Category: Pastors

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Pastors

More on Pillar Men and the Context of Revitalization

I’ve had a couple of people ask me about an article that I wrote, Move Toward Elder Leadership By Developing Pillar Men. The concern that was expressed was that the article lacked context. Without that context, it could be misunderstood in different ways, such as minimizing the contributions of older men in the church, or offering a sort of disingenuous, ‘fifth column’ approach to ministry. Without the context explained I can see that some of these impressions could be taken. So I’ll attempt to unpack a bit better what I mean.

  1. A Pastor’s Dilemma in a “Revitalization”

If a pastor takes a job at a church, at the minimum, there ought to be agreement on paper with the doctrinal positions that he and the church maintain. However, often in spiritually declining churches,  the church body has immature understandings of their own statement faith, or at worst they are a resistant to change, even though such change is argued from Scripture and in keeping with their own statement of faith. 

This type of resistance is the normal context of a revitalization. It may be that some churches are more or less resistant, or they are not resistant, but they are unaware of their practical, doctrinal inconsistencies. 

A conservative pastor who takes a job in a less than conservative church, will have his hands full in staying faithful to his own convictions, working within the parameters of his doctrinal agreement with the church, and extending grace to the congregation as he has received from the Lord. 

Still, pastors will have to make choices. They are limited and they need to know where should they expend their energies in ministry. The priority must be in preaching the Word of God and praying for God to be glorified in the context of the ministry (cf. Acts 6:4). Many pastors will aim to be faithful to this calling, and in the face of resistance, they will not have much more to offer in the ministry. They will feel overtaxed very quickly. They will pray and teach and minister to people as they can. However, in resistant contexts, they can get burnt out in a hurry because they can feel alone in the work, without like-minded support. Many younger men (and older ones) have had short ministries in churches that need revitalization, and they leave that church (and the ministry) disillusioned and exhausted. Often they never knew where to start to address the dilemma of revitalization beyond their Sunday morning ministry. 

  1. The Missing Mentorship

Most pastors in a revitalization are exhausted by maintaining the regular ministry work. What tends to be dropped is the command to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2, “what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also”. This mentorship of potentially ‘pillar men’ needs to be a high priority for the pastor facing the dilemma of revitalization. It is easily ignored due to the busy demands of regular ministry. However if these men are not invested in, then you are failing to steward your ministry faithfully, and ignoring the long-term view of the church. 

  1.  Older Men 

Some of the misunderstandings of my previous article had to do with my emphasis on younger men, (although I did qualify my statements about older men). Given the context of a revitalization, (which I had not stated in the article, but was the context of the pastor whom I was counselling), the young men need to be prioritized. Why would I say that? Is it because like our culture says, youth is better than old age? No. The reason is based upon the ministry context that I was addressing. A church that has become schlerotic and sick has had its older members participate in promoting the decline, or more likely, watching as the decline occurred all around them. 

In spiritually or doctrinally compromised churches, the older men tend to be doctrinally confused, apathetic, or sadly unsaved. Sometimes there will be a lamenting stalwart who has remained at the church despite the decline, but who has prayed and hoped for better things. Often that man can be a great ally for a pastor as he seeks to bring a church back to biblical moorings. But generally speaking, older men who have become set in their ways, are in deep ruts of bad teaching or bad practice, and they can be resistant to biblical change. 

  1. Strategic Positions

So assuming that there are not a pocket of older men who are spiritually mature and supportive of biblical change in the church, a pastor will invest in the men’s ministry and the young men in particular. 

Over time, as those young men are mentored (2 Tim 2:2), there will be opportunities for various kinds of ministry in the church which they can take up. At this point, the temptation can be for the up and coming ‘pillar men’ to only want to study theology, and teaching or preach publicly. This is where a wise and strategic understanding of the church is critical. According to 1 Cor 12, Ro 12 and Eph 4:15-16, the principle of the church as the body of Christ must be dominant. This means that every believer has God-given roles to play in the body, just as elbows, toes, eyes, lungs and cartilege all have various roles. 

Pillar men have roles to play in a church, and it is critical that they are encouraged to fulfill those roles. The primary way for them to do this is to engage in faithful churchmanship. And that means they should start to serve in ‘unglamorous’ ministries. This is where real relationships are developed, where biblical examples of being salt and light (Matthew 5:13-14) can be expressed. Remember, we’re talking about ministry in a church that has been in spiritual and doctrinal decline. Often ministry inside these churches is more like evangelism than the discipleship of believers. 

As I counselled my pastor friend, I stressed that ministries or committees that might seem unimportant, are nevertheless viewed as important by people in the church. When pillar men engage in patient empathetic ways with these committees and ministries, they show that they care about the people, but they also care enough to be “speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15). 

