Category: Agrarian Pastor

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Agrarian Pastor Church Clint Ministry Pastors

4 Ways to Identify Potential Elders

Many churches lack qualified elders. It’s not that they don’t have elderly men. They don’t have elders; that is presbyters (Ac 20:17,1Ti 5:17Ti 1:5, Ja 5:14,1Pet 5:1). These elders (who are also overseers (Acts 20:28; 1 Tim 3:1,2; Ti 1:7), must meet the qualifications laid out in the pastoral epistles. The challenge is how to identify those potential office-bearers. Here are four ways to spot these men in your church.

He’s a Good Church Member

There is no sense looking at a man as a potential elder if he is not a good church member first. What I’m talking about is more than simply someone who has passed through a membership process. A good church member is someone who is faithful in attendance (Heb 10:25), faithful in the “one anothers” (a phrase used 100 times in the NT), and faithful in appropriate exercise of responsibility (eg. Heb 12:12-17), submission to authority (Heb 13:17), and promotion of the gospel (Matt 28:18-20).

Since the qualifications for an elder in Paul’s first letter to Timothy map out an exemplary Christian, then the potential elder ought to be a good churchman by design.

For example, if he doesn’t bother to attend the prayer meeting, he is likely not an elder candidate. That is not to say that a man on shift work or with a lot of evening work can’t be an elder. But there should be a clear indication that the local church is a high priority for him.

He Can Teach (with an audience of one)

There are men who are growing in the Lord, but they have a hard time expressing themselves in orderly ways. That of course, is what teaching involves: assisting someone to move from confusion to ordered understanding of the subject. Men who can teach have the ability to come alongside someone else and move them from point A to point B in theological understanding.

Being able to teach (1 Tim 3:2) does not necessarily require a man to be an orator or pulpiteer. There are many men who have less skill in public speaking. At the same time, a man who has a deep understanding of the bible, ought to be able to speak in an orderly way to someone else. One-to-one discipleship is a form of this kind of teaching. If a man can teach another man in a discipling context, then they are in the habit of ‘teaching’.

This one-to-one kind of teaching is important to recognize. Often men will like to lead bible studies or teach a class, but they have little interest in the patience and obscurity that goes along with one-to-one discipling. I have found that the men who don’t disciple, yet want to have public teaching roles will tend to view the bible and theology as a hobby. They will be energized by the study in the way that a fan is energized talking about their favourite team. Added to this can be the slight ego trip of being a centre of attention and being “made much of” by other people. By contrast, the man who is content to meet together with another guy in obscurity, yet help that man grow in biblical understanding— that man is teaching as a way of life. Maybe if that man is given an opportunity, he will teach publicly in the same effective, humble manner.

Confessionally Compatible

Since elders are office bearers in a local church, they have to confess the doctrinal parameters of that church. Much of this will be discovered by seeing if the man is a good church member. But more than this, a potential elder will have to be evaluated regarding his relative understanding of the doctrinal positions of the church. It is one thing for a member to submit to a doctrinal position that they haven’t studied too much, but it is another thing for an elder to have to teach it.

Added to this is a recognition of the doctrinal triage that exists in:

  • the statement of faith
  • the church’s constitution
  • and the existing ministries and policies.

By triage, I mean the ordering of priorities in terms of clearer or less clear and important or less important. If a potential elder elevates an obscure teaching to a high degree of importance or acts callously toward the way that his local church faithfully applies Scripture in practical matters, then he will likely create disunity among the elders and in the church. Everyone doesn’t have to think exactly the same, but there should be unity about what matters and what doesn’t.

Sometimes this means that the potential elder you develop will not serve in your church but someone else’s. If you have a generous spirit, you can recognize that on lesser matters in the triage, it is okay to differ. But that may mean that a potential elder will have to go to a different church that fits his understanding of things.

Capacity for the Work

There are many godly men who are faithful as church members and who can teach, yet they are not capable of doing pastoral work. They simply don’t have the time, energy or capacity.

