Last summer, Marcus Goodyear interviewed me for The High Calling, an online magazine of Laity Lodge in Texas.  (In fact, I can remember exactly where I was: sitting next to Michael Toy‘s pool during a day off from the Church Basement Roadshow.)  Marcus posted Part One of the interview last week.  Money quote:

At TheHighCalling.org, we often say
that all work can be ministry. It can be hard for people to see
how everyday work is ministry, though.  How about the policemen in your
story, for instance. Were they ministers?

Police
officers are in such a strange role in our society. They almost never
spend time with people at their best.  Whether they’re pulling you over
for a ticket or coming to your house because your spouse just had a
heart attack. They have to deal with domestic abuse and suicide and
massive car wrecks.  These are the worst moments in life, and that’s
when police officers are with people.  So, it’s a very traumatic role
for them.  And you know, some cops are not the least bit pastoral, but
a lot of them are very sensitive.  It’s funny. They say, “We really
need these Chaplains to help us with death notifications, because we’re
no good at stuff like that.”  But most cops are really good with
people.  Everything they do–when they pull somebody over, when they
arrive at the scene of an automobile accident, how they carry
themselves, what kind of words they use, what kind of tone of voice
they have–it all becomes ministry in their daily lives. 

And Part Two, for next week, is pre-posted.  Money quote:

Did I just hear you reject the sacred/secular divide?

I
totally reject it!  100%.  I think it is Platonic philosophy for
someone to say there is a sacred/secular divide, that there are some
things in creation that are holy and some things are profane.  I think
that is the philosophy of Plato; it is not biblical.