In my article, due to its abbreviated manner and lack of context, it might have given the impression that slotted these pillar men into these ministries is a sort of cynical infiltration. On the contrary, when pillar men (or any godly person man or woman) takes a caring interest in others, they are showing that they care about the people, not just about their picture of ecclesiastical perfection. At the same time, when pillar men commit to engage with ministries and committees, they do so with the aim to bring the thinking and the actions of the church into conformity to Christ, taking even every thought captive to him (2 Cor 10:5). This aim is no dark conspiracy, but is the design of the healthy body of Christ, “joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph 4:16). 

  1. Culture Before Constitutions

One of the frequent challenges which pastors face is to assist a church to reform it’s governance structures. For example, in Canada, it is surprising how many churches are governed by a board of directors model. This model is not found in Scripture, but is found in the manuals of IBM and General Motors. In the face of these unbiblical structures, many zealous pastors have attempted to instituted structural change rapidly. They push the church to move toward a plurality of elders, or they push to implement meaningful membership and clear inactive members from the rolls. But when they do this, they are attempting a political change in the church without the hard work of applied ministry. As with all sanctifying work, the inside must be changed before the outside can be. 

So encouraging the 2 Tim 2:2 men to engage in the various ministries and committees of the church will result in a shift in the church from decline to spiritual life. This is where change must start. Then when it comes time for the annual meeting, the church will have a new desire to reform it’s structures and even its constitution to reflect biblical governance. 

The task of revitalization is an important one, but for pastors who take up the challenge, they have the opportunity to patiently see God sanctify individuals, and over time, see the transformation of unhealthy churches into healthy ones. 

This is a plan which God has established, and we have the privilege of serving him as he works. 

Categories
Church Pastors

Move Toward Elder Leadership By Developing Pillar Men

The guiding ideas for bringing change to the leadership culture and structure of the church will be to re-engage with the realities of the Pastoral Epistles. Some quick emphases will be:

1 Tim 3.1-7

  • Men who are Aspirational (v 1).
  • Male, not Female
  • Character qualifications dominate
  • Well-Ordered Home Life 
  • Not a Novice Convert
  • Can teach (could be private or small group mostly, not just preaching/teaching). 

2 Tim 2:2 “Entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also”

  • Seek Trustworthy Men
  • Seek Teachable and Teaching Men
  • Have in view a Four Generation Ministry

But where do you start?

Here is a simple (but challenging) plan for implementation.

1. Men’s Mentoring Ministry — The Pillar Men

Prioritize the younger men, since they are moldable, teachable, and still have uncluttered aspirations.

De-prioritize the older men who are not already like-minded, since they are set in their views, less teachable, and their aspirations tend to be clouded by other competing motives. 

Nevertheless, esteem any older man who is godly since his character will be a living template for younger men.

This is not done to disregard women, but done as the baby step in a process of reformation. Once pillar men are in place, you can work to reform the women’s ministry. 

The Men’s Mentoring Ministry can’t be an “Elder-in-Training” ministry because otherwise, you will give men unrealistic expectations. 

Yet out of this crop of men, God will raise up the called, qualified men who can be elders.

Those who aren’t elders will be “pillar men”.  They will be godly men with healthy marriages and homes, who are doctrinally informed, but maybe lack teaching ability, or are unable to ‘do the work’ of a shepherd (demands of work, family, etc)

Among the ‘pillar men’, you will have your deacons, ministry leads, and general supporters of biblical reformation in the church. 

2. Make Pillar Men strong churchmen.

Every pillar man should be

  • a member (“meaningful membership”)
  • Serving in a ministry
  • Joining every committee, consultation, or any opportunity for the congregational voice to participate. (Don’t ignore the handbell choir committee or the quilting committee. These ‘non-teaching’ committees can have massive influence in a church!).

If you can’t insert pillar men to have influence on committees and ministries, then the pastor should personally engage those unaligned committees and ministries, while gradually isolating the influence of those unaligned groups.

For example, a pastor chose to preserve a senior ladies’ bible study on Sunday mornings rather than dismantling it, even though they completely changed their Sunday School set up. He didn’t give it large influence, but isolated it without shutting it down. This kept him from having a needless fight, distracting him from the changes he wanted to do. 

3. Turn your like-minded staff into unofficial helpers for committees that they don’t have a right to be on. 

For example, the Associate Pastor offers to type stuff up or send emails or bring food for a committee or board meeting that they are not entitled to sit on or influence officially.  

The goal is to orient the board toward favourable change by persuading them with hospitality first, and argument later on. 

Hospitality toward unaligned ministries/structures is the first plan of approach for soliciting change. I.e. Hospitality accrues relational capital. It prioritizes people first, then persuades them with principles later.

