Pastors Who Pastor

In the last day, I've come across two provocative posts about the role of the pastor in the North American church. In their own way, each is calling pastors to be biblical in their pastoring. But as I read the two, I came away with the distinct impression that one elevated the role, while the other dismissed it (perhaps unintentionally).

John Frye offers this definition of pastoring and then shares its implication:

Pastoring offers and shapes an alternative reality in Jesus the Christ so that others reconnect with God as his new people for the sake of all creation.

... What is often elevated as pastoring today, for example, good Bible teaching, is too limited, too reductionistic. Bible teaching for what? Well, how about caring for souls? Again, a very good thing to do, but it, too, must answer, Soul care for what?

All of these fine services point to something so much greater; something literally cosmic: the renewal of heaven and earth. Don't ever divorce Revelation 1-3 from 4-22. It all began with Jesus and it continues on. Pastors live in and lead, speak, and invite from an alternative reality (as Jesus did) while engulfed in a cracked reality. While not uncracked themselves, pastors nevertheless live on what the Bible calls "Shalom." Pastors breathe shalom air even in cracked lungs. They see shalom sights with cracked eyes. They hear shalom music with somewhat still dull ears. They challenge all non-shalom issues because those issues are obstacles in finding the doorway into the kingdom of God.

Isn't this more compelling than managing the corner religious shop?

In an edgier and sarcastic (?) way, stupidchurchpeople.com talks about "The Pastor Problem." I couldn't access it from their site, so here's the link from Monday Morning Insight (HT: The Dying Church).

Pastors.

That's the number one weakness in the modern church today. Paid pastoral leadership is the reason the church is weak, inefficient and to a point...neutered.

... Before all of my pastor friends send me hate mail, I don't think it is all your fault. I think the church culture has caused you to function as CEO's and not pastors. We need you to resign yourself as the CEO's of your church or ministry. As fast as you can run away from treating the church as a business. Leave your church meetings, your planning sessions, your growth conferences, and go and interact with far from God people where they are - outside of your church. Stop bearing the burden of whether your church offering or attendance is what it should be - you just aren't that important!

The mention of paid pastoral leadership reminds me of something I read a while back about the beginnings of Xenos Christian Fellowship in Columbus, Ohio. Their history says:

By 1980, the group had grown to more than 500 adults. During this entire period, all leadership participated on a volunteer basis. [Dennis] McCallum, [Gary] DeLashmutt and many other teachers made their livings as house painters.... Not until 1981 did Xenos hire its first paid staff, as McCallum and DeLashmutt were placed on part-time salary. By now the church had grown to nearly 800 members. During the decade in which there were no paid leaders in the church, Xenos members developed deep convictions about lay ministry. To this day, Xenos members shoulder the bulk of ministry including extensive training. Xenos leaders are convinced that without the many years of serving as soldiers at their own expense, they never would have been able to develop the same level of certainty about the equality of all members' responsibility for ministry.

On the other hand, I think one of the reasons pastors should be paid is so that they can spend time and energy and mental focus on doing the essential things like this (recounted in a sermon by John Piper):

On the morning of December 10 (about eight weeks ago) I was praying earnestly about these things and seeking the Lord for direction in my ministry. And the Lord gave me, I believe, the over-mastering conviction that I should preach on the Holy Spirit. I recorded three reasons in my journal:

"l) If I am burdened for the vital experience of God missing in many of our people and for the present power of godliness, it makes sense to preach not just on what God has done or what he will do or what we must do, but on what God is now doing and how he is now experienced—i.e., the Holy Spirit. 2) The sentence is stunning and full of ominous warning: 'If you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live' (Rom. 8:13). The life of my people hangs on a vital experience of the Spirit. 3) There are miracles which God may be willing to perform if we sought his Spirit and were filled anew. And these miracles may win for him glory that is now denied him … Come, Holy Spirit, preach yourself to this people."

So for three days in the third week of January at Shalom House I spent about thirty hours praying and thinking about a series of messages on the Holy Spirit. The result is that today's message is the introduction to a series of twenty messages on the Holy Spirit that, Lord willing, I will preach between now and June 17.

Canada's Same-Sex Marriage Law

As a follow-up to my previous post on this subject, here's a link to an article by Associate Professor Doug Farrow of McGill University on "How and Why Canadians Should Refuse to Recognize Bill C-38" (this is a .pdf file).

Time for the Church to Be Irrelevant

W. Tullian Tchividjian is Pastor to Young Adults and Families at Cedar Springs Presbyterian Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. He has an article at Reformed Perspectives about churches making a difference in our postmodern culture by being "against the world for the world." The article is a Word document, so I can't link to it directly. But here are his concluding paragraphs:

In order for the Church to establish its voice in our postmodern culture we must remember who we are, where we have come from, and where we are going. We must avoid the modern tendency towards “chronological snobbery”, believing that our time is the most important time while expressing little regard for history, tradition, and all those who have gone before us. We must remember that we are the people of the future, formed by the past, and living in the present. We must remember that our citizenship lies in “the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God”, not man. We must remember in our worship that while contemporists operate with their heads fixed frontwards, never looking over their shoulder at the stock from which they have come, and traditionalists operate with their heads on backwards, romanticizing about the past and always wanting to go back, the Church, in contrast from both extremes, is called upon to be a people with swiveling heads: learning from the past, living in the present, and looking to the future. We must remember that it is our unique privilege and responsibility to remind our culture that this world is not all there is, and that they are not left to the resources of this world to satisfy their otherworldly longings. For, as Lauren Winner notes, “[People today] are not so much wary of institutions as they are wary of institutions that don’t do what they’re supposed to do.” As the Church, we are supposed to provide this world with that transcendent difference they long for because only the Christian Gospel offers a true spirituality, an otherworldliness, that is grounded in reality and history. It is only our story, the Christian story, that fuses past, present, and future with meaning from above and beyond, and we are supposed to tell it.

