Three attitudes affect our communication with others: dignity, humility, and respect. Also important to our communication are five areas of confidence: in ourselves, in our relationship with the Lord, in our relationship with the people, in the importance of our ministry, and in the use of our tools.
Ordination is rooted in the need for order within the Christian community. It tends both to reflect and to shape the church’s life and witness amid changing historical circumstances. An important development in the post–New Testament period was the emergence of a three-office structure for ordained ministry (bishop, presbyter, deacon) and the subsequent transformation of that structure into a more authoritarian one as the church came to assume a public role in a wider cultural context.
The specific terminology of ordination is not found in the New Testament, although several occasions are described on which people were set aside for special tasks of ministry. A fuller development of the theory of ordination took place in the post-New Testament church.