I just put an extract from Dave Black Online on The Jesus Paradigm. (I have permission to do this.) Unfortunately, Dave’s blog doesn’t allow linking to a specific entry, so I’m linking to the extract. All I want to say here is “Amen!”
Category: Christian Ministry
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A Sinful Job Description
Image via Wikipedia The Christian Post has an article on depression amongst pastors and ministry leaders, which, in turn, links to an article at The Gospel Coalition. Now the Gospel Coalition article is part one of a five part series, so I’m not going to comment on how far they will go before they are done, but I think they could expand on their first item: Unrealistic expectations.
Not only are our expectations of pastors unrealistic, but they are sinful, and our descriptions of them are deceitful. The surprising thing is not that there are depressed pastors and ministry leaders. The surprising thing is that we have any functional leaders at all! I have long believed that if we described what we want in a pastor in a job description, nobody would be able to fulfill the role.
What we want, I believe, are Christ figures, who, rather than leading the church, will be the church, and will eventually sacrifice themselves, and probably also their families on behalf of a local church. That local “church” is only a church in name, because they are not behaving as the body of Christ, but rather delegating that task to a paid professional. Visiting the sick and shut-ins, serving in the community, spreading the gospel message, giving, and study of the Word are all functions of everyone, not just one ordained person.
Just leading the teaching ministry of a mid-sized congregation would be a solid, full-time job for one person, and that only if he or she spends most of the available time equipping other teachers in the church.
As long as we have unrealistic–yes, sinful!–expectations enshrined in our church organization, we’re going to have leadership problems, not to mention plain old “living the good news” problems.
Related articles
- C. J. Mahaney Steps Aside To Face Charges (antagoniz.wordpress.com)
- Three Pastoral Musts That Don’t Often Get Mentioned (via Jared Wilson) (mgpcpastor.wordpress.com)
- Our Pastor is Lazy (jevlir.com)
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Quote of the Day – On the Job of Pastor
From Dave Black Online:
The task faced by the solitary pastor today in so many of our churches is overwhelming; but it is a task to which the Savior called no one.
Quoted in full by Brian Fulthorp and at jesusparadigm.com.
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A United Methodist Pastor on Revitalizing Dead Churches
There are many days when the United Methodist Church discourages me, and I wrote a post yesterday with that sort of feeling. But there are two things that regularly encourage me: Encountering vital small congregations, and meeting some of our young pastors.Via another young pastor, Geoffrey Lentz, who is doing wonderful things at First United Methodist Church and especially with our ICON service, I met one of these young pastors through my publishing work–be warned that I’m going to push his book in this post just a bit–Darren McClellan. His book is Out of This World: An Assessment of Christian Community, and in it he evaluates a church congregation through interviews, and then looks at some suggestions to improve the way in which we handle such things. It’s a slightly edited version of his Princeton Doctor of Ministry dissertation.
It’s with our paid/team imprint EnerPower Press, because it was submitted as a simple dissertation printing. Had it been submitted for traditional publishing, I might well have decided not to take it due to the size of the potential audience. In terms of quality, the manuscript need have no apologies (nor the author).
I’m not going to comment extensively on this, as it’s hardly my field, but in it, Darren starts with a view of discipleship derived from both Bonhoeffer and Wesley, and then allows the anonymous church members to express themselves on how this worked in their church. He then gives some specific ideas for reform in the church, and finally addresses suggestions to churches, to new pastors, to district superintendents, and to bishops. This may be a bit ambitious, but such directness is needed to prevent what Darren calls “vocational homicide.” That’s a strong term, no doubt, but my observation is that there are many people in the church who are guilty of that charge.
For my United Methodist readers, and any others interested, I’m going to put this book on sale for direct purchase. I see that the Amazon.com price today is $18.99. I’m going to put it at $18 shipped via Energion Direct. I’ll leave the sale price up for two weeks. I have some on the shelf here ready to ship.
At the same time, bloggers who are interested in reviewing it can e-mail to request a free review copy. The only requirement is that you do review it. There’s no requirement as to how you review it, but if you receive a free copy, I want to see your review. Oh, and the government wants you to note that you received a free copy.
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The Way That Seems Right
Image via Wikipedia (This post is written for the One Word at a Time Blog Carnival [Road].)
