A Biblical Theology Of The Pastoral Role

30 Pages 7573 Words

t the “successful” ministries happening in such-and-such a church, and they want their own pastor to imitate these. Joseph M. Stowell in his book Shepherding the Church writes, “We as shepherds are inundated by pressures to construct our ministries according to forms that offer stunning opportunity for growth, keep us at the leading edge of our profession, prevent us from feeling and appearing old and stodgy, and reflect well on our own glory.” Stowell points out that forms will continually be changing in order to effectively reach particular people at particular times, this is a necessity. But the danger is that in creating and adapting to new forms we can easily loose our substance. This is the dilemma which the church is in today. The successful ministry is seen as the one which builds the greatest sanctuary, has the most age specific programs, and distributes their teachings through the most forms of media. The successful pastor is the one who has the largest church, he has gone to the best seminary in his denomination, developed the most eloquent preaching style, written the most books, and spoken at the greatest number of conferences. Where is the standard for pastoral ministry?
Does the word “pastor” mean anything? In some churches there is a “pastor” for every ministry. There is the senior pastor, the assistant senior pastor, the family pastor, the children’s pastor, the women’s pastor, the worship pastor, the visitation pastor, the operations pastor, the business pastor, the missions pastor, the parking pastor, the counseling pastor. A friend of mine joked that we could call the church landscaper a “pasture pastor”. The word has been stripped of meaning, and now is basically a connotation for: anyone whose work pertains to the church. This is the understanding shared by many Christians I know. They claim that because we are all supposed to be doing the work of the ministry, and because we ...