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 - Endorsed - Indifferent - Contested
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| The Nashville Statement
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Name:Daniel
Home: Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
About Me: I used to believe that evolution was reasonable, that homosexuality was genetic, and that people became Christians because they couldn't deal with the 'reality' that this life was all there was. I used to believe, that if there was a heaven - I could get there by being good - and I used to think I was more or less a good person. I was wrong on all counts. One day I finally had my eyes opened and I saw that I was not going to go to heaven, but that I was certainly going to suffer the wrath of God for all my sin. I saw myself as a treasonous rebel at heart - I hated God for creating me just to send me to Hell - and I was wretched beyond my own comprehension. Into this spiritual vacuum Jesus Christ came and he opened my understanding - delivering me from God's wrath into God's grace. I was "saved" as an adult, and now my life is hid in Christ. I am by no means sinless, but by God's grace I am a repenting believer - a born again Christian.
My complete profile...
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Daniel's posts are almost always pastoral and God centered. I appreciate and am challenged by them frequently. He has a great sense of humor as well.
- Marc Heinrich
His posts are either funny or challenging. He is very friendly and nice.
- Rose Cole
[He has] good posts, both the serious like this one, and the humorous like yesterday. [He is] the reason that I have restrained myself from making Canadian jokes in my posts.
- C-Train
This post contains nothing that is of any use to me. What were you thinking? Anyway, it's probably the best I've read all day.
- David Kjos
Daniel, nicely done and much more original than Frank the Turk.
- Jonathan Moorhead
There are some people who are smart, deep, or funny. There are not very many people that are all 3. Daniel is one of those people. His opinion, insight and humor have kept me coming back to his blog since I first visited earlier this year.
- Carla Rolfe
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| Fall Out From Pastoral Exits |
Somewhere along the road, the office of Pastor became just like any other profession. A Seminary education nowadays has more clout in most places than the a divine call - and even divine calls are no longer something that the church recognizes, but rather have been personalized - as though God calls you, but tells no one else about it. The end result is that most men who become a pastor do not do so because everyone in their congregation recognizes that they have a gift and a calling, but rather because they themselves have thought that being a pastor would be pretty sweet.
So they go to Seminary with a bunch of other young men, and they get certified by a group of established academics with a degree, or two. Now they are "qualified" by man to be pastors, and the job search begins. Soon they are being interviewed by churches full of people they don't know by elders they do not know, and often the answers to all their questions can be had from the churches' published statement of faith. The "candidate" has to have that good pastoral feeling if he wants to get the job - he has to come off as both gentle and full of conviction, intelligent, but warm - and above all, he better be entertaining in the pulpit. If he has enough sparkle, he will be in a pulpit sooner than his less bubbly counterparts.
But, as often happens, hiring a perfect stranger to be an elder in your church sometimes ends up being a mistake. As a man who has preached in several churches suffering the fall out of this syndrome, sometimes more than once, it breaks my heart, especially in those places where I have preached often, and formed relationships.
In comes Mr. Pastor - oh he is just the right age, not dodderingly old, but with enough gray hair to get respect. He is so well spoken, and interesting in the pulpit - never a dull sermon, and best of all, he has big ideas for the church. Sure he is a perfect stranger that we met two weeks ago, but hey! We all prayed about it and besides, we have been without a pastor now for two years!
Yet two years later, Mr. Pastor isn't working out. His "vision" for the church is cut and pasted from the latest church growth propaganda, and he himself, however educated, never seems to preach anything deep - it's all shallow this, and shallow that. The older sheep are starving, and the younger sheep are just coming to be entertained. The other elders in the church - the ones who have been commit ed to this body for decades - they do not fit in with this pastor's vision, and there is strife. The immature outnumber the mature in the church five to one, and so the pastor is "well loved" and the elders begin to look like "old school" grumps, the pastor feels his hands are being tied - he can't implement the latest Saddleback methodology with these guys hovering over him - and sooner than later, there is a power struggle, and the guys with the greater investment in the body are not going anywhere soon.
So Pastor leaves.
And those who were coming to church with our modern day "consumer" mindset, they leave too. Why? They leave because the pastor was the only reason they were coming to the church. He was like the movie, and the church was the theatre - when the movie ends, you don't hang around in the building. So too, when their reason for being there leaves, they stop coming.