The mission trip was off to a bad start. I had unwisely followed some “money saving” advice from a travel agent, which landed me in Atlanta with less than an hour to change planes, and the flights had been booked separately, so the airline had no obligation to make it work. Members of the team had come from various directions, and everyone but me–their leader–was off on the plane for Hungary while I worked the phones to rearrange my flights.
A mere nine hours later I was on a plane for Paris and then Budapest, living out the saying about a leader catching up with the people who are supposed to be following him. There was a further glitch in the plans. We had a van arranged to pick up the team in Hungary, but it would be long gone by the time I got there. I was to pick up a rental car in Debrecen, which was close to our work area, because our team would be working at two separate locations. So we arranged for me to pick it up at the airport in Budapest. I would then spend the night and drive out to the camp east of Debrecen the next day.
The travel agent was to arrange a hotel for me as well. I specified one thing–I wanted it to be in the southeastern part of the city which would be right on the road to Debrecen, and thus make it easier for me to find my way. Did I mention that I don’t like driving in unfamiliar places. I’m happy to ride the bus; driving is not a pleasure.
Well, I landed in Budapest, tired and ready to go to that hotel. I had to call back to the states to get the details. So I took the name of the hotel and found the rental car counter where I asked for directions. It turned out the hotel was on the northern side of the city, fortunately still east of the river, but nowhere near the route to Debrecen. In addition it was a luxury hotel that cost about three times what I had wanted to pay. I got a marked map along with verbal directions. I was told it was easy to get to the hotel, and I took off.
Now before anyone gets the wrong idea let me say that I love Hungary. The teams I was working with stayed in Hungary and served children from the Ukraine. Our hosts there were wonderful partners in ministry. In addition, the public transportation system is great (see “bus” above!) and the roads are well marked. The problems here have much more to do with me than with where I was.
I was in a bit of doubt about a couple of turns, but then I got back on what appeared to be the right road. The way seemed right to me, right up until the moment I looked out the right window and down to the beautiful Danube. By the way, it’s a great scene, if you’re not fully focused on finding a bed.
For two hours I drove around Budapest, both using the map and asking directions. Every time I stopped to ask for directions I was surrounded by people who tried to explain. But my Hungarian vocabulary was around a couple dozen words, fortunately including left, right, and straight, and very few of the folks I met spoke English. In the end, it seemed almost an accident when I ended up in front of the hotel.
The next morning, somewhat rested, I carefully studied the map and planned my route out of the city. Do you want to guess how many wrong turns started the problem?
Exactly one.
I made one wrong turn that took me off the original route. Had I made that one turn correctly, I would have driven past the well-marked hotel entrance about ten minutes later. I was annoyed. I had already lost time on my mission, and I definitely saw no purpose in all that running around. I definitely wasn’t thankful, and I wasn’t rejoicing.
The next Sunday in the camp near Debrecen I was asked to give the message to the campers at the church service. What would I say to all those kids?
This text came to mind:
There is a way which seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death. — Proverbs 16:25 (WEB)So I told the story. The kids had a great time laughing at the American teacher lost in Budapest. But they seemed to get the message. I was sure of it when I got to the Ukraine and was again asked to speak to some children, this time in a little house church. Again, the children laughed, and again they got the message. When I got back to Debrecen, nearly two weeks after the initial sermon, several of the kids came up to me and repeated the text. I’m willing to bet that there is no other sermon I’ve ever preached has been remembered by that many people two weeks later.
There’s a basic lesson in the text, of course. It’s easy to think you’re on the right road, but if you aren’t following the map, you can be headed to the other side of the river, so to speak.
But for those in ministry, there’s another lesson. There is a way that seems right in preparing sermons. Beautiful quotes, flowing language, fine rhetoric, jokes to relax the audience, serious theology. These are the things that make you look and sound more important than those who listen to you.
But sometimes, many times, in fact, it is your own experience that’s going to make the difference. It may involve getting laughed at, but where’s the problem in that?
I have to add one other note. In the Ukraine, when I used the “lost” sermon, I was invited to speak to the adults as well. I spent a good deal of time on what I would say to the adults. I had a great lesson for them. Or so it seemed to me. (There is a way that seems right, no?) When both were done, I saw the head elder of the little congregation copying some stuff down from what I’d said.
What was he copying? The illustrations on the blackboard for the children’s lesson. Nobody commented on my well-prepared sermon.
