Many years ago, I saw a man named Gerald Robison presenting an idea that was silly to me at first. A few minutes later, I was intrigued. An hour later, I was forced to rethink everything. Many years later, the presentation he made has stuck with me in ways I cannot begin to describe. It changed my view of everything, and to this day, effects the way I see just about everything ministry related.
He started with the most ridiculous premise:
A dog says, “You feed me, you pet me, you love me, you must be god!”
A cat says, “You feed me, you pet me, you love me, I MUST BE GOD!”
Nobody thinks this way, right? However, actions tend to show that this is the truth.
Enter the church.
Everyone here is all too familiar with the despised concept of, “That is Mark Driscoll’s church. That is Mark Driscoll’s new book. Mark Driscoll rented Ephesus.” We hate this because everything Mark Driscoll says is about him, despite the fact that he says everything is about Jesus. He says that all the time in fact. “I started this movement. I planted this church. I pastor the thousands of people at Mars Hill Seattle. I wrote this book. I preached that sermon. I punched that guy. I revealed that sin. I rented that city. I preached to 45,000 on Easter.”
A cat lives out the Christian life getting something out of it. Mark has gotten quite a bit thus far. A dog lives out the Christian life looking for what God gets out of it. Those pastors don’t get much at all. You don’t know their names. They are not on the radar except for the few that they deeply impact over years of agonizing and testing ministry. Read about one of those no name pastors here.
There is a reason why A29 is sending Driscoll off into his own little world, and now Matt Chandler is speaking out about what A29 pastors see as the filth soiling the movement.
Folks, I want to settle a thing or two here, and I was encouraged to see posts along these lines the last week or so. It fueled me. So if you see your statement restated, I know, I read it.
Pastors are servants.
This needs to be clarified by maybe discussing what a pastor is not. A pastor does not lock himself in an office and study for 50 hours a week while “elders and deacons” or simple pew pigeons are out doing the ministry. That is what you call a paid theologian. Case closed. A pastor does not spend his days in the back of a coffee house running up the church credit card while blogging and facebooking all week. A pastor does not take off on 6 month book tours, speaking at every church in the country but his own. These are bloggers, or professional speakers, but not pastors. A pastor does not cut out the kind of crowd he wants swamping the church every Sunday, building prejudice, stereotypes, mockeries, and foul theology to cut people from the herd because of their clothes, weight, or choice of TV shows. Folks, that is Mark Driscoll, but NOT a pastor. Feel free to add your own stuff to that list.
You see pastors in lives spent to the last drop serving the church. Why? Colossians 1:25. Romans 12, with a giant emphasis on 10 – 16. Ephesians 4:11-13. Feel free to add.
I suspect there are quite a few good guys out there in the A29 world. I suspect this because they held a gun to the perceived head of the church, and impolitely requested that THE HEAD be returned to THE CHURCH. PhxP people, that is EPIC! That is a win!
We have all seen what happens when cats run the church. The meows that flow from the pretty mouths convince hundreds, thousands, and even millions. The life example produces like minded idiots, all in it for themselves.
We need to see more of what happens when dogs serve the church. The slobbering barks and wagging tails work hard, and make a difference in the life of maybe just one. Maybe even millions, but the dog has a very narrow focus, and that is to serve master. When a dog pastors a church, it is seen in every last aspect of the church. Same is true for cats.
Rant over.
40 Responses to “Christ is the Head of the Church. Period.”
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Reuben…that’s good stuff…
Reuben, very well written. Thanks.
Personally, I think it is a theological issue. I said this a couple of weeks ago, and Michael strongly disagreed with my point of view.
1.) these guys have absolutely no theology of “the office of the ministry”
2.) their theology puts the pastor at the center of the worship service.
3.) as I pointed out, everything these guys do takes place at center stage, whereas in churches like mine, the pastors, singers whoever are always off to the side or not on the stage at all. The cross, the alta and the host are what take center stage.
4.) they all want to come up with something new – they are terrified to preach the same message week after week – why? because their job is to teach something… not to preach Christ into people’s lives week after week.
5.) formula is king – not the gospel message. It’s the reason I have a problem with there even being such a thing as Acts29 – as explained last week Acts29 seems to be another in a long line of formula developers in how to “grow” the church – as if Acts chapter 2 has fallen out of vogue.
No, these guys aren’t rogues – they just have a warped theology.
Well said, Reuben. As to a “win” or even a “loss”, I rather defer making that call and let the dust settle for time. However, I hope you are right. Which reminds me of another animal riddle:
Why did the chicken cross the road?
To prove to the squirrel that it can be done.
Make your own application.
MLD, if everything had stopped with Martin Luther – not gone any further than his improvements on our theology – most of us would never have learned to read and write and we’d still be serving kings i think . . . my studies of the Reformation were of the secular variety and a very long time ago, so i could be wrong . . .
