Viewpoint Brief Bible Study #57 |
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JESUS calls US to be |
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The Christian religion is the worship and service of Jesus Christ. It’s not Mary we worship, but her Son. We worship neither saints, angels, a law code, nor even God’s Spirit. It’s JESUS who is to be honored. The Bible is our guide. |
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What Makes A GOOD Pastor?
Paul points out that in the Lord's church there are to continue always to be PASTORS and TEACHERS.
Many congregations make a clergyman their one pastor. In the Lord's church in its early days, there were many pastors in each local fellowship, some of whom were paid so they could devote full time to their work of helping the other Christians develop and use their spiritual gifts.
When we make only ONE man pastor for large groups of disciples, we may find we have subverted a method which in the first generation of the church resulted in explosive growth in Christ's body. We say OUR methods are aimed at church growth. We COULD return to methods which once proved to bring about world-shaking growth in the face of overwhelming persecution and opposition. Their pastors worked with the congregation while their evangelists were out establishing NEW churches!
In GOOD NEWS OR BAD? by Seth Wilson, a verse is quoted to show, as discussed in Viewpoint Study #56, that it's Christ's DEATH by which we are saved rather than by the blood spilled IN that death. The verse is addressed to someone. Who do you think Paul was speaking to? He said to them, "Be shepherds (pastors) of the church of God, which he made his own through the death of his own Son..." Was Paul speaking to leaders who came each from a large congregation which they were wholly responsible for as pastor and teacher?
No, that may be our method. It surely wasn't Paul's. Those who answer God's call to pastor are not called to be administrators, but rather examples and teachers. At least, that's how I read MY Bible.
In the 7/14/97 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY is a brief article inviting readers to subscribe to CT's sister journal called LEADERSHIP. It consists of an interview with a man of God from Canada -- Eugene H. Peterson, who is introduced as professor of spiritual theology at Regent College in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has been a professional clergyman engaged in pastoring for more than three decades, it's reported. He sees problems in our present methods. You can subscribe to LEADERSHIP by calling 1-800-777-3136, the CT article says.
Peterson says -- MY job as pastor is to call people to repent, deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow Jesus. If I revise "Repent!" to "How can I help you get your life in order?" I'm turning away from the gospel of Christ. If I take out the "follow Jesus" part and say instead, "We'll find out how you can live your life best the way you define it," who needed Jesus?
Sometimes, he adds, I feel like somebody carrying a sign around Times Square that says REPENT! I've been a pastor for 35 years, and I don't trust people one inch in defining what they need. We don't KNOW ourselves (not really). We need GOD to tell us what we need.
The most important thing a pastor does is stand in a pulpit every Sunday and say, "Let us worship God." If that ceases to be the primary thing I do in terms of my energy, my imagination, and the way I structure my life, then I no longer function as a pastor. Our primary work is to make saints.
COMMENT -- In this brief paragraph is the paradox of our present methods. I find myself in total agreement that the primary work of all pastors is to "make" saints for God -- to help those who are being pastored to find how best to use their talents and energies for God. But God's book which calls for some to serve as pastors knows nothing about a pulpit or a call for the saints to "worship" in an assembly under the leadership of only ONE pastor. So the paragraph is very good and very BAD in its analysis of the work of God's pastors.
Is this generation better or worse than other recent generations? Do today's pastors face more difficult problems today than in previous generations?
I know this is a mixed-up, difficult, damaged generation. But it's arguable that the main difference today is NOT how much people are hurting, but how much they expect to be relieved from their hurting.
Christians in the previous century suffered at least as much (probably much more). Think of all the illness, death in childbirth, infant mortality, plagues of the past. The big difference today is that we have the mentality that if it's wrong, it can be fixed and must be fixed. You don't have to live with any discomfort or frustration. And the pastor is in the front line of people who are approached with the plea, "Make me happy. Make me feel good."
COMMENT -- Peterson speaks truly in reporting that many seek less to confront their sin than to simply call for relief from responsibility for the consequences of leaving God out of their lives. And surely all who are speakers for GOD must call for people to confront and overcome SIN through the power of God.
The gospel can be experienced by each person. As a pastor, whatever the person's situation you can say, "This person can experience the gospel HERE."
This involves giving attention to people -- the most inefficient way to do anything. It's boring, and when you do it, you feel like you're wasting time. There are committee meetings where you're needed, budgets to "fix," decisions to be made that affect the larger group rather than the individual. What can be let slip to make time to be with individuals? That's the quandary each of God's servants faces.
Listening to people. Seeing each as the unique individual each is, while expecting nothing to YOUR profit from them. Serving instead of being served. You may quit paying attention to individuals. People may merely be pegs to be categorized and placed in the proper holes.
What would pastors have to give up in order to make time for people? Efficiency. Control. Quick returns. The satisfaction of "pleasing people." Giving these things up may result in a wonderful freedom from unworthy things. Each must decide individually what IS most important as we seek to serve God with our individual talents. Not all CAN be people persons. It may be that the BEST pastors ARE closely attuned to individuals, seeking how to help THEM best serve God.
There's nothing quite as satisfying to our egos as being THE one who is always there, who proclaims the gospel, who leads the prayer, who tells the story (or joke), who takes the lead. But is that properly what God calls pastors to do?
We're using the word "mentoring" now to refer to encouraging, teaching, exampling to bring out the best in OTHERS. It may be that the best pastor is the one who can bring out the best in OTHERS rather than show off his/her own best side.
We live in an EVIL culture (probably no more or less so than in previous generations, but more easily seen when there's a television set in every home to make every viewer aware of filthiness and sordidness).
Through the media, through friends, through conversations, we're constantly fed lies (like most lies, they're 90% the truth, which makes it not easy to sort out what is true and what is not). Sometimes we swallow the lie. The edge of the gospel is blunted for us by the devil's lie. Believing lies may prevent our preaching the true gospel of Christ with POWER. We need to be VERY careful to hold to truth and resist lies of the devil.
Pastors should pray and study the Word. COMMENT -- Of course pastors should. ALL Christians should. Many do not do so.
People who are NOT pastors are busy in their jobs, reading periodicals and books related to their work, and attending necessary conferences about their work. Pastors need to be AWARE of the devil's lies so that those who are influenced by the pastor will be made aware of trends and particulars in society which lead saints away from salvation.
COMMENT -- This is surely true for this generation as for each preceding generation. But one cure for any problem is to conduct our services as the early church did, which lets observant saints handle this job of warning against false trends in society rather than supposing the work is mostly to be done by a "man of the cloth."
Peterson thinks pastors need to cultivate being "unbusy" in order to do their job properly. He speaks of his dad, the butcher, who when delivering meat to restaurants would sit at the counter, have a cup of coffee and apparently "waste" time. But that use of his time was critical for building relationships, for BUILDING and MAINTAINING his business in that community.
Some pastors don't wander around where people are.They can't "waste" time. Their time is too valuable to be spent with "people" as individuals. They run to the tomb, and it's empty, so they run back. They never see the resurrection!
To be unbusy, the pastor must disengage self from ego -- both your own and the egos of others -- and start dealing with SOULS as individuals. Souls CANNOT be hurried.
COMMENT -- I hear Peterson saying that every pastor should be a people person. More than this, that the pastor's job is to raise up the individuals with whom he has contact so that THEY individually are helped to become the worker for God to which THEY one by one have been called. Pastors are not dictators, directors, drivers. Pastors are servants and teachers. I like what I hear this man of God saying.
Brief Bible Study #57 from Ray Downen. To go back to Viewpoint's first page, click < here. Or here to go on to Viewpoint Study 58. For Ray's concluding remarks, click HERE.
