Pastor

where, my friend, does paul or christ for that matter note that being “pastor”=special school for becoming one?? being a pastor is calling, it is a spiritual choosing, if you will. i don’t think it requires theological teaching to fulfill that. i’m not saying, esp. in this day and age, that it doesn’t help- but i don’t think it is required. pastors, evangelists, teachers, apostles and prophets are believed to be designated “positions”, “callings” of the church…so to speak (eph.4), and there are ministries and schools and all that certainly focus on these things, but at the heart of it- we are ALL a “royal priesthood” (1pet.2) in the kingdom of God. we ALL have the same access to the gifts, and are ALL called to make disciples just the same. one of the links i gave you in a previous post, the head pastor, tim johns…i am not familiar that he ever went to seminary….in fact, he and his wife have a job/business outside the pastor thing. he’s just one, but i know of others that have also followed suit and have not gotten a degree in pastoring, perhaps ordained through their churches or have an uncanny ability to lead people and the guts to start a church….

i think what it takes is a willingness to humble before God, a heart to lead people toward the kingdom of God, a willingness to be taught and in turn teach- leading a community- and is just as fallible as the community. the one thing that makes a good pastor stand out is how approachable they are… at the same time, james warns of becoming teachers as they are put under more scrutiny…are you ready to be judged? right wrong, like it, don’t…it’s a reality. will “you” boldly say you’re “ready” to be a pastor? will you boldly say, you have all the tools? (little more of a universal you than direct…but ya know)

just some random food for thought…

I think ash is right on here. I think it’d be refreshing if, when doing a pastor search, a local church looked for people in their own congregation with a gift of teaching rather than a seminary degree. Stands to reason a pastor should be knowledgeable in the Scriptures (back to the discipling thing). But a seminary degree says basically nothing about a person’s readiness to pastor a church, other than that they intend to.

I also think a seminary degree isnt something that people look for in a pastor any more. Times are different now, There is so much going on in our lives I think we just want to see immediate results, who has time to do a background check for church. I like that seminary emphasizes accurate, intellectual, biblical knowledge; but I dont see a degree as a requirement. Right doctrine is still an absolute must but a degree is not required to be a pastor; or for anyone to point to God; which is what a pastors main role is anyway. I would imagine a geniune relationship with God and love for people take care of the rest.
Jon the baptist,moses, peter, paul… anointing but no degree. I hate focusing on annointings because it comes down to some ones word against someone elses word and cults/divisions are started but Im starting to think that an amount of annointing is worth trusting in; instead of a seminary degree, or maybe just a real care for people is all we need to point to God? A lot of people depend on pastors to carry others spirituality not just encourage it.

No doubt that love for God and people are the two first ‘requirements’ for pastors. Now….my question is: If a degree isn’t required, how would a pastor demonstrate his/her knowledge and understanding of the bible?

Would it be the same like corporate America, you don’t have a degree, but your resume shows you’ve been with different companies in the same industry and demonstrated growth and results? So experience can be considered in lieu of a ‘degree’? (not saying degree is required or not)…

Good stuff above and much that I can agree with. I too believe that following Christ is what is most essential for being a pastor, which is what all Christians, clergy and lay persons alike, ought to be doing. Even though I don’t think seminary is a prerequisite for pastoral ministry, let me put my seminary advocate hat on for a second. Seminary or other forms of theological education, helps you to think theologically about ministry work. If there is one critique that I would give some working in the church today, it’s that they begin thinking “programmatically” instead of theologically. We get shallow expressions of Christianity out of this. Seminary (in theory) trains people to approach their work theologically.

So you’re saying my $500 a month on seminary classes isn’t in vein? I like this Ric.

You’d think I’d have a great answer, since I am a pastor. But I’m still figuring out what my role is… I spend so much time doing so many things that aren’t pastoral that my definition wouldn’t look like my job description.

In many ways the M.Div. has become the stamp of approval for people. It gives people the understanding that you’ve done your work. Someone approved of you. Ordination does much of the same thing. It essentially gets you in the door with people.

I would also suggest that the wrestling you do in seminary would prove to be extremely valuable in your own faith.

But none of this matters once you are leading. Because if you can’t lead people to Jesus and into his footsteps, they will eventually leave.

Tyler – two great books discussing this very issue is by Frank Viola entitled – Pagan Christianity and the other is by George Barna – Revolution. I think you would find them interesting reading.

