I'm trying to decide if I'm feeling defensive or just anxious to understand the semantics and praxis of this issue of "calling."
Also having just listened to the God Journey and Wayne's story of starfish and decentralized leadership in community...this topic is consuming my thoughts at the moment.
Certainly we should be in agreement that there's no real distinction within the body between clergy and laity. Unfortunately, I think the abuse of leadership and power has put the role of a pastor/leader in jeopardy or at least in very serious suspicion.
Obviously, not everyone agrees with this biblical concept...because it threatens their ability to manipulate or obligate those in the community to act a certain way. Ministry offers tremendous opportunities for ego-driven, insecure, manipulative, power-hungry individuals to assert themselves. But that doesn't mean there aren't some healthy leadership roles to be played in the spiritual community.
I really believe that God "calls" some to be so committed to the spiritual formation and nurture of others that there will be no choice but to be in some type of full-time pastoral service to the church. But if that "calling" becomes self-serving or an attempt to manipulate people, an obvious deviation from the Kingdom approach Jesus models for us is the unfortunate result.
Tom, perhaps you and I will not be content or 100% engaged unless we're positioned to encourage, equip, and care for the Body in vocational capacity?!
Could the majority of Christians or pre-Christians be discipled and thrive spiritually without a pastor-shepherd in their lives? I'm not so sure. But that indicates a lack of trust in the Holy Spirit or an over-developed sense of clergy importance.
6 comments:
chris - i am really enjoying these posts of yours. way to put it out there. i wrote one post in response today here. i hope to do another post in the near future regarding the formation issues you raised. keep it up. the Jesus movement could really be enriched by conversing honestly about these matters.
"the Jesus movement"??
I'm not sure how I feel about calling a spiritual lifestyle/relationship a movement . . . it seems a bit trite.
However I'll comment on the topic at hand:
I don't call everyone "in authority" over me in "the church" Pastor. That is a title I reserve for those who truly shepherd me, so I'll tell you that in my 36 years only five or so have held it. The rest get called by their first name or called "Preacher." It's symantics at that point, but our language is relatively limited compared to others in it's ability to be clearly descriptive. A preacher and a pastor are very different.
It is human nature to have someone who is "the leader" I think. Perhaps it is over much nowadays because of our fallen state, but the world over folks look for someone gifted (in the spiritual and physical sense) to lead them in nearly every part of their life.
Just thoughts, maybe incomplete one but . . .
greg - no pressure to adopt the expression "the Jesus movement" - i like it - i also use "the Love movement" as Jesus is Love incarnate. movement is a reference to our missional collective identity.
Hey Chris. I found you through Rob's blog. This is a great concept and question.
We're all called to ministry, right? I mean, 24/7 we're all called to ministry just like we're all called to live, breathe, and love. So the vocational question seems more a question of methodology rather than calling. And I'm guessing (since I haven't read back through your older posts yet) that you might be talking about pastoral vocations???
So my question is this: Does the pastoral vocational method empower or inhibit an individual from engaging in their calling in the footsteps of Jesus, the greatest "full time" minister ever?
I just wanted to clarify that I don't disagree with the idea of someone being in full time ministry. My point is that we spend so much time focusing on the vocation instead of the preparation and that is dangerous in my opinion.
To throw another idea out there, I belong to a church that has a plurality of elders instead of one single pastor. The idea is to have five men who complete the five fold ministry talked about in Acts as leaders of the church body. They all make decisions as a whole and the church body elects them. This prevents the whole ego-mania problem and abuse that happens in so many churches. It also gives us a taste of several different types of ministry instead of one man's view point every week.
Chris, I haven't met any that I can think of Pastors that are true shepherds? Why is that? Is that not what pastoring implies? I think its not so much the idea of equipping, caring, and encouraging the body, its dealing with the idea that the only way we do that is create tons of programs and churchy crap to substitue the true responsibility of discipleship. That is what disgusts me. There is no doubt we can do that whether we are in the church vocationally or not, it is how we do it and how we define the success of it. We have certainly been programmed that everything rises and falls on leadership. Perhaps we need to create a new 'movement' that exists that says everything rises and falls on love, and leave all the rest of it up to the Big guy.
Tom
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