4. Use internships to add to your depth of like-minded pillar men.

One way to bring in men who are potentially elder qualified is to offer internships with financial remuneration. 

A single seminary/post-seminary guy can be brought in for an internship that is under one year long. But in that year (or 6 months, or 4 months), he brings youthful energy, support for your vision, and the appearance in the church that the ministry draws high quality men. 

Persuading your church to adopt your elder-leadership model, will require them to be excited about the appearance of new life, young leaders, etc. Although ‘youth movements’ can be viewed in mere worldly terms, this practical emphasis might assist you in overcoming opposition from ‘the old guard.’

Target young men from bible colleges and seminaries, even from outside your country.

  • Recruit from TGC Africa/Korea/ Latin America/ Brazil/ Australia churches?
  • Recruit from trusted seminaries?
  • Recruit from bible colleges? 
  • Find the like-minded guy from a church in your denomination?

Why would a young guy do the internship?

If there was enough money for him to eat and pay rent, he would jump at the chance to get church experience with a city church, and a likeminded pastor. 

Offer clear learning outcomes to the potential intern. 

Highlight the personal investment from the Senior Pastor. This will make the internship worthwhile. 

The intern can work at any number of needed jobs in the church, but the investment in him from the pastor will be the payoff. 

5. Change the culture of the church to prepare for constitutional changes

More men, becoming pillar men, creates a new voting block in the church.

Pillar men on committees (even seemingly meaningless ones) give organizational support for your vision/plan. 

When you go to vote or change the constitution, etc., you may still have a big fight. But you won’t be alone. You won’t be using a constitutional battle as the first attempt to persuade the old guard. Rather it will be the final stroke of persuasion in a systematic approach. 

When the constitutional fight comes, you will have many pillars who will personally support you and help you to stick to it. This is essential for big changes like you’ll propose. 

And even if you, the Senior Pastor, gets fired, you will have established a growing new culture of pillar men who can support the next pastor to bring the change that is needed.

If you are a man who would like to be invested in to become a ‘pillar man’, then consider coming to Calgary, Canada and joining the church that I pastor. Reach out to me through our website at info [{at}] calvarygrace.ca

We also offer accredited theological education through Union School of Theology, with the Graduate Diploma in Theological Studies and the Masters Degree in Theological Studies. Although we are located in Canada, both degrees are accredited with the UK university system. They are church-based, with pastoral mentorship. Contact me if you are interested in joining us beginning in September 2020.

photocredit

unsplash-logoMauricio Artieda

Categories
Canada Clint Gospel Pastors Reformers

3 Reasons You Should Preach Through Galatians

This article is published at 9Marks.org

The key takeaways are:

1) GALATIANS TEACHES US TO BUILD OUR LIVES ON A RIGHT UNDERSTANDING OF THE GOSPEL

2) GALATIANS CONFRONTS OUR DRIVE TO COMPARE OURSELVES TO OTHERS

3) GALATIANS TEACHES US THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OUR IDENTITY IN CHRIST

Read the rest of the article at 9 Marks

9 Marks is a great ministry that has helped me immensely. I highly recommend their massive journal on Complementarianism.

Categories
Canada Clint Pastors Spiritual Growth Suffering & Trials Theology

Do We Need Professional Counselors Instead of Pastors?

If we are immersed in a therapeutic culture, many churchgoers have a question in the back of their minds: Do I need a pastor or a professional counselor?

This is not a simple a question to answer since most evangelicals would argue that you need both. But it is helpful to see a few questions in back of the question of which is needed.

Helping Professions

First, we have to ask ourselves why someone would need to see a professional counselor. Likely it is becaue they have some problem, a habit, a behaviour or something else that they know is wrong or harmful or sinful. So in order to get assistance, many people immediately look to the most dominant ‘helping professions’ in our culture, doctors, pharmacists, therapists and counselors.

On the list of ‘helping professions’ few in society would rate pastors as very important. For Christians who have been steeped in a therapeutic culture which elevates the prowess of these other helping professions, it can seem like pastors are part of a quaint and antiquated system for dealing with problems. So to get in the back of the question about professional counselors or pastors, we have to recognize the therapeutic culture we live in.

Therapeutic Culture

Since 1993, David Wells has exposed the therapeutic culture in a series of books. Specifically, he has outlined how modernity has affected evangelical churches so that Christians desire therapy.

Wells has said that instead of therapy, we need to feel God’s weight at the centre of our lives, not the periphery:

What gives weight to God in our lives is two things. First, he has to be enthroned in the center and not merely circling on the periphery. Second, the God who is enthroned must be the God who has revealed himself in Scripture. This God is not simply the supplier of everything we want, our concierge, and our therapist dispensing comfort as we feel the need for it. He is the God of burning purity as well as of burning love. That God, as he rules our own private universe, will wrench around what happens in that universe to conform us to who he is in his character. The “god” who is there only for our needs as we define them will be a “god” who is light and skinny.

