e are not comprehensive, and they too tend to
become constricting stereotypes.

Then there is the stereotype of the local church, which is still thought
of as a parish in a nineteenth-century neighborhood sense. In most
places the parish community is no longer the center of people's common
life. The neighborhood in which the church is located is an area to
which people come home from their varied activities in order to sleep.
And for an increasing number of men whose work keeps them on the road,
even sleeping at home occurs only on occasional week ends. These and
other stereotypes stifle the full power of the ministry and keep it from
being equal to today's task. Too many ministers, in consequence, feel
alone and separated from their people, and are bewildered by the
complexity of their work and the ambiguous results of their efforts.

Lay people, on the other hand, receive little help in overcoming their
stereotypes of the ministry and gravitate to a concept of the church
that is hard to distinguish from a middle-class country club or a social
service center. Another complicating influence is the current emphasis
on the lay ministry. The general stress on the priesthood of all
believers had made both clergy and laity less sure about the role of the
clergy, even to the point, figuratively speaking, of seeming to unordain
the ordained, and without clearly defining the ministry of the lay
member.

Is there an answer to these confusions and ambiguities? What can clergy
and laity now do to find their present and new role in the life of the
church and world? There is an answer to these questions which, if
followed, will open the ministry of the whole church to the renewing
vitality of the Holy Spirit.

First, the role of the clergy and the concepts of it are the
responsibility of the whole church. But the clergy are more conscious of
the problems of the church and of the ministry, and they should,
therefore, share them with the laity. Ministers make the mistake of
keeping "their" problems, which are really the problems of the church,
to themselves, instead of making sure that the rest of the church
members are aware of and assuming responsibility for them.

Second, if the clergy are to share these concerns with the laity, they
must break through the stereotypes held by both groups as described
earlier. There is evidence that both ministers and laity are suffering
restraints as a result of their false images of each othe