It is not out of laziness or stubbornness. But some men recognize that their callings as husbands and fathers require them to work in such a way that there isn’t a lot of capacity left over for being an elder.

Since managing one’s own household well is a key qualification for an elder, the lack of capacity that a man has can be a signal that he is not called to the work. It is better to have the man continue as a faithful church member, than to have him over-extended into pastoral care and wreck his marriage and ministry.

Considering these elements can go a long way toward identifying potential elders. In the end, the wisdom of pastors and parishioners will culminate in wise assessments that can be recognized by everyone.

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Agrarian Pastor Clint Global Gospel Theology

Be honest about the wheat and the chaff

As we get further away from the sources of our food, it becomes more difficult to understand the processes involved. For example, who among us has ever handled wheat? Who has actually seen chaff?

One of the key actions which the Messiah would bring, according to John the Baptist, was to separate the wheat from the chaff:

His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.

Luke 3:17, cf Mat 3:12

Few people today would know what ‘winnowing’ is. It would be hard to find a threshing floor, except possibly for a remote village in a far off rural place. The process however, is something that the Messiah does, so it is something we should be clear about.

Together and Separated

The fact is that humanity, considered as a whole is like so many stalks of wheat. The pristine fields that stand golden in the sunlight have an apparent beauty to the naked eye. Yet the purpose of the field is to yield wheat. To gather or harvest this yield requires a great separation. The stalk, leaves and outer coverings that are attached together with the wheat must be separated. That which is not wheat is chaff. Although together for a time, and even standing quite proudly the chaff will be separated from the wheat. Separation is the essence of judgement.

The Suddenness of Threshing

If you drive past a farmer’s field on your commute, or you travel out of town by the same route, you may notice a big change. One day you will see the tall crop like a vast brush of velcro, or like a golden carpet stretching to the horizon. Another day, you will see it gone. Sheared off. Cut down and scraped. It is a dramatic change that can be surprisingly sudden.

The closest analogy most people have for this is the difference between their untamed grass on Friday and their neatly trimmed lawn on Saturday. The contrast with the farmer’s field is the threshing. There is not just a change in the field from being uncut to cut. It is a change from being unthreshed to being separated. But the analogies are the same in seeing that it is sudden. Threshing, mowing and the final judgement are all sudden. For the Day of the Lord, “will come like a thief in the night” (1 Thess 5:12).

The World Chaff

It can be hard to think that the lustre of our world is only temporary. Our shiny media and popular heroes can appear eternal, for a time. But all of it changes from being green and growing, to be chaff. David said famously in Psalm 1:

The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff that the wind drives away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; for the LORD knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.

Psalm 1:4-6

The chaff is separated from the wheat, so the analogy points to the reality of unbelievers being separated from believers. This separation is the most offensive part of God’s harvest when viewed by sinful man. All people assume that if there is a harvest, they will all be among the lasting, cherished wheat. In other words, all people are closet universalists.

But the reality is that there will be a separation. And the separation will be all the more dramatic because the chaff had at one point looked so green. God in his common grace permits even the chaff of this world to have a growth, an order and a beauty. Yet even for all of that common grace, the chaff remains chaff. The wicked remain the wicked (Rev 22:11).

The Privilege of the Kept

The flip side of the chaff being threshed and discarded is that the wheat is kept and “gathered into this barn” (Matt 3:12,13:30; Luke 3:17). What a privilege to be kept for the Lord’s use and pleasure. When you look at a wheat field, you cannot actually see the wheat. It is completely obscured by all that will become chaff. So it is with this world. Paul said that “natural” people don’t accept spiritual realities because they are “not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” (1 Cor 2:14). Chaff cannot discern what is wheat. The world cannot discern the true chosen of God, because it is discerned only by spiritual eyes, and it is only revealed ultimately after the harvest of the last day.

