The Lay Person in the Room

There’s a particular experience that comes with being a lay person at a table full of clergy. You’ve served your parish, you’ve led ministries, you’ve shown up when it was hard. And then someone turns to you and asks, in the most well-meaning way possible, “And what do you do in the church?” And you’re at a loss for words, because “member” isn’t a complete answer.

I’ve managed emergency scenes. I’ve led teams through things that didn’t go the way anyone planned. And I’ll tell you honestly: a room full of clergy still has its own gravity. There’s a reverence that comes with the collar, and it’s not nothing.

The order of the laity is one of the four orders of ministry in the Episcopal Church, defined in the Book of Common Prayer. When you walk into that room, you’re representing an order of the church with its own theology, its own call, and its own rhythm, including the Sunday morning one that most people in that room experience from this side of the altar.

Holy Orders announces itself. A collar tells you who someone is and what they’ve been set apart to do. The order of the laity doesn’t come with a uniform, which means lay people walk into rooms and have to establish, all over again, that they belong there and have something to offer.

You belong in that room. The church doesn’t exist without the order of the laity.