Crossway Interview with David F. Wells

So in the first place, we have to have God at the centre of all that we do, and recognize the powerful effect which modernity has on our own self-perception. We need to see how we perceive the sufficiency of God’s Word, the significance of God’s church, and the strength of God’s shepherds to care for the sheep.

The Context of Care

The second question behind the question is to ask where is the context of care which we all need to live within? There is a big difference between seeking help for problems within the church and seeking help outside the church. When the first instinct for a Christian is to look outside the church for solutions, they are declaring the utter insufficiency of God, his Word and his people. They don’t mean to do that of course. But evangelicals have cultivated church-less habits for nearly a century, so it is natural to look for expertise outside of the local church.

Yet it can be surprising to see how effective the local church context is for someone, even when they have to have help from outside the church. For example, when a young woman in my church had a medical emergency requiring medical professionals, the care and counsel of the church was still immersive for her. Even in the hospital, doctors and nurses were engaged by the church’s care as much as she was.

So the context of care must be understood clearly. There will be times when a Christian must go outside the local church for counseling and medical help. But the dominant context of care will be in the local church so that the pastoral and congregational care that a person receives will follow them.

Pastoral Care as Congregational Care

A third issue behind the question of professional counselors versus pastors, is to recognize that pastoral care is expressed not merely in one-to-one care from the pastor, but in the one-another care of the congregation for each other. In accordance with Ephesians 4:12, the pastors are to “equip the saints for the work of ministry”. If they are equipped, even as co-counselors, then that is an extension of the pastor’s counseling ministry, and makes his work more wholistic and thus more effective.

By contrast, the professional counselor enters into a counseling situation as a sole filter for the person’s problems, offering them an assessment that the counselee can either accept or reject as any consumer can when they have paid their bill.

The pastor, unlike the professional counselor, offers spiritual counsel and care for a person within the context of one-anothering by the congregation. To the covenanted church member, there can be no ‘take it or leave it’ kind of response when the counsel they received is biblical and appropriately conscience-binding. The context of care for the Christian being counseled by their fellow congregants will be an expression of meaningful church membership. This is where our view of counseling is shaped by our view of the local church and what it means to be a member.

The Place of Professional Counselors

For Christians there is still a useful place for professional counselors. Professional counselors ought to be biblical counselors. They have been biblically trained and use the Scriptures not only as a proof text, but as the interpretive mechanism for all human problems.

Certainly, the professional biblical counselor will have some subject matter expertise. But the primary way that biblical counselors differ from pastors (other than the fact that pastors, not professional counselors occupy an ecclesial office) is that biblical counselors are able to offer specialized, intensive and extended care. Pastors offer the same thing. But for people who have multiple complex sin issues, habits, and consequences to deal with, a dedicated helper can be very useful.

This is why it is helpful to encourage biblical counseling generally. When pastors recognize their large role in providing nouthetic care (1 Cor 4:14, Col 1:28, 1 Th 5:12,14, 2 Th 3:15), they will do more than be a personal counselor for people. They will cultivate a culture of one-another co-counseling. The result will be a caring context for every Christian to be helped to deal honestly with sin and the consequences of sin in their lives. Then, even if someone needs some special, intensive, extended attention from a professional biblical counselor, they are immersed within a culture with God at the centre.

All faithful professional biblical counsellors desire this pastoral/congregational context for the people they serve. And all pastors welcome the additional help that they can look to in certain situations that require more attention than their time and space allow.

So to answer the opening question, “Do we need professional counselors instead of pastors?”, no, we do not. Rather we must recapture a sense of what the local church is for (a clinic of co-counselors), what is the role of the pastor (equipping the co-counselors while modeling biblical care), and then we are in a position to value another kind of counselor (professional biblical counselor). At such a re-ordering of priorities, the professional biblical counsellor will rejoice together with the pastor and the local church.

unsplash-logoKelly Sikkema

Categories
Church Clint Ministry Pastors Theology

6 Things to Ask An Elder Candidate

When a candidate for the office of elder is being examined, it’s necessary for the examiner (likely the senior pastor, or another designated pastor) to have a series of talking points and questions to ask.

Normally an elder candidate will have to do some type of theological project, most likely an exegetical or theological essay which shows his ability to discern biblical truths and articulate them clearly. He would also have to be able to defend his conclusion against other positions and especially false doctrine.

Assuming that the potential candidate has been in a discipling process, having been tested in different ways, these talking points could be used to apply to a potential candidate. They are given as suggestions for a way to further discover the qualifications outlined in 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, and all the rest of the biblical characteristics for elders.

Below are six areas to consider in examining the potential candidate.