Sometimes these same lambs follow the shepherd and a new work is started - other times they disperse and find other preachers who can tickle their ears.
When I was more immature in the faith it happened to me too, so I know what I speak of. I was attending what seemed to be a great church: nice people, awesome preaching. It was my church, and I was glad to be a member. But when the pastor resigned suddenly, I likewise "suddenly" felt entirely disconnected to that body. The truth was that I hadn't really connected with that body in the way I had connected with that pastor - and so when he left, I felt no connection to the church, and left that assembly because one of the remaining elders was using his office corruptly. It was a good enough reason to leave, really, but had I been more mature, more connected to the body - I would have stayed behind and worked at fixing what was broken rather than use it as an excuse to leave.
The lesson here is this: First, make sure you are not connecting with just your pastor, but with the whole body of believers. Second, when new people come into your assembly understand what love looks like - it looks like going and connecting with them as often as possible, and encouraging others to invest in their lives too. If your heart isn't in it, talk to God until it is. It may be practical advice, but doing it without a heart to do it is like building a house on sand. Thirdly, stop hiring pastors as though pastoring was a job you could be qualified for by academics and experience - you are qualified to be a pastor when God in the person of the Holy Spirit selects you to shepherd a particular body of believers. There were itinerant preachers in the NT, but this pastoring here for a few years then being "called" someone else once the water gets tepid, that's pure bunk.
It shouldn't be that when the latest pastor exits after two short years in the pulpit that 60% of the congregation leave the church! Unity doesn't just happen, those who are strong in the faith come along those who are weak in the faith. Grrrrr. This stuff gets me excited in a bad way.
Anyway, wherever you find yourself this Sunday, seek to be glue there.Labels: Advice for pastors, pastoring |
posted by Daniel @
6:51 AM
11 comment(s)
 
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| Give Advice For Wannabe Pastors! |
 I thought it might be useful to collect advice for young men who desire the office of pastor; I will offer some myself, but I hope that if you have some food for thought to share on this important subject, you will not hesitate to share it in the meta.
I have a few pieces of advice - the first is that if you have a spouse she must be united with you in desiring this ministry. If your spouse is not going to be your help mate in this ministry, she is going to regard your ministry as a rival in her marriage - the thing that takes you away from her and the family. You must have her full support - not that she is willingly ignored by you, but that she is utterly supportive of all the demands your ministry will place on you personally. If your spouse isn't on the same page as you, you should deal with that before you enter into ministry. This is true of all married couples by the way, it isn't limited to pastors - if you and your spouse are not a team in all that you do, there will be resentment, rivalry, and vying for your time. If you are married, you are part of a team - and all team players have to be on the same page for the team to work.
Another piece of advice is to count the cost. Pastoring is going to consume your life like nothing else. Do you have children? Pastoring is like having a whole lot of children - you are spiritually responsible for them - you will answer to God for them. Do not take this lightly - the work is hard, but the rewards are great, but the cost to you in a pastoral ministry is that your life is no longer you own in the way it used to be - you sort of become the property of the church, and that kind of commitment, openness, and responsibility ought to be anticipated and weighed when one considers the office.
I could go on, but I want to leave some room in the meta. The last piece of advice I would offer is that you are already walking in the Spirit day by day before you even think of accepting this role. Let me tell you, if you cannot walk in the Spirit moment by moment in your secular job and in your normal home life - don't imagine that going into full time ministry is going to make you suddenly more spiritual - what will happen if you are not walking in the Spirit, is you will begin working in the flesh trying to approximate the sort of effort that God wants to do in and through you. You will know what it looks like, and try and do exactly that - but it will wear you out brother - it will wear you out. If you are not in the Spirit, you may as well accept that you are never going to pastor more than two or three years at a time - because that is about how long it takes most people to wear themselves out ministering in the flesh. Walking in the Spirit means living in obedience consistently. If there are currently large areas in your life where Christ isn't reigning, places of continual defeat - you are not ready for this ministry. You may be a gifted preacher, or teacher, and you can minister in your congregation thus - but you are not ready for a pastoral role.
That is my advice at least. Share your wisdom here, and be as generous as you can. I wouldn't mind keeping a link to this one open in my sidebar if I can get enough advice to make it a worthwhile document. So please share.Labels: Advice for pastors |
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posted by Daniel @
6:30 AM
10 comment(s)
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