Preston-

Probably don’t have to read them to know I disagree. I know that Frank is a very anti hierarchy guy. I understand his point, but I disagree that it is possible. Pagan Christianity was written by both of those guys…I had a chance to hear from Frank earlier this week.

Hi Tyler,

I have often wondered about what it means to be a pastor. I have done a lot of thinking on the subject since I stopped being one. I don’t want to sound smug, but when I see the Bible passages regarding the roles of one, it seems that they primarily teach, guard over the flock, equip the believers, do the work of evangelists and pray.

I am sure that those were not the only things that they did “back in the bible days”. But it does seem that there is much more to the role now then what was done then. Now there seems to be a one pastor in the church, and that pastor calls the shots (though there is more of a push for teams of elders). Pastors now need to be financial counselors, marriage counselors, mediators, marketers and social activists. They also have to be well knowledgeable in politics (both local and federal), economics, technology (well some), theology (and not only traditional theology but any new version of theology). They have to be versed in both Scripture AND church politics (church constitution). They are usually ex-officio of every committee/ministry team that exists in the church and needs to know what is going on in all aspects of the church. And usually (among a majority of churches) they are expected to be doing this on a lower than average salary with a higher than average amount of hours (usually 60 per week).

It’s ridiculous! I firmly believe we expect WAY too much from our pastors/elders/bishops/leaders. Possibly it could have happened as people stopped getting equipped for ministry and relied on someone else to guide them — I suppose it could have happened also as culture began rebelling against “the church” and it was another way to get control over “the flock”. Who knows?

Do pastors need to have an education to be a pastor? I don’t see a biblical need for it – especially in light of the “unschooled ordinary men” who were “changing the world”.
Is there a practical need for it? I would do absolutely LOVE to finish my MDiv. I loved learning … specifically because it broadened my mind and forced me to explore and study. I also built relationships from seminary that will last beyond classes. I don’t believe a pastor HAS to have a degree, though it is helpful. I would like to see that a pastor with or without a degree is still learning the Word enough to share it with others after he has spent some time allowing God to mold his heart/head. Hopefully they are also willing to hear correction to make sure of no heresy being spoken of.

I think pastors should be not placed up on a pedestal either by themselves or the people they serve. They are normal humans with the same ability to sin as the rest of us. We shouldn’t be surprised when they sin and we should allow them to be honest and open about their true lives, rather than feeling the need to covert it up or hide to put on that “happy Christian face”.

I think my advice for anyone wanting to be a pastor was the same advice given to me … if there is anything else you should be doing, do it.

Great discussion!

I was “pastor” for 15 years before I started becoming a pastor. Sure, I was church event planner, counselor, entertainer, preacher, corporate-vp, teacher, politicker, encourager, and sometimes pray-er, listener…but was pretty much just a busy church employee.

When I read THE CONTEMPLATIVE PASTOR by Eugene Peterson, it was the tool that God used to confirm my heart felt suspicions that there was way more to pastoring than collegiate courses, mentors, and dozens of conferences told me. It was then, I started the true vocational work of a pastor and guess what….I started seeing fruit. Kingdom fruit that I read about in the Bible. Fruit that will endure.

I can send you a link to my blog where I summed up the book…just let me know if you want it.

Remember, THE CHURCH belongs to Christ. And, by the way, so does your congregation.

Back to the question: No. You do not need to go to seminary to be a pastor. But, don’t mistake that you do need to have a healthy theology, understanding of classic Christian doctrines (doctrines that are hundreds of years older than what is taught on TV), vocational training, and be well studied in Spiritual Formation all in addition to being an authentic Christian yourself if you want to be a real pastor. As for being a modern pastor just get a good marketing degree or systems management degree and you can be as big, bad, and as “productive” as you want to be.

Forgive my sarcasim. Or enjoy it!

A pastor is merely someone who is mature in the faith, able to teach others, who has a heart for the people of God. Period. That’s all scripture shows it to be. Nothing more. It was not until Constantine made Christianity the official state religion of the Roman Empire that certain men held “offices”, or any kind of paid position.

Ever since, the bible has been tweaked and bent in order to back up this practice, but it simply does not teach it. It relies on a harkening back to the Old Testament Priesthood, something which became null and void with the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. We, the entire body, are a Holy Priesthood, (as someone commented earlier), and as such, there are no longer certain people set aside to function as priests, in some special capacity, as they did in the Temple….