There is a way which seems right to a man,
but in the end it leads to death. — Proverbs 16:25 (WEB)Indeed!
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Dave Black Has a Question on Ministry
You can find the full context at The Jesus Paradigm (extracted from Dave Black Online). But here’s just the question itself:When will appeals for vocations to the ministry end? And when, in their place, will the church encourage all of its members to seek God’s will for the area of ministry in which they can most effectively be used by Him?
Good question. But before I look at it, it brings up an interesting phenomenon I’ve noted in the church. My wife was mentioning to me how every pastor she has ever talked to about testimonies in the church service (having someone other than the pastor talk a bit on Sunday morning) says it sounds like a good idea. (Hint: Read 1 Corinthians 14.) Yet nobody ever actually does it.
Similarly in youth ministry, I’ve encountered many, many people who think young people should be more involved in the church in general, including leading and speaking, but it rarely happens. I recall one church that agreed generally in a meeting that the young people should be made welcome in the service with the adults and allowed, even encouraged to speak. But it didn’t actually happen.
Thus back to the call to ministry. I can’t remember anyone I’ve talked to who doesn’t agree that every Christian is called to ministry, to service. There’s some disagreement as to the distinction of different calls, for example, is a call to full-time ministry substantially different from a call to teach Sunday School? But when it comes right down to it, much of the ministry is done by the professional staff.
I recall a conference at which my wife Jody and I were both speakers. The other speakers, three of them, were all ordained. We were teaching about prayer. During the last session, the local church pastor made a call for people to come forward for prayer, and invited the pastors to come forward and pray. Odd, isn’t it? Is prayer a function of the ordained clergy? It reminds me of a former bishop here who was speaking at our church. He remarked that he really loved to have people praying for him who weren’t paid to do it!
In the Methodist church we have a long, daunting process through which we put young people who are “called to ministry,” but we’re pretty random about anything else. When I first discussed how I could serve in the United Methodist Church, already equipped with an MA in Religion, the only thing the pastor could think of was to become a candidate to be a pastor. When I pointed out just how little my training or gifts had to do with pastoring a church, he had no idea what to do. I worked at it and found a place, but the church as a whole didn’t know what to do with me.
Then there’s the multi-page survey, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but cannot possibly be the only thing we use to get people involved. Some people won’t identify their own gifts. I wouldn’t have checked a box for children’s ministry, for example, yet I’ve been invited to teach the third grade class at my church twice so far this year, with good success. (If you know me, you’ll realize that all glory for that must go to God. It’s a miracle!)
I think there would be an incredible transformation of the church if we just began to do the things we all know we ought to.
So I have a different question: Why is it that we don’t do these things that we’ll all generally agree we should do?
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If THIS is the Purpose of Your Church then It IS Obsolete
Image via Wikipedia John Meunier cites comments by Mark Cuban, owner or the Mavericks, who says he doesn’t need the new media because he can reach their readers just as well himself. I would note in passing, though it’s not the topic of this blog, that I think Cuban is optimistic about his ability to reach people directly. I get my sports information via the internet, and I almost never do so through the team’s web site or official channels. But that’s something time will test.
Meunier’s application to the church is interesting, however, and matches with some things I’ve read recently and also heard in discussions at church, i.e. in the physical building we call church. The general idea is that because people can make connections now via social media, they need the church less. I have no doubt that for certain definitions of “church” and “need” this is true. People who attended church for the purpose of social or business networking no longer need the church as much in that particular way.
So if your church exists for the purpose of providing social networking, then your church indeed is obsolete, or is rapidly becoming obsolete. Even someone like me, past middle age, can contact my business associates, friends, and family via social media and text. In fact, I do almost all my business networking online. That doesn’t mean I don’t ever want to physically meet people. In fact, I like to meet them whenever possible. But I have had design work done by people I never physically met. I regularly publish authors I have never met. I sell to people I have never met in physical space.
The problem here is with the definition of church. We use “church” to refer to the building, to the congregation that meets there, to denominations, and to the church universal. Our physical building is diminishing in importance. Not becoming useless (or obsolete), mind you, but diminishing in its role. The local congregation, in the sense of those located in one physical place, is diminishing in importance, as we have it now. But there is no reason in all of this to suggest that the church, as the body of Christ in the world, is diminishing in importance. Unless, of course, we’ve made church equivalent to one of those other things.
