What Is Our Work For?

By Matthew J. Skolnik

Before you gather: Please read the article and Scripture ahead of your meeting. Bring one observation or question to share. Give the conversation the time it needs, and return to it at a later meeting when helpful.

The article that inspired this series: What Is This For?

Formation goal: Connect one ordinary responsibility with the people it serves and the fruit you hope it will bear in Christ’s ministry.

Scripture: Ephesians 4:11–16. Read verses 1–10 as additional context when preparing.

Receive and remember

Begin by naming one contribution by someone else that has helped your group’s work. Receive these expressions of gratitude without comparing them. People may pass. Before considering what needs to change, remember that Christ’s welcome is already given. Your committee does not have to earn its place in God’s love through a successful meeting.

Pray: Jesus Christ, gather our attention. Help us recognize the gifts among us and hear the people beyond this table. Teach us what our work is for. Amen.

Listen to Scripture

Read Ephesians 4:11–16 aloud. Allow a brief silence. Notice who gives the gifts, who participates in ministry, and what kind of growth the passage describes. Keep those observations in mind as you read the article.

Read the full chapter: Ephesians 4.

The people behind the agenda

A committee can leave a meeting with a satisfying sense of accomplishment. The reports were received. Decisions were made. Someone agreed to follow up, and the minutes will show that the work moved forward. People gave their time, brought their experience, and honored responsibilities entrusted to them. These are gifts worth receiving with gratitude.

An agenda, however, tells only part of the story. Behind every report, decision, and assignment are people whose lives may be affected by what we do. A question worth carrying into our meetings is this: What do we hope becomes possible for people through the work entrusted to us? We need time to answer it honestly. We may know our responsibilities better than we know the people they serve.

Consider a team that faithfully produces a report every month. Its members check the figures and submit it on time. When they ask who uses it, they discover that some readers cannot understand its categories. Others appreciate it but need one explanation the team has never included. The report remains necessary. Listening reveals how the same responsibility might serve people more fully. This imagined example begins with good work and allows its purpose to sharpen that work.

Ephesians gives our question a deeper foundation. Christ gives gifts for the equipping of God’s people and the building up of the body. The passage’s measure of maturity is Christ himself. Its picture of growth includes truth, love, and the contribution of each part. The goal cannot be reduced to a larger organization or a busier calendar. The body grows as its members become more fully joined in Christ’s life.

The opening of the chapter asks for humility, gentleness, patience, and mutual forbearance. These qualities matter when we examine our work. Someone who helped create an inherited practice may hear our questions as criticism of years of service. Someone who has never felt heard may wonder whether this conversation will make any difference. We need enough humility to receive both experiences. Love gives us a reason to tell the truth and a way to remain present while hearing it.

The supporting joints in verse 16 deserve our attention. Contributions matter, and so do the connections through which they serve the whole. A financial decision can help make ministry accessible. A nomination can bring a previously overlooked gift into the church’s life. A policy can protect people and support trustworthy relationships. Our task becomes clearer when we can explain how the work contributes to lives beyond our own committee.

Presbyterians express this relationship in the Book of Order: “Mission determines the forms and structures needed for the church to do its work” (G-3.0106). F-1.01 locates that mission in God’s work in Christ. This gives us a theological reason to examine our arrangements. The fact that a process is familiar does not settle whether it serves well today. Nor does its age prove that it should change. Its purpose and effects deserve attention.

In this series, we name our shared horizon the shalom of Christ: wholeness in relationship with God, one another, ourselves, and the wider creation. This is a theological description of the life we seek together, not a claim that Ephesians uses the Hebrew word shalom. We draw on its vision of a body growing in love and on Scripture’s wider witness to God’s peace. Belonging, justice, healing, reconciliation, and faithful discipleship give that vision substance.

Shalom can unsettle a comfortable meeting. If a familiar schedule excludes someone who works evenings, peace may require changing the schedule. If a decision harms a neighbor, harmony among the decision makers does not establish faithfulness. We need the testimony of people affected by our choices. Whose gifts become visible? Whose burdens become lighter? Who still struggles to participate? Our good intentions are a beginning, and other people’s experience can help us see their effects.