God keep all close and comforted this night
Thought I would go to bed early tonight. Opened my iPad and read this, and now I stand with applause! Well said Reuben.
I was trying to behave, but….
…..this is the 3rd time this week I’ve gone to the Resurgence website from here and seen, in the upper right of corner of that site, a big head shot of Driscollr, with an for him doing Leadership Coaching ….really? After all the muck-ups & upheaval at his home church, and now this with the Acts29 crew.
Really ?
Just too ironic for me….
What’s next, his class on humility ?
Ok, back to trying to behave 8)
should read ‘an ad for leadership coaching…’
Thank you! This concept of a true servant pastor who actually pastors the people, with humility in the local church, needs to be reintroduced.
Servant pastor concept … meet evangelical church.
Evangelical church … meet servant pastor concept.
And I’m not referring to all the talk I heard thrown around about being a servant leader that was not backed up with actions. cc
I was thinking what Please note said in his number 7. Really surprised to see MD’s photo and his adverts.
Let’s not forget – Driscoll said he “appointed” Matt Chandler as president.
Driscoll remains a director on the board of A29. Chandler answers to him.
May I unpack this a little, gently, without my words being seen as a challenge, for they are not meant in that way.
Surely none of us disagrees with the premise. My desire would be to see the thoughts on a detailed list of what a pastor is to DO as a servant. The post here has such a list as to what a servant is not.
For example, is ANY of the time spent in message prep by the pastor an act of service to the church he pastors? I doubt there is a pastor in America that spends 50 hours a week in message prep so what is an expected, approximate weekly time of commitment before one crosses the line from servant to paid theologian (especially for pastors not paid by their churches anyway).
And along those lines, if anyone reading is responsible for regular Bible teachings and does NOT see his/her time of study and prep as being hard work, then you are doing it wrong. Anyone can read a couple commentaries like they would the sports section, call it study, and then get up and wing it for Jesus’ sake.
How about prayer? Is prayer, at home, by oneself for the known needs of the church he serves, an act of service? Is it an important one? – more important than possibly some other time options more visible?
Do we draw a distinction between the size of the church (as I have said, I’ve pastored both large and small)? I find myself ministering to many who serve in the church that are then going out and ministering to others in the church. Ministry multiplication. That does not exclude being available for everyone, but to disciple someone serving 50 in the church has a multiplying effect that one on one does not – as important as the one on one might be for the individual.
What do we do with Scripture like Acts 6:1-7 I know that is an easy one for a lazy pastor to take advantage of, but nonetheless it is in the Bible and part of the early life of the Church and the decision they came up with is clearly an example of a blessing by the Lord.
And finally, the office is, in Scripture, the pastor-teacher. i.e. the shepherd-teacher. Two roles in one man.
Or woman.
Not all christian traditions consider pastor/teacher one office. Many consider that there are actually 5 offices of service or giftings in the body: evangelist, prophet ,apostle,
pastor and teacher .
And some seem to want to be known for being all 5 wrapped up into one.
From the cheap seats in the parking lot my view of it is
“A dog says, “You feed me, you pet me, you love me, you must be god!”
A cat says, “You feed me, you pet me, you love me, I MUST BE GOD!””
You feed me, you pet me, I must have some type of Satanic conspiracy because You cant love me because I am such a piece of human scum. So if I think you are showing me any type of love, it is because I am deceived of the Devil and we all I want people to think I am God I need to reject any type of encouragement what so ever as to not send others to hell, so that I will not be punished worse because I deceived them as well.
It is the carrot and the stick the bigger the carrot, I E salvation, the bigger the stick. Because to actually think someone would give us something we dont deserve I E have not earned cant happen. Like I have said before Nope no good news here. Some times I think, dont feed me just slaughter me like you know you want so we can all just move on.
What a strange religion we have.
Sermon prep – and interesting topic. I wonder how many Playboy magazines these pastors have to consult when they do their “sex” series?
AV, that is an easy verse for lazy pastors. Imagine for a minute the work load these men had by comparison to today’s standard. These guys were on the front lines of spiritual battle proclaiming the Gospel.
I don’t know who you associate with, but I have known too many pastors who boast about time spent in sermon prep. Shepherds ate, drank, slept, and stunk with sheep.
I am not bashing sermon prep. I am bashing, slandering, and otherwise carpet bombing the tendency to call that shepherding.
Seriously, if a church wants a paid theologian, by all means, pay one. Paid theologians are not shepherds. Not pastors.
IMHO, too much time is spent determining what a pastor is. My old pastor said if you are called to pastor, get pastoring. His example was loving the sheep like Christ does.
I’m reading The pastor by Peterson, and struck by his “balance” between visiting those who are under his care, calling on those who (seem to) have lasped, and then “sermon prep”.