Social media is regularly decried as a means of keeping people apart. But people are using it to get together. People complain about how the easy access to one another via cell phones, on Twitter, on Facebook, and in so many other ways diminishes more personal contact. But for me, and I know for many others, all of those are means of keeping in better touch with people I care about. In addition, they make it possible for me to find out about, and care about, people I might never have met otherwise.
The building was never the church in the first place, at least in the biblical sense. Yes, we use the word that way, and I’m not complaining about the way language changes. We just need to be aware of which definition of “church” we’re using. Social media means the building is less important, because it gives us other ways of connecting.
Now if your church, in the sense of local congregation, existed largely as a social network, it’s going to be obsolete as well. It just isn’t as efficient at social networking any more. If that was all your church was, there’s no reason to mourn its passing. But if your congregation was a gather of people filled with the Holy Spirit and empowered to do ministry (see 1 Corinthians 12-14 and don’t skip chapter 13), then three things may happen.
First, you can expand your congregation and connect it to other congregations more efficiently. There might be a congregation in some other part of the world that needs to connect to your gifts in order to serve where they are. You can connect with them via social media, and both be more effective.
Second, you can more efficiently get your congregation aware of, and working together on the things you are called to do. You can arrange rapid responses to disasters. You can discuss the Sunday School lesson on your Facebook wall. You can tweet about the church service if it excites you and thus reach people who couldn’t, or wouldn’t (and probably won’t) enter your building.
Third, remember all those buildings? As they became less useful as places for the membership to gather, you can convert them for use in other ministries, or if you find no new use for them, sell them, and use the money to accomplish the church’s mission. I personally think church campuses are the most underutilized class of real estate around. What good is that sanctuary to anyone during the week?
Speaking of which, and only slightly off topic, what is it with all these closed and locked gyms (or family life centers, or whatever you call them)? I’m guessing that if the church was willing to go to work you could have young people using those facilities for fun and learning. Many of them wouldn’t be church members? Their parents aren’t paying tithe to support the building? Good! Learn as a church to give in mission. There’s a risk in having kids off the street in your facility? They might tear it up? Good! It all belongs to Jesus anyhow, and he can handle it.
Related articles
- Social media helps places of worship deepen bonds of community (knoxnews.com)
- Mark Cuban as church thinker (johnmeunier.wordpress.com)
- Getting Young People in Church (maryharristodd.wordpress.com)
- 5 Ways Hiding Your Social Presence Hurts You (outspokenmedia.com)
- Social Media and It’s Positive Impact on Non-Profit Animal Shelters (comm563.wordpress.com)
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Someone Else Thinks Seminaries are in Trouble
… but his solution is very different from mine. I think the idea that the current concept of a university will survive is a pipe dream. The cost is going to force education to change. Face to face education will be needed, but the form is going to change. (HT: John Meunier.)
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On a Virtual Seminary Education
Image by unca_cthulhu via Flickr Jason Byassee explains why he voted to allow up to 2/3 of seminary credits to be taken online in his United Methodist conference (HT: Joel Watts).
Readers of this blog will already be aware that I believe it’s inevitable that the majority of education is delivered by virtual means. Not only that, I think this is a good thing. I think it will make it possible to deliver a higher quality education. There is always resistance to new technology, because it takes away from our old standard ways of doing things. But instead of fighting such technology, which is still just a tool, we need to find ways to use it to make things work better.
I think our current concept of a university, a college, and a seminary are doomed. But that doesn’t mean that there is nothing good in those concepts. There are experiences that do need to be carried out together. But those classroom lectures with hundreds of students ignoring the professor can be replaced by more efficient means, and we can spend our money, and the precious time of quality teachers on the most important things.
For example, I recall preparing lessons for my later classes while occupying a seat in a class on Daniel and Revelation, and then getting a comfortable ‘A’ in the course. I could have learned more by spending those hours online. Could the professor have done better? Absolutely. But he also had to deal with about 50 students, so detailed discussion of all points involving all of us would have been impossible.
On the other hand I would not want to exchange my time studying Greek exegesis with Dr. Sakae Kubo for anything else. There we had half a dozen serious students, and we made that time with an expert count.