Once you accept this idea of a professional clergy, you have re-instituted the OT Pristhood all over again. Wouldn’t it be insane if people started killing lambs and burning their carcasses in church services? Then why do we cling to the idea that being a pastor, or shepherd, means being in some kind of intermediary role, one which requires all kinds of special education? Is the Holy Spirit not enough to teach and equip the saints?
(sorry, you said not to be bashful…)

Daniel- But doesn’t the Bible use the word elder and talk about the gift of teaching and preaching and Paul talks numerous times about paying people when they have served you? Sounds like a modern day role of “pastor” to me. I don’t going with the Bible is bad thing.

Yes, absolutely the Bible uses the words elder, and talks about the gifts of teaching and preaching! Yet it is incredibly eye-opening to realize how much of our own meaning we pour into each of the terms you mentioned… That is why we can read the bible and it can appear to validate the practices we accept today (which is what I did for years and years…)

But, once I stopped taking all those little verses we use to defend things like “the pastorate” all by themselves, and allowed myself to take step back, and look at the big picture painted for us in the entirety of the New Testament, things began to look VERY different!

Okay, so, elders…. In the bible, they’re basically just what the word implies, older, wiser men, who were mature enough to oversee the believers in a given city. They were plural, not a singular “leader”. They were not inducted into any kind of position, but in some cases were merely acknowledged (by someone like Timothy or Paul…) as being someone who was already doing the “work” of an elder… And therein lies the major difference. Having a position means you start doing something once you get the title, having a calling or a gifting means you do what God calls you to do, whether or not you receive any official recognition…

Teaching and Preaching… Today, we read those words and it equates in our brains to a sermon, an uninteruppted monologue delivered by someone who’s been ‘approved’ to speak. This is not how it was in the early church. Sure, there were plenty of occasions where one person stood and spoke to an assembly, but there was also the understanding that everyone within the body would bring something for the edification of the rest. We could say it was more “interactive”, instead of the common notion today where “teaching” means one person talks for a half hour, or however long, and everyone else passively listens and takes notes… Now, is that really teaching? Is that how we are to make disciples? Is that how Jesus, or Paul, or any othe apostles really operated? Sure, they spoke at length a good deal, but they also lived alongside the people they were teaching, showing, by example, through their everyday lives, what it all looked like… Today we rate someone’s “teaching” by how many theological terms they can toss around, or by what a stirring orator they are, rather than if they are actually passing on the things that they themselves have come to understand. It short, preaching and teaching as practiced today, vs. what actually occurred in the early church, are miles apart…

And as far as Paul speaking of paying people for serving you… he simply does not. He spoke of gathering an offering to take to the needy believers in another city… He spoke of taking care of the poor, and the widows, and the orphans in their midst… He spoke of “the rights of an apostle”, which included, FOOD, and DRINK, (and maybe a place to sleep…) But of course, we remember that Paul himself refused those rights, because he wanted no one to be able to accuse him of preaching the gospel for a free meal ticket. Somehow, today we have taken “food and drink”, (i.e. a place set for the apostolic worker at the local believer’s table) and turned it into a full salary, based on some kind of contractual agreement between “the server” and the “servee”. Nothing like this occurs in scripture, in fact, nothing like that occurred anywhere amonst the followers of Jesus for hundreds of years! When Paul speaks of the rights of an apostle, it is really nothing more than what we would probably think of as a basic common courtesy. I mean, if someone traveled from a distant land to come and teach you, your family, and your city about new life in Christ, then you’d offer him a place to stay in your home, wouldn’t you? We wouldn’t let ourselves be served in such a way, and then turn that person out afterwards, to find their own lodging? But that is just what Paul insisted on doing…. He set the bar so high, it makes what we do today look utterly ridiculous. The notion of taking a regular offering (usually based on the re-instituted OT practice of tithing, which also never occurred in the early church) and using that to pay a local “shepherd” to preach a sermon, sunday after sunday, is so drastically different from the apostolic work that Paul did, and he wouldn’t even let them give him free room and board…

One of the verses usually busted out to defend paying professinal clergy is the one that speaks of elders being worthy of “double honor”, probably because, in the metaphors being used there, Paul gives the example, “a worker is worth his wages”. But it is a metaphor only, and the word “honor” is not a code word for “salary”, but simply means, honor! If the metaphors being used were more than just metaphors, then why don’t we ever think we’re supposed to feed elders grain, because it also says, “do not muzzle the ox”? This verse also becomes problematic because if an elder (or pastor, whatever) is worthy of “double-pay”, than doesn’t that mean the rest of the congregation gets single pay? The verse becomes virtually nonsensical when used in this way. Don’t know if that was one of the verses you were thinking of, I just grabbed that one because it’s one of the ones I hear most often to defend paying certain individuals to do any kind of professional “ministry”….

