Every follower of Christ should be a minister. There should be no looking to the clergy for any more hands-on ministry than to any other individual.

Those who are clergy are tasked with what is stated in Ephesians 4:12: "Prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up." There are no exceptions. We all have individual responsibility before God to minister.

What is ministry? In our day, we have likely expanded the definition to include several self-serving things that may bless some people, but not minister at the level required by Scripture.

In the Old Testament book of Isaiah, the prophet was giving a discourse to the people of God as to how they stood with God. Isaiah declares, "Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed, defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow" (1:16-17). God was bringing judgment on His people for their neglect of those among them who were marginalized.

We have our list of "thou shalt not" these days, but the lists we have likely do not include neglect of the poor, the orphans, and the widows. That is not popular ministry because any "rate of return" would have to come from God Himself.

This is not a predominant Old Testament theme; it carries into the New Testament and permeates the teaching and practice of Jesus Christ.

In Luke 10:25-37, Jesus agreed with the law expert who distilled it all down to loving God supremely and loving your neighbor as yourself. The rub came when the question was pressed in verse 29: "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan.

The Good Samaritan was a man who went out of his way to help a person in need. The Samaritan had no social standing with the man he helped; he just saw an opportunity to help and took it. The Samaritan made himself responsible for the needs of the man who had been robbed and hurt (Luke 10:35).

What does real ministry look like? It looks like people going out of their way, out of their social network, possibly outside of their culture, to help those that God is specific about.

In the New Testament book of James, James talks about worthless religion and pure religion (James 1:26-27). Pure religion or ministry is "[looking] after orphans and widows in their distress."

Here is the good thing. None of us has to go very far outside our door to find one or more of the people groups God was specific about: the poor, the widow, and the orphan.

Real ministry is reaching out to those who have need. For the helper, it does not matter that possibly the person's need came through their own foolish actions. We are not to judge why somebody is poor; we are just to help them.

God owns everything and can give anything to anybody. Because He has put some "things" in our hands and seems to have withheld from others, we have a great responsibility to be diligent about real ministry.