If Jesus is the most full revelation of God to humankind, and if the church continues the ministry of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, then the location of the church’s ministry must then be defined. Douglas John Hall provides an appropriate launching pad for the task of ministry when he states that “[t]he greatest theological task of our times, I think, is to bring forth out of things old and new a soteriology that can speak to the anxiety of meaninglessness and emptiness.” Hall’s assertion is not limited to abstract metaphysical speculation about the nature of soteriology, but provides the location of the church’s concrete action in the world. Since the church is the agent of God’s continuing mission of the church, then to speak of salvation is to speak of the church. In this sense then, the ministry of the church is God’s salvific act.

It was through the work of Ray Anderson that I began to see the salvific action of God as arising out of a state of total nothingness, out of ex nihilo: barren Sarah gives birth to Isaac, the outcast Moses leads the Israelites to the Promised Land, a virgin gives birth to the Son of God, the salvation of the world is achieved through the death of God on the cross, and the Spirit of God is given to a group of people hiding in a room. It is not comfort or power that beget the action of God, but “[t]he void—the ex nihilo—is the necessary condition for the Word to bring forth God’s creation.” God’s salvific power is made evident in the most desperate times of human weakness. Thus, the church’s ministry must also occur in the space of the ex nihilo.

As a community called to minister the church must be open to the action of God in the ex nihilo of individual and institutional lives. Times of despair and discomfort are situations that often naturally force distance rather than intimacy and solidarity. However, it is in these very times when God is able to do God’s most profound work. Just as through the cross of Jesus Christ God became a place-sharer for humanity, so the church is called to share its place with those who suffer. Place-sharing is a form of ministry that tends to the humanity of individuals rather than offering religious platitudes during times of hopelessness. This conforms well to Anderson’s understanding that “all true ministry in the world is ‘secular’ in the sense that it seeks to recover the true humanity of the world, not to make it religious.”