even more importantly, all of us together as the identifiable Church of Christ share the task of proclaiming to today's men and women the enigmatic wisdom of Jesus' death and resurrection. Fidelity to this mission will unify us where structures cannot.

      Jesus' ministry was one of teaching and healing. We have just been speaking about the extension into Christianity of his teaching; the need for his healing service to be continued is only too obvious. Among the many forms of healing that our present-day world needs I would like to single out reconciliation - and in discussing it, I would again like to concentrate on the manner in which involvement in this ministry binds us to one another in Christian community.

      Actually, if we are to be effective in the kinds of reconciliation that today's world demands, we need the large-scale effort that only a community can undertake; and if we are to persevere in the face of the obstacles to be met, we need the human support a community provides. To speak about reconciliation is to deal with the evil of alienation, an evil that finds expression in each individual's lack of full self-acceptance, in our conflicts with one another as individuals, and in those social divisions - racial, economic, sexist, status that oppose group to group. That we should as Christians confront these evils with the reconciling power of truth and love is an imperative dictated by the Gospel: Jesus of Nazareth did not provide any theoretical explanation of evil; rather, he dealt with it in its manifold forms of dishonesty, ignorance, poverty, physical handicap, social exploitation. The precise expression these evils take today may be different but the needs remain fundamentally the same, and Jesus' emphasis in the midst of these various needs on the task of reconciliation is one that we, too, must honor. As we do so, we not only become more aware of one another as fellow humans concerned about safeguarding and nurturing human society, we become aware of one another as fellow disciples of this Jesus whose concern for human community we share.

      But there are aspects of this reconciling effort that will bind us together in a special fashion because of the special character of Christian reconciliation. The source of the reconciliation that we seek to accomplish is God's own Spirit of love; it is this saving love that flows through the sacramentality of our own human love to break down alienations and create community. But love can be such a healing agent only if it is accepted; which means that our ministerial effectiveness is conditioned upon the freedom of others. Some pain and frustration is unavoidable, for some of our best-intentioned concern will be rebuffed; some of those to whom we try to minister will refuse reconciliation. This should not be surprising: Jesus himself had to pass through rejection and death in order to obtain in newness of life his full reconciling power. But painful as such experience will be, it can create a precious bond among those who work together against social evils. Moreover, it can provide a shared insight into the mystery of that God, revealed to us in Jesus' death and resurrection, who deals with us in what can only be described as compassion and anguished regard for our freedom.

      There are, I believe, quite profound theological implications in all this, implications that are most relevant for our ecumenical endeavors. Much of our technical effort to discover Christian unity is devoted to examining the functioning of those symbols which are our various doctrinal statements; and this is necessary. But it may well be that our ministerial experience of sharing the mission of Christ is a symbol that conveys a deeper insight into the reality of the God we worship, and consequently a major theological task of the present moment is to unpack the revealing significance of this experience.

      Such a theological approach does not replace the need to deal technically and critically with classical doctrinal explanations, but it does introduce an element of concreteness that overcomes the abstractness with which theology has often and with considerable justification been accused. To give just one illustration: in our theological explanations of sanctifying grace, we have dealt with the notion of grace as life, a special level of life that somehow participated in divine life because of our sharing in Christ's own filial relationship to his Father and our persona list and psychological reflection to all this, and quite rightfully insisted that "life" in this context is to be understood primarily in terms of human consciousness, affectivity, and freedom - all of which has allowed us to incorporate into our theological explanation of "grace" our understandings of the psychological process of individuation, the interaction of love and freedom, etc. To a much more limited degree, we have drawn from modern sociological analysis and, mindful that scripture itself uses "alienation" as its principal category for describing sin, talked about the social dimension of grace as reconciliation.

      All this, however, is one step removed from the kind of understanding that comes when we experience the vitalization, the awakening, the freedom that come in loving one another and trusting one another enough to search together for the truth about ourselves and God and then together to speak this truth no matter what its implications. It is one thing to describe grace as participation in Christ's filiation; it is another to be aware of living with him in relationship to his Father, to have the experience in faith of sharing his Spirit. One can recast the notion of justification in terms of the reintegration and reordering of a person or of human society; but the experience of reconciliation provides a much richer insight into the reality of a reconciling God. What theoretical explanation could possible match the painful but saving knowledge that is involved in loving an enemy, the knowledge that in some strange way evil must be conquered by Love's absorption of it, that unless I suffer hostility to afflict me and do not return it, it will only grow with confrontation? How else but in the sacramental awareness of exercising a healing ministry would be learn that in our God there is no such thing as vindictive justice, and so be freed personally from the overtones of threat and irrational domination and fear that are so often attached to people's semi-conscious responses to divinity? Persevere: involvement in the ministries of reconciliation will bring with it some experience of dying; but it will also bring the experience that such dying does lead to new life. If we experience this together we are united by the very source of the Church's existence as a believing community.

      There is, of course, a basic artificiality in dividing our history into the 60's, the 70's and so forth. Yet, as we stand on the threshold of the 80's we cannot help but wonder what this decade will bring - more creatively we might wonder what we can make the 80's to be. From the perspective of Christian ministry, the next few years could be and should be several things.

1. It should be a period when ministerial activity is thought through increasingly as a response to the new needs and new potential of our rapidly changing world. This will demand a considerable amount of imagination and courage in bringing forth new forms of serving our fellow humans.

2. It should be a decade when we are guided by the Spirit of our Christian traditions though not necessarily by all the forms of the past. There will be the temptation to regress to what seem the safer patterns of the past, but we must lovingly refuse to retreat from the challenge of newness, no matter who suggests this.

3. These years should see an increasing assumption of responsibility on the local level. We Christians, particularly we Catholics, are learning that we do not need anyone's permission to undertake something good - though obviously we should coordinate our efforts with others who seek with us the establishment of the kingdom of God. The responsibility to serve others that we bear as Christians comes from baptism, not from some office - so those of us who are not officials cannot escape this basic responsibility.

4. In the immediate future, as a matter of fact for the foreseeable future, one of the principal ministerial tasks is that of raising people's consciousness, particularly within the Church, about the reality of Jesus as the Christ and about the reality of this God who has revealed himself in Jesus.

5. Perhaps even to survive the decade, we Christians along with other concerned men and women throughout the world must work relentlessly and unselfishly to establish peace, genuine peace that is grounded in justice and a regard for the personal equality and dignity of all humans.

6. Finally, in order that all of this may happen, and in order that the shared experience of ministry may truly function as a sacrament of Christian unity, we must have a much expanded and more realistic ministry to Eucharistic liturgy. It is in this liturgy that the Gospel and Christian experience are meant to clarify one another most formally and most profoundly - without a truly sacramental Eucharist we can never have truly sacramental ministry.