1. Personal

  • Share Testimony
    • Used Alcohol or Illegal Drugs; Any anti-depressants? 
    • Viewed Pornography [_____]
    • Marriage: 
      • Honest, objective pastoral assessment of your marriage. 
      • What is your wife’s view of your calling to ministry?
      • How does your wife’s ministry in the church potentially relate to being married to a pastor (Eg. is she active in women’s ministry; or faithful church member; etc).
      • What is the spiritual maturity of your wife compared to yourself?
    • What is your temperament? 
    • What are the scenarios when you are most easily tempted to be angry?
    • What are the scenarios when you are most easily tempted to be depressed?
    • Briefly describe your personal prayer life.
    • Briefly describe your practice of family worship, couple’s devotion or other spiritual leadership in your home. 
    • Is there anything you haven’t told us that could be revealed about you that would be scandalous or potentially disqualifying? 

2. Doctrinal

  • Statement of Faith
    • Compatibility. 
      • What are the points of the Statement of Faith which you are 
        • More newly convinced of, 
        • Have had a lesser amount of reflection upon?
      • How different is this church in doctrine, compared with a previous church, and the most influential church your wife has come from? 
    • Influences
      • Identify the major influences on your theological development (both positively and negatively).
      • What are the areas of theological study you have given a lot of attention to, and less attention to?
    • Possible Doctrinal Questions (These can be expanded depending on the candidate, the length of the examination, and the prerequisites completed):
      • How many wills does the Incarnate Son of God have?
      • How many wills does God have? 
      • What does divine simplicity mean? 
      • State briefly your view of the sign gifts.
      • What is your view on divorce and remarriage?
      • Explain the difference between the Reformed view of sanctification and the Keswick view.
      • [____________]

3. Ecclesiastical

  • Compatibility
    • What are the areas of practice in this church (philosophy of ministry, worship/liturgy, cultural context, etc) which differ compared with a previous church, and the most influential church your wife has come from? 
  • Elder Role
    • What is your understanding of the application of the elder’s role:
      • Ideally according to Scripture
      • In practical application at your local church.
  • Is your potential role as an elder interchangeable with the role of the current pastor? Explain. 

4. Practical

  • What would the scenario of  “serving this church” look like? What would the scenario of “using or exploiting this church” look like?
  • What are the areas of ministry in which you are likely to be tempted? 
  • When your youth is ‘disregarded’, what is a) your fleshly style of response, b) your Spirit-filled response? 
  • When you have received feedback about the manner of your liturgical leadership or preaching, how have you felt when you received that feedback, and what have you done in response?
  • How willing are you to adapt your personal preferences in order to promote the mission of the church and the unity of the church? Give examples.  
  • Who have you personally discipled or mentored? 
  • Who has discipled or mentored you?
  • Explain the ways you are doing the work of an evangelist.

5. Logistical

  • Capacity
    • Do you have the realistic physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual capacity for you to undertake the work of a presbyter/bishop/pastor, recognizing your other roles/priorities:
      • As a husband
      • As a father
      • As an employee
      • Within your church context

6. Prayerful

  • Describe the life and ministry that you are asking God to cultivate in you.

unsplash-logoNik MacMillan

Categories
Church Clint Gospel Ministry Pastors Spiritual Growth Theology

Are You Making Progress?

“Do you feel like you’re spinning your wheels?” That’s the question I asked my elders last night. I was asking to see if they felt stuck, and not making progress in their ministry, marriages, families, and vocations.

As devotional meditation at the beginning of our elders’ meeting (we always start with prayer and the Word of God), I looked at the issue of “making progress” in Paul’s letters.

For Your Progress and Joy

My first question was to get at what was our reason for being in ministry at all. I asked the men, “Why do we remain and continue in this ministry?” That question is prompted by Philippians 1:25. Paul gave the answer in that verse when he said: 

“for your progress and joy in the faith” 

Phil 1:25

The Greek word for progress is prokopen (προκοπὴν). The idea likely had an early sense of cutting or slashing forward, but the word gained wide usage to mean simply ‘advance’ or ‘progress’.

So like Paul, the pastors can consider that their purpose for being in ministry at this time is for the progress and joy in the faith of others. 

Progress in Sanctification

Another way of putting it is to think that pastors serve the church to promote their progressive sanctification. As pastors shepherd people, they will make progress:

  • from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor 3:18). 
  • from immaturity to presenting “everyone mature in Christ” (Col 1:28)

So the pastors’ ministry is to serve in this Pauline way for people’s personal, joyous, progressive sanctification in the Christian faith.

