How Does Our Part Serve the Whole?

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: Strengthen one relationship through which your group’s responsibilities contribute to the ministry of the whole community.

Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:12–27. Additional reading: Galatians 6:1–5.

Receive and remember

Return to the adjustment you made last month. Who experienced its effects? Did someone else absorb work you had intended to reduce? Receive that information with gratitude, even when it complicates the story you hoped to tell. Name one connection that has already helped your work.

Pray: Spirit of God, you gather different people into one body. Free us to need one another and help us become trustworthy in the responsibilities we share. Amen.

Listen to Scripture

Read 1 Corinthians 12:12–27. Listen for the different reasons a member of the body might become disconnected. Notice what Paul says about honor, care, suffering, and rejoicing.

Read the full chapter: 1 Corinthians 12.

The connections that make ministry possible

Clear responsibilities can be a kindness. People know what is expected, where a decision belongs, and whom to contact. A committee can protect confidential information, prepare carefully, and carry out work that requires particular knowledge. When responsibilities are vague, the most conscientious people often fill the gaps until they become exhausted. Clarity matters for shared ministry.

Yet clarity can harden into isolation. A question reaches the edge of our assignment, and we say that someone else should handle it. A report is sent, but nobody knows whether it reached the person who needs it. A committee completes its part of a process while another group waits for information that was never included. Everyone may have acted within an assigned role, and the person relying on the process is still left stranded.

Paul’s body image gives us a way to examine both problems. In 1 Corinthians 12, the foot imagines that being unlike the hand means it does not belong. Later, the eye imagines that it can dismiss the hand as unnecessary. One voice says it has no place; the other says it has no need. Paul challenges both. Difference belongs within the body’s life, and no member is sufficient on its own.

He also directs attention toward those regarded as weaker or less honorable. The passage does more than praise cooperation among equally powerful partners. It asks the community to reconsider where it gives honor and care. Those who are easily overlooked remain indispensable. When one member suffers, the whole body’s life is affected. When a member is honored, others are invited to rejoice.

This image does not assign people permanent places in an institutional hierarchy. A senior leader cannot identify as the head and use the passage to require everyone else’s compliance. Nor should we label a person or congregation a weaker member as if we possess a final judgment about its worth. The passage challenges habits of superiority and exclusion. Its application begins with examining how we treat people whose contributions we overlook.

For committees, the useful question becomes: Where does our work need a living connection? A budget team may need to hear what a proposed reduction would mean for a ministry. A training team may need to learn what new leaders find difficult after the course ends. A care team may need a dependable way to communicate an appropriate request without disclosing someone’s private story. Each relationship has its own boundaries and its own possibilities.

The familiar instruction to stay in one’s lane can remind us to respect authority. But a body also needs joints, circulation, and responsiveness. We can preserve role clarity while asking who needs to be in conversation with us. A connection might be a brief consultation before a recommendation, a clear handoff, or an agreed time to return to an unresolved concern. Cooperation becomes more dependable when its form is specific.

Sometimes the person saying “That belongs to someone else” is right. A committee should not decide a matter outside its authority or assume that another team’s consent is automatic. Shared responsibility can take the form of bringing the right people together and explaining the need. A useful handoff includes agreement that the receiving person or group can accept it. Forwarding an email does not itself establish that an issue has been received and addressed.

Galatians 6 adds a helpful tension. The community is called to bear one another’s burdens, and each person is also asked to attend to their own responsibility. These instructions should not be turned into a tidy rule about which needs deserve help. Together they invite mutual care with honest accountability. We can accompany someone without taking over their agency, and we can name our own limits without treating another person’s difficulty as irrelevant.

Power affects which connections are available. A longtime member may get an immediate answer through a friendship while a newcomer cannot find a contact. Racial assumptions, professional status, language, disability, or the size of a congregation may shape whose concerns are treated as credible. Antiracism belongs here as a practice of examining and changing unequal patterns, including whose knowledge guides a decision. It requires more than placing a new face in an unchanged process.

A committee can begin by noticing one pattern within its reach. Who receives an informal explanation before a meeting? Who only receives a finished decision? Who repeatedly has to ask for access? Listen to those affected without requiring them to prove the whole problem or design its entire solution. A change in how a team shares information or receives input can make participation more real.

Shared ministry also needs relationships with neighbors beyond church structures. A presbytery’s whole life is larger than its committee chart, and Christ’s mission reaches beyond the institution. The partner you need may be a congregation, a community organization, or people affected by a ministry. The body image should help us become attentive and responsible, including when the important voice is outside our usual meeting.

For this month, choose one connection through which your present responsibility could serve more faithfully. Keep the scope small enough for a real conversation. Ask what the other person or group needs to understand, what you need to learn, and what each can responsibly promise. A dependable connection is itself fruit worth celebrating.

Notice, examine, and discern

1. Notice: Which voice in Paul’s image draws your attention: the member who feels unnecessary, the member who dismisses another, or the member whose suffering is shared? Where does our work depend on a connection with someone else?
2. Examine: What happens at that connection now? Whose experience, access, or authority is missing? Where do we assume that completing our part means the person’s need has been addressed?
3. Discern: What relationship could help us fulfill our responsibility more faithfully? What belongs to us, what belongs to the other party, and what must we agree on together?

Discuss a process rather than speculating about someone’s motives. If the example involves confidential care or a personnel matter, describe only what the group is authorized to know. A safer example can teach the same habit.

Practice during the month

Return to the responsibility you chose in Conversation 1. As a group, arrange one brief conversation with a related team or ministry partner. Choose a willing member or pair to participate. Offer the purpose clearly: you want to learn how your work affects theirs and improve one connection. Ask what they need from you, what has been useful, and where the present arrangement causes difficulty. Share your own needs without assigning them new work.

If both parties agree, record one modest next step with a person responsible, a boundary, and a review date. Examples include consulting before a recommendation or confirming receipt of a time-sensitive handoff. Make no promises beyond your authority. When agreement is not yet possible, record what needs clarification and who can help.

During ordinary work this month, pause at a handoff and ask whether the other person has what they need. This small repetition helps the conversation become a habit. Let this conversation develop the earlier listening practice, and retain the seasonal adjustment where it remains useful. Adapt the practice within the capacity you have already named.

Return and celebrate

At the next meeting ask: What became clearer or more dependable through this connection? Include the partner’s account where they permit it. Thank someone for a specific act of cooperation. If the connection remains difficult, name what you learned without treating the other party as the problem. Conversation 4 will turn toward recognizing and equipping people’s gifts.

Closing prayer

God of the whole body, give us humility to receive help and courage to offer it wisely. Strengthen the connections through which care reaches people. Teach us to honor those we overlook and to rejoice in gifts beyond our own. Amen.

Sources and further reading

• 1 Corinthians 12:12–27: belonging, difference, honor, and mutual care. The body is a theological image, not an organizational chart.
• Galatians 6:1–5: gentleness, shared burdens, and personal responsibility.
• Heidelberg Catechism, Question 55, in the Book of Confessions: shared participation in Christ and the use of gifts for others.
• For further reflection: the collection’s companion, Mission and the Shalom of Christ, on boundaries, power, and interdependence.

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