If all you do is study and don’t visit with “your people”, you may find that they may not be “yours” for long.
The Harvest Bible church we attended for a few months comes to my mind here. The pastor, who was pretty new to pastoring, would gush most every Sunday and say “I can’t believe that I get to study all week long!” Wwe were not getting fellowship there, and filled out several “needs cards”, stating that we wanted fellowship. No one ever bothered to talk with us. So we left. No one ever called on us and its been months now.
my 2cents,
the problem is basically the ‘moses model’ of ministry where the pastor is in the role of moses and the people are only of secondary importance and access to God.
shout out to the former cc people who ‘know’ what i’m saying
Papias,
Petersen is a member of a Lutheran church – I think he picked up a thing or two.
AV,
Last Sunday night I saw on Facebook that my friend Mike Macon was already doing sermon prep just hours after delivering his Sunday message.
When you are bi-vocational, thats how you have to do it…and if folks think that it isn’t an act of love and service to the congregation I hope they don’t come to my church.
Sermon prep is a level of service, as (you should) try to be “ahead” of yourself, especially if you are going through a passage. For example, If you know that you will be going through Galatians and you are teaching through the first chapter this week, you also start chapter two prep as well. This way you keep from going off on tangets or going sideways when you teach through chapter one, when you are aware of whats in chapter two and ongoing.
I’m assuming that I am not saying anything new to anyone here though….
Thank you Michael. I was actually asking legitimate questions above.
About prayer, about studying the word, about the early church, about larger congregations where the numbers encourage the idea of ministry multiplication.
And I almost posted something on FB in agreement with you and Mike Macon, except by the time I saw the facebook post, it was somewhat dated.
I get up at 4 AM on Sunday so I can put together the message I have studied for during the week and which I will give four times that morning. The day I work the hardest and longest in ministry is also the day I get about 5 hours of sleep beforehand (if lucky) due to family and household needs. (No, I don’t go to bed at 8PM on Saturday). I actually feel blessed to get the 5 now that our baby is older and sleeps through the night. It used to be more like 3 hours, off and on.
Nobody really knows that around the church, nor do I intend for them to know it. And frankly, I would like a different schedule (i.e. more sleep) but that is what it takes to do the work based on the family, work, church responsibilities I have today.
I am still interested if someone wants to think through and answer some of the questions I posted above. Am gone now for awhile.
Still hope people are not thinking I am bashing sermon prep. Take Macon, which sounds like Bacon, as an example. Also Tim. These guys almost out-study theologians. It is evident in their preaching. They are stellar teachers/preachers. They do not use this as the excuse to be in effect locked away from the sheep. Both of them are fine examples, outgoing, energetic.
I fail to see how a shepherd is a shepherd, if he is not amongst sheep.
Hope that clears something up. Especially before Michael gets mad at me…
“I fail to see how a shepherd is a shepherd, if he is not amongst sheep.”
I agree…
I had never been anything but bivocational in ministry. Study time was always hard. It was harder shaving a sermon or class back to something tolerable so that people were not falling out of windows dead.
I used to make fun of Tim’s sermons, calling him the fire hose, because he unloaded more pure volume of stuff in an hour than any other human I have ever known.
MLD – “Petersen is a member of a Lutheran church”
Where did you get that from? He was PCUSA, or so I thought….did he change?
Here’s my not quite .02 worth. It’s a balance. There are times when I may study over 20 hours for a message for Sunday and a bit less on Wed. In any case, it’s the counseling appointments, prayer time, phone calls and meetings that determine how much time I can prepare. The biggest challenge is to do what the Lord has called me to do and not neglect my family. There is no question that prep time is important but no more important than anything else including serving my family.
Reuben – I’m humbled…
For what it’s worth, I look at other guys like AV & FYI, and pray that I can be more like them one day. These men not only truly study the word, but they have massive personal investments in their people, a wonderful devotion to the Lord, and heart for service that puts me to shame.
I was in the pulpit in our new facility this weekend (our 1st Sunday here), looking at all the faces in the sanctuary, and thinking to myself: “I am the very *last* person who ought to be up here.” God’s grace is astounding beyond our imaginations. He can take a worthless lump of flesh like me (and anyone else) and still preach the gospel…amazing.
” truly study the word, massive personal investments in their people, a wonderful devotion to the Lord, and heart for service ”
I think that sums it up nicely.
I want my pastor to be both a competent and willing shepherd and teacher. I don’t want one aspect to be intentionally ignored for the sake of the other. I don’t want a pastor who is spending 50 hours on sermon prep and then spends very little ministry time actually with people. But I also don’t want to be taught by a pastor who is regularly spending only a couple hours a week in study and sermon prep. Balance, as it is with many things in life, is the key. And, of course, I’m sure this is easier said than done.