The Progress of the Gospel

The personal progress which pastors promote for individual Christians doesn’t remain alone. That individual progress is part of the wider progress of the gospel. Paul outlined in the first chapter of Philippians, that various circumstances in his life were actually designed for the gospel’s progress. The ESV translates this same Greek word (prokope/ προκοπὴν) not with ‘progress’ but ‘advance’ in Philippians 1:12.

As much as we may care for the sanctification of the individual Christian, we can never lose sight of the fact that God is advancing the gospel, and pastors must shepherd people to carry that gospel forward. So as we “equip the saints” (Eph 4:12), we will see the gospel progressively advanced in the ever expanse reaches which Jesus commanded (Matt 28:18-20; Acts 1:8).

Pastors Must Make Progress

In order to serve the progress of others, we need to make progress. Paul exhorted Timothy to undertake a plan of personal development in gospel-born teaching and living. He commanded Timothy saying:

Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress. (προκοπὴν)

1 Tim 4:15

As pastors, we aren’t aiming to display our learning, or show off our preaching, or parade our piety. Nevertheless, people should be able to see our progress.  They should see that we are changing and growing. They should see that as our lives change, the church changes, and the entire ministry landscape changes, we are making progress.

Some of the areas we should make progress in are:

  • persevering through trials old and new. 
  • theological knowledge leading to worship, or courage, or humility
  • skill in handling ministry, preaching, relationships, the brevity of time

Progress in Life and Teaching

There are many areas that Paul outlines in his pastoral epistles, which pastors ought to make progress in by God’s grace. A great summary of them all is stated by Paul in the following verse when he concludes:

Keep a close watch on yourself and on the teaching. Persist in this, for by so doing you will save both yourself and your hearers.

1Ti 4:16 

These are wide categories. When Paul warns to keep watch on “yourself” it is all of life, inside and out. When he focusses on “the teaching” he intends both the expansive content of the faith as well as the growing ability to communicate it better. 

As we ended this meditation on pastors making progress, for the progressive sanctification of Christians and the progress of the gospel, I asked two application questions. Consider them in your own life:

  1. In what area would you like to make some progress this coming year?
  2. In what area do you feel you’ve made progress in this last year.

unsplash-logoEmma Francis


Categories
Church Clint Ministry Pastors Reformers Theology

5 Assessments of Pastors According to Calvin’s Geneva

In the Draft Order of Visitation of the Country Churches January 11, 1546 [1], there are some points made about what to watch for in assessing the ministries of pastors.

1. Doctrinal unity.

The first order of business was to make sure that the pastor maintained, “proper uniformity of doctrine in the whole body of the Church of Geneva.” This was done by having two Genevan pastors visit the country churches in order to, “enquire whether the Ministry of the place have accepted any doctrine in any sense new and repugnant to the purity of the gospel.” So the churches weren’t little labs where pastors could exercise their speculative experiments. They were expected to be fairly conservative, that is, unchanging in their doctrine.

2. Wise Application

Not only was the doctrine to be in line with the other Genevan churches, but there was also an expectation that the minister would preach with wise applications. He wasn’t to preach, “anything at all scandalous, or unfitting to the instruction of the people because it is obscure, or treats of superfluous questions, or exercises too great rigour.” In applying his expositions, the pastor wasn’t grinding axes or riding hobby-horses. How many ‘Calvinist’ pastors today are guilty of ‘exercising too much rigour’.

3. Congregational Support

The pastor wasn’t the only one who was held accountable. The congregation was urged to be diligent not only in attending church services, but “to have a liking for it, and to find profit in it for Christian living.”  Many congregations need to be reminded of their responsibility to support the pastor’s ministry and to like it.

4. Pastoral Care

Pastors were supposed to be engaged in ministry outside of the pulpit, through visitation of the sick and counselling. Specifically, pastors were to confront those who needed it, as well as applying counsel to prevent patterns of sin.

5. Pastoral Integrity

The last element that was examined was whether the pastor had a testimony marked by integrity.  Basically, did the pastor live as an example to others, leading “an honest life”? Also, the pastor’s reputation was checked to see if people viewed areas of his life as lacking self-control (“dissoluteness”) or being flaky (“frivolity”). Finally, the pastor needed to have a harmonious relationship with the congregation. And above all of these, he needed to have his family life in order.

These priorities are quite basic. But how often do pastors fail to maintain these basic emphases? May God grant us mercy to fulfill our duties.

[1] JKS Reid, Calvin: Theological Treatises, (SCM Press, 1954), 74

unsplash-logoSamuel Zeller

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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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Canada Church Clint Ministry Pastors Theology

Bleeding Consumers Dry

Not as many people are talking about consumer-driven churches these days. Maybe it’s because there has been a switch in some of the mega-churches from lighter content, to teaching that positions itself in a conservative stream like the big-gospel movement.

Still, I think that the consumer-driven approach is quite common. Maybe it is so common that churches have simply given up resistance to the sales-customer model of church life.

