House Church Talk - House church or simply church wherever people are

[jim sutton]

Glenn Frank wrote:

>I'm thinking that the 'pastor' issue is really not so much an issue of
>structure of the church... Or even authority issues necessarily... It is the
>misconception that the 'pastor' is a job description rather than a Gifting
>and means he is the one in charge. Not what I see in scripture.


I appreciated all of what you had to say, Glenn.  And I tend to agree.  But 
I've noticed one thing common to many hc discussions about pastors that is not 
universally true in the IC congregations and a denominational organizations.

To a lot of believers in hc, the "pastor"figure in a given group is the one in 
charge.  That is certainly how it appears in many groups.  And it is actually 
true in some small and/or independent churches.  But in the larger 
associations it can be worse than that.

In those larger groups and denominations the pastor is simply the last man at 
the bottom of a tall ladder of administrative personnel.  He's the one who 
must execute the plans, programs, the "mission" of the organization on the 
local level.  He can be fired, not only by the congregation but by the higher 
ups, if he fails to carry out his job in a satisfactory manner.

This means that many men and women in the pulpit are not working for the Lord, 
so much as for an organization.  They can (and do) begin to see their work as 
a job, a career.  As such, they will also look to the "company" for all their 
benefits.  And when things do not work out, they often shift gears, changing 
careers.  This whole picture is sad for a number of reasons.

Now when you plug these facts into what you already said about men with titles 
replacing Jesus Christ as Head over the church, you end up with an even worse 
picture of today's church.  As Paul said, they (we today) will no longer 
endure sound teaching, but we tend to search around and hire the teachers we 
want.  And we fire them when they don't say or do what we want.  It happens 
all the time.

Such "power" over "men of God" can make us feel that we humans are in charge 
of developing and shaping the church according to our own desires and 
expectations.  Rather than looking to Jesus Christ as the Author and Finisher 
of our faith, we end up going with our gut feelings, our own ideas, our own 
likes and dislikes.  And so people who want the same things tend to gather 
together, whether the Lord is calling them together or not.

And the big denominations often cater to the total membership, working like 
any governing entity might do, to keep things going smoothly in the general 
direction they've already determined is most profitable.  They watch the 
numbers.  They watch the bottom line.  They watch the overall level of 
happiness and satisfaction among the membership.  They sometimes labor to 
protect and further the organization, regardless of what it may take to do so. 
 Very large organizations have managed to continue, even though they ceased 
anything close to real and spiritual worship long ago.

In such a group, the pastor is just a working guy (or gal) -- a PR engineer, a 
regular speaker, a public face for the organization on the local level.  He's 
trained to do a job, to perform in a certain manner, to keep order and to hold 
the line that is set, not by Christ (since no one is seeking Him) but by the 
professionals above him, those who guide the organization toward fiscal 
success and continuity.

Jim