Here at the beginning of our journey in this book, we pose the fundamental question: What are practices of ministry, and how do we understand them theologically? A basic definition would be simply that they are what ministers (both lay and ordained) actually do. We might expand the definition a bit further, however, and say practices of ministry are what ministers do and also what we think about how and why we do it. As Christian practitioners, we minister with practices that are grounded in Scripture