This can stir a familiar concern: “I am already doing what I agreed to do.” That deserves a careful hearing. Members bring family responsibilities, employment, illness, caregiving, and other commitments. Some are carrying too much. Asking about purpose should help a group direct its finite energy wisely. It may reveal something to simplify, an unnecessary step to release, or a connection to strengthen within work already underway.

There is also a real invitation to responsibility. Completing an assignment does not end our interest in its effects. We can notice a gap, ask a question, or bring a concern to those with authority to address it. Caring about the whole does not authorize us to manage every part. It asks us to make a connection when indifference would leave someone carrying the consequences alone.

The first conversation therefore begins modestly. Select one ordinary responsibility and follow it toward the people it serves. Let their experience deepen your understanding before designing a solution. You may discover fruit to celebrate, an assumption to question, or a limit to respect. In any of those discoveries, your committee can begin to understand its work as participation in the ministry of Christ.

Notice, examine, and discern

Use these same questions in every committee or team. Give people a quiet moment before speaking. Stay with one responsibility throughout the conversation.

1. Notice: What did you notice in Ephesians about gifts, connections, or growth? Choose one recurring responsibility from a recent agenda. What do we actually do, and whose lives does it affect?
2. Examine: What do we hope that work makes possible? What have we heard or seen that supports our understanding? Where might habit, anxiety, or our own convenience be shaping our assumptions?
3. Discern: What connection between this responsibility and the body’s growth in love can we name together? What do we need to learn from someone affected before deciding whether anything should change?

Different answers can remain on the table. You do not need a polished purpose statement today. Record what you understand and what remains uncertain, without including confidential personal information.

Practice during the month

Choose one person affected by the responsibility. Agree on one willing member or pair to have a brief listening conversation before the next meeting. Include someone whose experience the group does not usually hear when that is feasible. Make the invitation easy to decline. Explain how any observations will be shared, and ask permission before attributing a story.

Ask: How does this part of our work affect you? What helps, and what could we understand better? Listen before explaining the committee’s intentions. One conversation is a beginning, not a representative survey. Once a week, each member can return privately to this question: Whose experience is missing from the way I understand our work?

Write one provisional sentence together: Through this responsibility, we hope to help these people experience or do this, in service to Christ’s shalom. Name who will listen and the meeting when you will return to what they learn. If nobody has capacity, examine an existing account from someone affected and identify the perspective still missing. The chair or staff should not automatically inherit an unclaimed assignment.

Return and celebrate

At the next meeting ask: What did we hear that affirmed, complicated, or changed our understanding of what this work is for? Thank those who listened and those who shared. If the conversation did not happen, ask what made it difficult and adapt it. Keep this practice available as the series continues. Conversation 2 will ask what the community’s present season requires.

Closing prayer

Christ, head of the church, receive the work of our hands and the questions we cannot yet answer. Open our attention to those our decisions affect. Give us courage to learn, generosity to listen, and freedom to use our gifts within your love. Amen.

Sources and further reading

• Ephesians 4:1–16, especially 11–16: gifts, equipping, maturity, and the body’s growth in love. The committee application is this article’s interpretation.
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Book of Order 2025–2027, F-1.01 and G-3.0106: mission and the structures that serve it.
• For further reflection: Matthew J. Skolnik, What Is This For?, the originating essay; and the collection’s companion, Mission and the Shalom of Christ.

Acknowledgment

This article and its conversation were influenced by the wisdom shared by the Presbytery of the Western Reserve (PWR) staff in September 2026: Judy Mitchell, Stated Clerk; Laura VanDale, Associate for Justice Ministries; and Josh Daum, Presbytery Operations Manager. With gratitude for their insight, questions, and ministry alongside Matthew J. Skolnik, the author of this collection.

© 2026 Matthew J. Skolnik. Scripture excerpts retain their separate attribution and license.

Scripture and Sources for the complete series