In theory I agree with not having a full time paid pastor. I think having someone who is paid to do church keeps others from living out their full potential to be the church. Where I struggle is in the reality that most all of us do work full time jobs and can’t be there to be fulfill the pastor role during the day when someone needs a pastor in our church or in our neighborhood. I think our church is made up of tons of pastors, but none are available throughout the day to meet the needs that may or may not come up while everyone else is at work.
I almost wonder if it is a cultural thing because we are so stinking busy as a culture that we need to pay someone to be pastor while we are unavailable. Parts of me say we need to be prophetic in challenging the culture of busyness, but other parts of me say we need to be contextualizing the Gospel. Then on top of that who are we going to be prophetic to? Cause I’m not sure how we can tell people to stop being busy working two jobs when one job (in our Walmart world) doesn’t pay nearly enough for a family to survive, even without many luxuries.
On the other hand maybe we could find a new way of living together where we share more, work together more, and learn to be less busy together more. Then maybe some of these paid pastor questions would get a little bit clearer.
6 comments:
I think you might be able to argue that the pastoral vocation is a "cultural" one, except the fact that there have been vocational pastors in every culture, in every time, and in every (OK...I'm sure we could find one that doesn't fit here) religion.
In the ancient Jewish religion. In NT Judaism. In the Early Church and in every era of Christianity since.
I agree that there are problems with how we understand the vocation of pastor, but that certainly is not a reason to get rid of them. It is a reason to rethink how we do chuch. The apostles appointed deacons so that they could remain focused on preaching, teaching and praying. That was it.
Imagine a church that managed its own money. Ran its own NMI/SS (which I think are obsolete anyway). Took care of ministry itself and let the pastor study, pray, visit, preach and teach.
I believe every pastor should be full time and every church, no matter how small, deserves a full time pastor who can dedicate all of his/her being to shepherding that flock. That certainly has challenges, but none that can be overcome.
Even in Starfish and Spider, in decentralized organizations, there is some form of leadership. For instance, the Apaches had the Nataans (???). Now they emerged from the tribe they served (which might be a better option for how we place/develop pastors) but none the less there is the spiritual leader.
Yes, we are so stinking busy. And what do we do? Not much of significance really.
But hey, if you want to get rid of paid pastors why not get rid of the buildings too and really save some time and money?
And if you really wanna go that way why not come to be a missionary in the Middle East, then you can have a home church with Muslim converts. Seriously.
There is also Biblical and historical precedent for pastors who are at least partially self supporting.
Full self suport is the norm in the conservative Mennonite church background that I come from.
Benefits I have observed -
-More people tend to get involved in doing church.
-Greater sense of ownership and responsibility among laity.
-The church has more finacial flexibility and the ability give generously to foreign missions etc.
Challenges I have observed -
-Pastors can easily become overloaded and unable to fuction optimally.
-Pastors tend to be relatively less involved in their local communities.
-Some things that a paid pastor would do, simply don't get done.
-Pastors are less availible to meet needs in the church.
-Sermon quality sometimes suffers.
I don't think there is a clear cut way that always works. I favor a group decision that takes the pastors desires very seriously. A working solution will probably need to evolve and change over time.
John Yoder
Eric said: "Imagine a church that managed its own money. Ran its own NMI/SS (which I think are obsolete anyway)."
Hmm... I guess I can see the argument on why NMI is obsolete, but I don't agree that sunday school is obsolete. As far as I'm concerned Sunday School and small group is essentially the same things. The setting and maybe some of the ways in which certain churches express sunday school/small group is obsolete, but the underlying theme in these is discipleship and mutual growth.
Daniel,
I was speaking organizationally, not ministerially. The ministry of discipleship is vital to the church, but "Sunday School" as an "auxilary" with a "constitution" "a president" and "officers" certainly has outlived its usefulness.
btw, same goes for NMI, missions/evangelsim is not oboslete, but its organizationally is cumbersome with presidents, and points, and awards, and bla, bla, bla
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