Thanks for being interested in dialoguing… What do you think about these things?

It takes a Shepherd with a heart of love and compasssion for their sheep. One of the best books I have ever read “The Way Of The Shepherd” by Kevin Leman. Unfortunatly today, most require an “education” to get your pastor’s degree. There are pros and cons to both sides. It is the character of the heart that leads, that qualifies a true shepherd.

Daniel- I simply can’t tackle everything you threw out there…too much to deal with. Without getting into the passage too much that you referred to, I do think Paul is saying that the church should support those who are leading them (financially). I agree that no pastor should be a one man show, running everything.

Mrs Fourtner- I think for churches looking for pastors…you really hit it. They need to discern the heart of the person to determine if he/she is a shepherd.

So do you believe that Paul received regular financial support from churches? Did anyone in the New Testament? I’m still looking for those instances, and as yet no one has been able to point me to a single occurance….

How would elders or leaders of any kind in the early church set up a format for deciding how they got paid, and by whom, if there were no church buildings, no official church rosters, and no pastorale job descriptions, like we have today?

Again, we have to stop and allow ourselves to question how much meaning we pour into the things we read. Sure, there is probably a degree to which we could say that some leaders received “financial support”, in that they received some food, or some shelter, or even a sum of money to help with a journey somewhere. We have to be honest with ourselves and admit that such examples are still a completely different ball of wax than what we hoist upon our congregations today. This is still wholely different than hiring somebody to be the leader of your church. Such a thing never, ever occurs in the bible. Pastors or leaders were not people who received some kind of training, and then when out in search of a church that would give them a career opportunity…

You said that what you read in the NT sounds like the role of the modern day pastor to you. Well, I’m still wondering, where is the connection?

Daniel- The Bible doesn’t lay out one systematic vision for what the local church should look like. It doesn’t lay out a vision for how people should lead the church. This is one reason there are many denominations (even outside theological/biblical differences), because how churches function is different across the board. I believe that as long as we are within the parameters of what the Bible lays out, we want to run a church in a way that allows its believers to reach others and allows them to draw close to God, and also reaches the lost. Beyond that I think it would be pretty pointless to be so legalistic about a church not having paid pastors.

You’re right, there is no “systematic vision” laid out, that’s precisely the point… There’s no systematic anything… Just the Holy Spirit. You can’t operate a business that way, only the Kingdom….

But you didn’t answer my questions, only side-stepped them….

It is interesting to hear you say that it is legalism to simply say that pastors were never meant to be professionals. I have never asserted that doing so would cost someone their salvation, but merely that this practice hinders the work of the Holy Spirit, and prevents people from experiencing life in the Body as they were meant to… (and also gives the impression to the world as a whole that we are simply another religious-corporation that wants their money…)

It’s also a bit ironic, because when you think about it, having a professional clergy is actually dependent on there being some form of legalistic giving being taught in the church. Without it, a conventional church withers and dies… So who’s being legalistic? The one who says, you can give your gifts straight to those in need, and God recognizes that as your “offering”? Or those who insist you must give your tithe (or at least some kind of regular offering) to a Christian 501c3, where most of the money then goes to paying salaries, and for programs, and buildings, and such?

Where is the legalism, and where is the freedom? Which one is fueled by appealing to the OT Law, and which one relies on the free-will actions of people who’ve been made alive in Christ?

Daniel- It is pretty obvious to me we are far a part on our thoughts on the local church and pastors. I invite you to read a post on the church I wrote last week, maybe we can find some common ground there (go to “stuff to read” up top and go to the post on the bottom of that list). I don’t think teaching that tithing to the local church is legalistic, and not once have I appealed to OT law to say that the local church needs to have paid leaders in place.

read your bible and tell me how many of those guys went to bible school or were required to be educated. #2 the whole idea of one pastor “ruling” a church” isnt biblical, it came from the pagan roman catholic church (pope) and is used for spiritual abuse, power and money. if it isnt in the bible, dont do it.

is it that u wanted to be one, or is that Gods calling on ur life? because if thats what u wanted 2 b, and ur not, that’s fine, but, if it’s God calling u 2 b 1, God knows what He’s doing, and y He’s doing it 4 He is an ALL KNOWING GOD! we can see life, but only in bits & pieces, but He sees the whole picture, and then sum, so how could we dare say 2 the maker, y did u make me 4 this specific reason, when i don’t want 2 do that 4 which i was made 4!