The old saying that we should “not be so heavenly-minded that we are of no earthly good” is true, as far as it goes. But it seems that in the modern world our earthly good depends on our heavenly-mindedness. In our present cultural climate, it becomes necessary for the Church to remember the words of C.S. Lewis who maintained that Christians who “did the most for the present world were precisely those who thought the most of the next” . The late Henri Nouwen, too, points us in the right direction saying, “I am deeply convinced that the Christian leader of the future is called to be completely ‘irrelevant’…That is the way Jesus came to reveal God’s love” . And speaking of “relevance” in the same way that Nouwen spoke of “irrelevance”, John Seel has said, “The timeless is finally that which is most relevant, and we dare not forget this fact in our pursuit of relevance”. All good and wise reminders that we have been entrusted with a timeless truth that can transform any weary culture and open their eyes to a world beyond their own: the story of a simple Jew who made a difference because He was different.

The Early Church and the Modern Media

I've recently added two blogs to my blogroll written by seminary professors.

Scot McKnight has been blogging about the kingdom of God. In this fifth post of the series, he looks at what the earliest church communities said is central to the mission of the gospel:

Acts 2:42-47 and 4:32-35 are indicative of its central ideals and concerns. Which are:

1. Devotion to the apostolic teaching, who are mediators of the teachings and life of Jesus.
2. Devotion to fellowship (which is continuous with Jesus' table fellowship as an inclusive kingdom community).
3. Lord's supper (probably the best understanding of "breaking of bread").
4. Prayer.
5. Spiritual power, noted in Spirit-inspired wonders.
6. Economic liability for one another.
7. Worship practices.
8. They were known for being good people (2:47).

Here is Spirit-inspired and Christ-centered community that survived beyond the resurrection. It is a socio-economic, power-denying, fellowship with a mission to spread a Spirit-empowered gospel about Jesus Christ to its communities for the good of other and the world.

The other blog I added is by Douglas Groothius. In a "Curmudgeonly Guide to Cultural Awareness," he provides some brief commentary on the popular media sources he frequents. The post is worth checking out, even though his take on television is pretty radical:

I suggest engaging in guerilla warfare against television: unplug and unseat televisions wherever and whenever possible.

Some House Church Basics

House2House answers some frequently asked questions about house churches (or as they call it "simple churches"). Although I disagree with some of their ideas (such as no need for pastors - see below), this is a helpful primer.

Earlier this month, Dan Edelen had a post about small group Bible studies degenerating into a synthesis of ideas about what a passage means. It's a relevant concern for house churches. That's why I think there is a need for pastor/elders whose function is to teach and guard the flock from doctrinal error (Acts 20:28-30).

Links On How We Do Church

I'm catching up on some blog reading after two weeks on a road trip. Here's what has caught my interest so far:

• Scot McKnight recommends Robert Bank's Going to Church in the First Century. I plan to order the book on Monday.
• Dan Edelen has a post about love feasts and how to do communion.
• Justin Taylor links to Mars Hill's membership class booklet.

I'll finish catching up with the other blogs on my blogroll and Bloglines feed tomorrow.

Church Gatherings Are for Edification

Finally I've finished reading David Peterson's Engaging with God. I've mentioned the book before. He says a number of things about worship that I think Christians need to think through carefully and apply. Especially I like his emphasis on church gatherings:

The purpose of Christian gatherings is the edification or building up of the body of Christ. We minister to one another as we teach and exhort one another on the basis of his word, using the gifts that the Spirit has given us, in the way that Scripture directs. Edification is to be our concern even when we sing or pray to God in the congregation. All this is not a purely human activity, however, for God is at work in the midst of his people as they minister in this way. Edification is first and foremost the responsibility of Christ as the 'head,' but he achieves his purpose as the various members of the body are motivated and equipped by him to play their part. We meet together to draw on the resources of Christ and to take our part in the edification of his church (p. 287).

I think even the attempt to focus our gatherings properly by referring to God as our "audience" falls short of what the church meeting together is supposed to be. It's not supposed to be a performance, and yet that's often the look and feel it has (as many have noted).

Arrr Ye Mateys!

Think Christian has a link to an article at BBC News about whether religious jokes are funny or offensive. Some religious jokes are neither funny nor offensive, but once in a while you get one that is both funny and inappropriate (though I can't think of one if my life depended on it). Should I laugh or not?

Ship of Fools, an online magazine which describes itself as the "Private Eye of the Christian world", is looking for the funniest, and most offensive, Christian jokes.

In the face of legislation it fears will limit what people can joke about in a religious context - a claim strongly rejected by ministers - it wants to provoke a debate about what is humorous and what is offensive. (more...)

To enter your joke, go to Ship of Fools.

Ship of Fools also sponsors "The Mystery Worshipper" (HT: Think Christian again). Funny or offensive? Either way, I want to be one.

Ship of Fools has an intrepid team of Mystery Worshippers travelling incognito in the British aisles and beyond, reporting on the comfort of the pews, the warmth of the welcome and the length of the sermon. The only clue they have been there at all is the Mystery Worshipper calling card, dropped discreetly into the collection plate. Read our latest reports – and the more ancient ones – below....

Dealing with "Church-Hoppers"

Bruxy Cavey, teaching pastor at The Meeting House in Toronto came up with the idea of "Purge Sundays" to send non-committed believers elsewhere:

The Meeting House, a Brethren in Christ multi-site congregation that calls itself a "church for people who aren't into church," regularly invites those who don't want to "get in" to their church by making a demonstrable commitment, to "get out." (more...)