Lost Vitality

David Wells was one of the key voices addressing this problem in the late 20th century. Through his books he documented how a renewal movement like neo-evangelicalism could flourish after WWII, only to be overtaken and hollowed out by the lure of cultural power and a marketing impulse.

This switch occurred in the 1970’s according to Wells, and the result was to bleed evangelicalism of its doctrinal and spiritual vitality. It had worldly success, but the renewal movement was losing its soul.

Jesus’ Warning

Of course, there is always the temptation for movements inside the church to turn parasitical upon it. Jesus warned of this when he said pointedly:

“Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and love greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and the places of honour at feasts, who devour widows’ houses and for a pretense make long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”

Luke 20:46-47

This challenge has existed throughout the history of the church. It is part of the reason for Martin Luther’s protest at the Reformation. In the current climate of #MeToo and #ChurchToo, there is a need to ask serious questions about ministries, churches and what they exist to do.

Why Does the Church Exist?

As in the case of the scribes, the consumer-driven movement subtly shifted the questions of why the church existed. In such a case the church is no longer the gathering of sinners in a compelling community with supernatural, rather than natural bonds. Instead, the church is a vehicle for:

  • cultural power, (social gospel/social justice; “Court Evangelicals” a term coined by historian John Fea; liberal Protestantism)
  • personal platform (prosperity gospel preachers, other celebrity speakers)
  • building a brand (some church planting cultures, some denominations)

There are other variations of these, and some which could include all three (such as the church of Rome). If we can get back to clear thinking about what the church is, and what it’s for, we will resist false analogies that will lead us away from the church’s mission.

A False Analogy

Wells made the observation that when the church views people as consumers, then they have adopted a false analogy from the world of capitalism. In the article, The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church, Wells wrote:

Consumers in the market place are never asked to commit themselves to the product they are purchasing as a sinner is to the Christ in whom belief is being invited. Furthermore, consumers in the marketplace are free to define their needs however they want to and then to hitch up a product to satisfy those needs, but in the Church the consumer, the sinner, is not free to define his or her needs exactly as they wish. It is God who defines our needs and the reason for that is that left to ourselves we would not understand our needs aright because we are rebels against God. We are hostile both to God and to His law and cannot be subject to either, Paul tells us. Now, no person going into the marketplace, going to buy a coffee-pot or going to buy a garden hose, engages with their innermost being in the way that we are inviting sinners to do in the Church. The analogy is simply fallacious.

The Bleeding of the Evangelical Church, David Wells

Unfortunately, Wells’ analysis is being mostly forgotten by those over 40, and those under 40 have not learned the cautionary tale of what happened to a bright and hopeful movement called Neo-evangelicalism. But maybe there are some gains we can make, starting with some small purges.

Purging Parasites

How can we purge the unseen parasites in our practices? Here are three suggestions:

  1. Stop asking people to ‘serve’ before they are saved. In too many church plants, as well as larger churches, the temptation is to get people ‘involved’ but asking them to plug holes in the ministry machine before they are saved or effectively discipled.
  2. Accept the cost of being less responsive to non-biblical preferences. People are used to thinking of themselves as consumers. Churches should resist feeding that mentality, but sticking to biblical essentials, and habitually being less responsive to non-biblical preferences. Each church will have preferences based on geography, culture, demographics, etc. But to keep the focus on biblical essentials will lessen the elastic responsiveness which some churches have toward changing fads among the people.
  3. Audit your ministry for any areas you think are indispensable, and adjust your reliance them. Consider if you had a worship band that was just average. Or your children’s program was reduced. Or your meeting space was changed to a different facility. How indispensable have things become which are unrelated to the indispensable gospel of Jesus Christ? This includes the possible indispensability of the pastor’s personal ministry. As Charles De Gaulle said, ‘The graveyards are full of indispensable men’. Maybe it’s time to cultivate elders and pastors in the church who can preach in the event that God takes a pastor home?

Making these kinds of adjustments will be painful, but they will develop greater church health over the long term.

A Different Formula

Churches may use tools that are part of the modern marketing world just to get their message to people (Facebook, MailChimp, etc). But they must also ask themselves if the unwitting pursuit of cultural power, platforms, or brand expansion are subtly eroding the supernatural community which Jesus promised.

We ought to remember, that Jesus said regarding the true church, that even “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mat 16:18). That is a formula for success which no marketer can ever accomplish.

unsplash-logoЕгор Камелев

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Canada Church Clint Gospel Ministry Pastors Spiritual Growth

6 Questions to Ask New People At Your Church

At the beginning of the fall semester, we always resume our Sunday School for all ages. One of the classes that we have added is an introduction to our church. It is not a membership class which outlines privileges and expectations of a potential church member. Instead, it’s a class for visitors and newcomers who we want to get to know better.

