Professional Ministry (3)

When I started in professional ministry, I thought that the problem was with the people doing the job. If we could get the right people into ministry, the situation for the church could be turned round. I soon realised that the problem was with the role itself, and not with the people doing it.

The people are paying the minister, so they expect him to perform. The minister is being paid, so he feels that he has to perform. Because he has to perform, he has to keep things under control. The more the pressure, the greater the incentive to control. However, the more things are controlled, the more the Spirit is shut out.

I feel sorry for anyone who loves the traditional ministry role. I feel sorry for anyone who earns their living in this occupation. They will find it quite difficult to move into a network church. The reality is that it is difficult to earn a living as a pastor and fit into the house church movement. It would be attempting to combine to conflicting models of church and ministry that do not mix.

Professional Ministry (2)

One reason that I resigned from the professional ministry was that I discovered that the modern preaching ministry is quite destructive for the church and the minister. The professional minister spends most of his life preparing for his next Sunday performance. His self-esteem depends on how the last past performance went.

This focus on a Sunday performance also tends to encourage passivity among Christians. Their main contribution to the “main event” is to tell the pastor that they enjoyed it. By encouraging passivity, this style of ministry has made the church impotent.

The preaching ministry had a role when large portions of the population were illiterate. They needed someone who could read to explain what the scripture taught. Those days are long gone. Christians now have access to an immense supply of good teaching through television, tapes and the internet. There is no need for average teaching from a local professional, when they can listen to teaching by the best in the world.

Preaching is a very blunt instrument, because the listeners have different needs, experience and circumstances. The best sermon will still bore some, mislead a few and actually hurt one or two.

I actually found that preaching to Christians is a fairly ineffective method for bringing change. It is like water dripping on a stone. It will eventually wear a hole, but it takes a very long, long time. If you are serious about making stone sculptures, you need a more efficient method of shaping stones.

Judging by what people said, I was a very good preacher. People said that they found my content relevant and preaching style entertaining, which made me feel good. However, judging by the changes in their life, my preaching was mostly ineffective. A church activity that has its greatest impact on the ego of the pastor has to be fairly dangerous for the minister and the church.

The New Testament model for changing lives is to take people with you when you are doing the stuff. When they have watched for a while, you let them do it with you. They can soon do the stuff on their own. Not long after, they can take others with them to learn how to do the stuff. This is real multiplication.

Professional Ministry (1)

A correspondent asked me about the role of professional ministers in a house church setting. This question raises many important issues. My attempt to answer is contained in the following couple of posts.

Our house church does not have a paid pastor. There is simply not enough work to keep one busy as the people look after each other. I can conceive of situations where a house church might support someone in full-time ministry. A church with several new Christians with deep needs might need someone working full time to help them get free. An evangelist working in a challenging situation might need to be supported so they could work full-time. However, house churches generally do not need professional leadership, because the members will care for each other and the meetings are led by the Holy Spirit with all members contributing.

Many years ago, I felt that I was called to be “preach the word” and I spent six years employed as a full-time minister/pastor. However, when I did further study of the New Testament, I found that this ministry of preaching to Christians does not exist, but is a leftover from an Old Testament theology. I realized that my calling was different from what I had thought. I was called more to speak prophetically to the church and the world, but I did not need to be a professional minister in the church to fulfil that calling, so I resigned from my position as a full-time minister.

Some people are able to establish a model of financial support for my type of ministry by selling tapes and books, or getting on the conference circuit and that is good if you can do it.

I have chosen to work as an economist. That has had many benefits for me. It provides financial support for my family. It allows me to produce statistics that expose the dishonesty and disobedience of the government. It also means that I am involved in the real world, rubbing shoulders with people who do not care about God or the church, with people dealing with broken marriages or gay marriages, with people trying to buy a home for their families. I now have a much better understanding and empathy for real life and real people than I did when I most of my work contact was with “church people”. I still see myself as being involved in full-time ministry (service) to the Lord.