To teach God 's truth... To preach God 's Word... To administer God 's Sacraments... To declare God 's forgiveness of sins... To guide God 's holy family... This Ministry of Priesthood was given to your Rector. (Prayer Book, page 655) The aim of the service tonight: It might be called in our modern jargon a "job description" of the ministry of priesthood and the ministry of reconciliation. This ministry can be summarised under what has been called the Three P's - Presence, Proclamation, and Persuasion. ( i ) Presence. The Lord's first word of commission was not "preach" but "go"; and going into the world means presence. This is the vision the Parish Priest must catch today. Jesus said, "I will make you fishers of men" - not keepers of an aquarium. The fisherman goes where the fish are! Note the words of the regional dean on the service form: "It will be necessary for the rector to visit among his people, to know them, and to share their life, so that he may be trusted by them." (2) Proclamation. Proclaiming the Good News of the mighty acts of God in Jesus , not good humanistic advice or political theories, but the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Bishop Terwilliger says, "Preaching is not just the ministerial talking in Church; preaching is the meeting between God and His people with the preacher in between. Jesus said, "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me" (St. John 11: 32). Jesus proclaimed, in Word and Sacrament! The Church must recover the sense of Presence in preaching. (3) Persuasion. The priest must "so present Christ Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit that men may be persuaded to come to Him in penitence." The greatest force for persuasion is the example and demeanour of the priest. The people took note of the Apostles - "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John...took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus " (Acts 14: 13). As he celebrates the sacraments and preaches the Word, the priest will persuade people by his acts, his attitude, and in his face, far more than by what he says. He will persuade if first he himself is absorbed and awed by being a priest of God and the Church, if he realizes the responsibility of the call to be the celebrant of the Divine Mysteries and the preacher of the Word, to perform the ministry of reconciliation. 51