I’m re-posting a link to an article that was orginally in one of BrianD’s Linkathons last year and we had some discussion on. The author talks about how in seminary, one of his professors told him that he should spend one hour of sermon prep for each minute long his sermon is. Under that formula, there would be many pastors who would be spending close to 50 hours a week in sermon prep.
http://www.toddhiestand.com/preaching-on-the-run-preparing-sermons-as-a-bi-vocational-pastor-who-can%e2%80%99t-spend-30-hours-in-his-study/08/
During a time period at my previous church, we had an teaching pastor who was part-time on staff and was very gifted at teaching. You could tell that his sermons were well prepared and that he must have put a decent amount of thought, time, and effort into them. He was also a full-time professor at a university, was raising a family with his wife and 4 young kids, and still would find time to personally minister to people. Heck, the man would even find time to come out and play pick-up basketball with the guys at church on Wednesday nights. God had truly gifted him with a lot of energy and abilities and he was using them. I know if I were in his position, I would have failed miserably as there is no way I could have kept up with everything. And I know that most people aren’t blessed with the energy and abilities this man had.
I’ve never been a pastor, but I can imagine that it is often times a thankless job with pull coming from so many directions of things that need to be done and people who have needs and wants to be met. God bless those who are willing and able to serve the Lord and serve the people as pastor.
the pastors who have fed my spirit real, lasting nourishment have all been teachers who were jealous for their time alone with God in study . . .
a while back the question was posed, ‘what would your ideal church be like?’ i’d like to see a church that fielded a good, disciplined, ‘get to the point and show me Christ’ (time frame negotiable
) Bible teacher – plus, plus plus my ideal church would have on staff those pastors (ratio of members to ‘pastor’, negotiable, too, i guess), who are there for the nurture of our minds and bodies – holding us accountable, one on one . . .
perhaps, the congregation that resulted would be enjoyable, too . . . has me wondering if the satellite church concept might be workable – with some serious tweeking
http://radiofreebabylon.com/RFB%20Images/CoffeeWithJesus/coffeewithjesus86.jpg
Mike wins with the pic!
Macon’s link is a classic. A comic strip is worth a thousand words.
If I can share an anecdote without seeming to sound like I am blowing my own trumpet. I do so to give some inside baseball that only me (and my wife whom I share with) know about. I’m sure other pastors here can relate to the story as well with their own experiences.
A couple experienced a horrible tragedy and told me about it. Except they told me about it after the crisis moment – one Sunday after church. They then thanked me for the teaching they had received the last few months (they are relatively new to our church but have been Christians for years).
They said they had learned more about God, His ways, and the Spirit’s role in our life in the last few months than they had learned their whole Christian life prior. (No, I didn’t ask them where they had been going to church).
They then said that because of the growth they had experienced, they were able to not only bear the weight of the tragedy but to minister to those in their family who also were affected and did not yet know the Lord, or at best were quite distant to Him.
My point is that we all think that ‘ministry’ would be taking that midnight phone call, getting dressed and rushing over to the home when the crisis hit. And of course, that happens too. As we have all said, there is a balance and a shepherd must be amongst the sheep.
But one of the roles of any pastor should be to help the people grow in their relationship with the Lord. And the best way to grow in the Lord is by the proper understanding and application of God’s Word.
The pastor is not their Savior or the True Shepherd (just a sheep himself actually), and much pastoral abuse oft mentioned here is actually when the pastor takes far too much of a controlling role in the life of a member, so that the member almost can’t move without getting pastoral permission, right?
Others have said to me “Thanks for being a good pastor” except they are people I have never done anything with of a serious nature, except teach the Word to them each week. No visits, counseling – at most maybe some small talk on the patio. What are they thanking me for? Because Christians WANT to know the Bible (and thus, God) better and grow in grace and the knowledge of Christ, with the fruit of the Spirit flowing forth from their lives.
So in taking effort to teach the Word, one has the multiplication effect of ministering to the entire congregation. The value is not trivial, if the teaching honors the Lord. The side benefit is there is even LESS problems, less urgent demands for ‘counseling’ everytime a problem hits, because people are growing and looking to the Lord.
Looking to the Lord…not any man.
Thanks for listening.
AV, your #37 post is right on target IMX – i know that i have internalized God’s truth, that has meant more to me than any hand-holding could ever have, from men that i might not even enjoy one on one . . . and yet, i have a heart of affection for those men (generic term, London ) and gratitude for the supply of good food ministered by them – whether they were standing up there front and center under the cross physically or off to the side (which is a little hard on the neck as we all tend to turn to look at the one speaking
)
Ezekiel 34. Read it. Everything you said here, Reuben, in a nutshell.
Just wanted to point out that Matt’s article is from his blog. He wrote that post in 2008. I always find it interesting when people sync up with the Word and write or say timeless things.