In what follows, I’ll lay out some of the questions that I ask the new folks at our church. Below each question, I’ll explain what I’m hoping to learn. Here are the six questions:

1. How did you hear about the church?

This is a question to gauge interest. If a person has researched your church and looked through the doctrinal statement in detail, you know that they have a doctrinal interest in the church. For someone else, their interest might solely be based on the warm invitation of a co-worker or friend. They don’t know about the doctrinal statement, they only know that their friend is nice and they hope the church is the same.

There is a big difference between the person who has come to the church because of the aesthetic appeal of your building’s architecture, and someone who has come because they were broken, and a church member reached out in care for them.

So asking this question helps to reveal the type of interest a person has in Jesus Christ and his church.

2. What is Your Religious Background?

This is a question to discover a framework. If we are all shaped by our backgrounds, then it is helpful to clarify what is the frame that sits around that background. This is a general question that is looking for simple, broad answers like:

  • I grew up Buddhist
  • My family went to a Catholic church
  • My parents were both atheists, we didn’t go to church.
  • I went to a Christian campus group in university.
  • I was a member of a confessional Presbyterian church.

When you ask the background question, you are discerning where people are coming from in terms of the belief systems they’ve been around. You’re not finding out if they had a good or bad experience in those contexts yet, because that’s the next question.

What you will discover is the difference between the background of a Pharisee or a Gentile or a Samaritan. And you will start to see (and help them to see) how they are affected positively or negatively by their framework. Which leads to the next question.

3. What has been your experience in churches (if you have any)?

This question is more specific, and reveals a person’s perspective on ‘church’. This question differs from the previous one because many people have gone to a doctrinally sound church, but for whatever reason, their experience was negative. Or for others, their religious background may not have been Christian, but it was generally positive in their eyes. As a result, they might have a different perspective that will not assume that the gospel and the church is better than what they’ve had.

Experiences with religious groups can make or mar us. Consider the experience of the woman who was entrapped by the Pharisees and charged with adultery in John 8? Her background was Judaism like the Pharisees, but her experience of it was wholly negative. Jesus deftly confronted the Pharisees, offered her hope, and called her to repentant, believing obedience.

This is also a question to discover is someone may have been disciplined out of a church or at least created problems somewhere else. How people interpret their experiences with the church will reveal a lot about their spiritual state.

4. Why Join a Church?

Asking people what they want is always helpful. And the same goes for asking them why they want to join the church. This question reveals their aspirations.

When people outline their reasons for joining a church, they will admit what they are really after. Maybe they want to serve in a ministry but will go wherever there is a need. Others may want the church to be a platform for them to find self-expression. Others may not have thought about why they would join the church, except that they like the people there and want to have those people as their new social circle.

I remember in the early days of our church plant a woman visited who showed me the bible she had revieved from a famous preacher. She listed all of her qualifications and then inquired about our worship services. After all of this, she informed me that she was looking for a church where she could “use her gifts”. It was clear that she wanted to use the church for her own self-expression.

You will also find the good motives people have for joining a church, like wanting to grow, disciple others, and fulfill their roles in accord with lists of gifts from Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4.

In an introductory way, many aspirations will start to come to light.

5. What Barriers Prevent Someone from Joining a Church?

This is a question that solicits an admission. In a class, people may not reveal too much personally, but at least people can admit that being a confessing, covenanted member of a church requires faith in Jesus Christ, and not walking in blatant, known sin that would immediately be cause for church discipline.

You might get an admission about the church discipline question. Or you might get further clarity about how people think about the ‘inside/outside’ aspects of the gathered church.

If someone thinks that the only barrier to joining a church is growing up in a different religious family, then you will know that there is a lot of teaching to do to correct that admission.

What is the Gospel?

Is there a confession of gospel among the newcomers? This is the most important question. It is both simple, yet surprisingly intimidating: What is the gospel? Many people are so confused about religion that they can have masses of theological data to share, but lack clarity about what are the essential pieces of the gospel.

Keep the answers to a short elevator pitch. Some theology stars might wish to present a lecture. You don’t want that (and nobody else will). The goal is to see if people are clear enough about the gospel that they can give a concise, orderly confession of it. The main categories will be God, Man, Christ, and Response. Each of these can be filled out, but your question will reveal how much work you have to do in teaching the gospel to new people.

What you will find is that people with extensive church backgrounds may lack clarity about what the gospel is, and what it isn’t.

The hope of these introductory questions is to begin an ongoing evangelistic and discipleship connection with these newcomers. The hope is that they would become gospel-believing, Jesus-following, covenanted members of your church.

Asking these questions can be a starting point along that journey.

unsplash-logoArtem Maltsev