Dr. Byassee comments on hands-on education, such as learning how to take the hand of a dying person. There’s where I think even seminary fails. I have talked to many seminary graduates who are uncomfortable praying with a member of their congregation when they graduate. They have to become comfortable as they pastor. Here the local church needs to be involved. I wonder why a young person, especially one contemplating full-time ministry, would be allowed to get through their youth in church without learning how to pray with one another.
I’d think strong local church involvement plus a good online program with additional time spent in person at a seminary (weekends, weeks, months, sabbatical years) would be a good formula. All of those elements should be lifelong, and not just during a time of preparation.
In my view, social media and virtual education will only hurt us if we don’t learn how to make the best of the resources available.
Related articles
- The State Of Virtual Education (nihiliest.wordpress.com)
- Update: Online MDivs now more flexible – GBHEM quick to change recent ruling (hackingchristianity.net)
- Online MDivs in dispute – GBHEM’s new guidelines (hackingchristianity.net)
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In Which I Make Two Intemperate Remarks
I was talking to a friend the other day. Our main topic was church and the way it was done. In the course of our conversation I discussed what I feel is the 1 Corinthians 14 church, you know, the one Paul was trying to correct. (I discuss what I think about it in my post The Problem with 1 Corinthians 14 Worship.) I was also discussing handling of incorrect statements in church, whether these are off-the-wall interpretations of Bible passages, or people claiming to speak a prophetic word that is truly not from God.
In summary, I believe the Corinthian church was active and alive, and everyone came in with a message. There would be multiple messages given to the group, and there would be discussion. I believe the New Testament model would be for people to speak and then for others to affirm or correct as necessary. I acknowledge the problems, and in our conversation I mentioned how many friends of mine who are pastors are not too happy with my view. They’d prefer to check the message before anyone hears it, so none are led astray, and they’d also prefer not to have to affirm or correct any statement in a public setting.
I acknowledge that I am not a pastor and thus may be less sensitive to these problems. I also know that telling someone they are actually wrong in a public place is very much against our cultural norms. We really prefer to keep the face of things happy and affirming, and take care of any questions out of sight. But I don’t think a church modeled after the ideal presented in 1 Corinthians 14 (and elsewhere in the NT) can function in that way.
In our discussion, this brought forth my first intemperate statement. After we’d discussed these points, and both agreed about the difficulty of accomplishing this, I said: “It had better be possible. If not, my life work thus far has been in vain.”
It was out of my mouth before it passed through my brain. But it has stuck with me, and I haven’t found much reason to back off of it. To me, the church, if it is to be the body of Christ, must have input coming from everyone, and must have everyone involved. We are all baptized into the same Spirit (read all of 1 Corinthians 12-14 to get this picture), and we all have gifts. These gifts are to come together. That, to me, is church. If church doesn’t work, I have truly been wasting my time.
I would note that I don’t mean spreading people’s private issues and problems in public, where they can be kept private. I don’t mean gossip and tale bearing. I mean every member involved in the theological thinking and practical visioning of the church body on a regular and constant basis.
What do you think? How intemperate was I?
Then there was the second intemperate statement, which needs more qualification on further thought. My friend asked me which seminary I would recommend a young person go to in preparation for Methodist ministry. My intemperate answer? “I wouldn’t.”
Yet there are things I like about various seminaries. My problem here is that I don’t like the professional education approach to preparation for pastoring. In fact, I don’t like it much for anything at all. I think our educational system is well-designed to prepare people to live in the 19th century. it’s not completely incapable of preparing people for the 20th century, but it’s not fully equipped for that task. Unfortunately, none of us have the option to live in either of those centuries.
I may really stun my friends in educational institutions, but I think the traditional university is a surviving fossil. It’s going to go away over time, or at least become a very minor factor. The reason is that technology and information is developing too fast for one to dedicate a certain percentage of one’s life to going to school, then assume education is complete, except for an occasional refresher in some continuing education program.
We’re going to need to find a way to work and further our education simultaneously. We’re also going to want to benefit from scholars from around the world in any educational program, not just those who happen to be in the local area. This is a long subject, and I’m sure people will be very annoyed as things progress. There is already a great deal of prejudice against distance learning. Some of this comes from growing pains. Some of it is completely unjustified. Note to critics: You need to do more than point to problems with distance/online learning. You need to realize the imperfections of resident learning as well.
So again, how intemperate was I?