When we despair of our apparent hiddenness as Christians in this world. When we think about how small and unseen is our place in the tall towers of society. Then we should remember that everything will be chaff, apart from God’s own precious people. That harvest yield will be all that matters on the last day.

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Agrarian Pastor Church Clint Ministry Pastors

Do You Know Where Your Pastor Comes From?

farmer pastor in field
Photo by Bec Ritchie on Unsplash

You call him, “Pastor”, but do you know what it means? In our urbanized modern world, the knot between pastors in churches and their rustic origins has been cut. Today many people are asking, “Where does our food come from?” Christians ought to ask, “Where does our pastor come from?” You likely know his birthplace, but you might not know where his job came from. Without knowing that, both pastors and people will have a tendency to distort what a pastor does and what he is for. 

Just as many people are looking to rediscover where their food comes from, it’s also helpful for pastors and their churches to take an agrarian turn.  Does food come from the grocery store? Do pastors come from the seminary? For some people, the one question is as elusive as the other. 

Pre-Processed Pastors

Is it too cynical to characterize some pastoral careers today as the equivalent of processed food? Many pastors are the product of a systematically funnelled career path which introduces them from youth ministry, through seminary, onto senior leadership, and then a repeating tenure of stops in an ascending scale of congregations. Those careers look like they were made in a factory. 

Inside the church, the processed programs which pastors can bring may be useful for producing results, but they get stale quickly. Then new processes are needed. More efficient programs need to be discovered and implemented as a new way to do church. Like pre-processed food, those store-bought programs only require you to add water and stir. 

Agrarian Losers and Gainers

An agrarian turn in pastoral ministry would aim to reconnect to the Scriptures’ own priorities set in agricultural and biblical soil. 

The trouble with using a term like ‘agrarian’ today is that it already conjures up images of middle-class westerners with good jobs to support their farmers market dreams. 

When it comes to farming it has always meant losing. Losing sweat, crops, herds, flocks, not to mention years. In that losing, the gains can only come from the heavens. Rain and favourable providences of God provide the only hope for the farmer. 

The agrarian pastor is a loser too. Paul could describe himself this way saying, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” (Phil 3:8). Most pastors don’t know how much they must lose, but Jesus is worth it all. 

The pastor has to live on hope. As Paul put it, “the plowman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of sharing in the crop” (1 Cor 9:10).  A pastor hopes in God because whether he sows or irrigates or threshes, it is God who gives the growth (1 Cor 3:7). Only Jesus, the chief Shepherd can claim to have lost none of the sheep (John 6:39, 17:12, 18:8). 

Prone to Quit and Hope

I’ve seen how a brief hailstorm could devastate fields and families. One moment, showers of rain fell on ripening heads of grain and a few moments later the crop was flatter than a tabletop. Hope and despair passed within minutes.  No wonder so many farmers quit. 

Pastors are prone to quit too. But like the hardworking farmer, he will have the first share in the crop (2 Tim 2:6), and his hope renews constantly, not from his own skill, but from the prospect of the next season and what God might provide. Pastors have setbacks. Churches blow up. Members leave. The baptized get excommunicated. Satan roars. In all of these the pastor still has hope, like a crazy farmer. For pastors, like farmers, can keep on pastoring their churches and say  with Paul, “that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.” (Rom 1:13). 

To hope in the face of regular perplexity is the way that pastors imitate farmers. But the pastor, as a Christian believer is “always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies” (2 Cor 4:10).

Where to Find A Pastor

The idea of an agrarian pastor stands out in comparison to many of the pastoral models promoted today. The metaphor is quite different than the pastor as comedian, talk-show host, marketer, or CEO. Instead of those outstanding celebrities, the agrarian pastor is like the simple farmer. He may never be outstanding but will be literally out standing in his field. That’s where you need to go to discover where the idea of a pastor comes from. The agrarian pastor hopes in the Lord puts his hand to the plough and doesn’t turn back (Luk 9:62).