1 The Term “Ministry” Our Method: Back to the Bible One of the first steps in every theological discussion should be to define terms. Very often conflicting parties are speaking past each other because they are using the same terms with different meanings, or they fail to recognize that it is very common in any language that a given term may be used in a variety of meanings. This has been a significant problem in the debates about ministry in American Lutheranism. The problem is compounded by the