Something I've been wondering about on and off for years now is the role of full time ministry.
Recently I was talking to my mate who has recently become a teacher. He is one of the most godly people I know, and someone whose opinion I trust more than almost anyone. I cannot speak his praises highly enough. Anyway, we were talking about going to college and becoming a minister or missionary vs. working full time in some sort of secular job like teaching.
All serious Christians have had to think this through. And if my experience of undergraduate conferences is anything to go by, I believe we are led to believe at those who choose to do full time secular work have copped out of full time ministry.
But the more exposure I have to what can only be described as the real world (a lengthy disclaimer could be made at this point. I hate the phrase the real world - one of my ministers once suggested I "go swing a pick in Western Australia for 6 months" to learn what the real world is like. I was married at the time and frankly I think the idea was ridiculous and I'm suprised the suggestion was ever made. Moreover my job at Max Planck amongst Physicists and Chemists is not what most people would call the real world. Today I stayed home to help my wife pack and get on a train to Paris. I didn't take a personal day, I didn't tell anyone I won't be in, Tomorrow I'll be back and nobody will care. There is no element of hard labour or ... labour at all really. My job is extremely easy on the old muscles. But then again this is my real world, and someone who does swing a pick and see his wife every few weeks lives in a world that is not mine. I don't know why the pick-guy should have a monopoly on the concept of a real world...).
Anyway the more exposure I get to the real world, the more i think that the ministry job is just another option out of many good options. I'm even tempted to say that for a thinking, convicted, solid Christian, ministry can be a bit of a cop-out.
You see, what is really hard, is what my bro is doing. He is a teacher and is trying to start a robotics club at the local public school. His wife is raising their daughter and teaching scripture each week (along with many other things). My mum regularly meets up with all sorts of people who could use her company in various contexts and has an extremely difficult workplace to deal with as she goes along (sorry that was so vague - but it's tough for her). These are people who I admire and who are doing extraordinary things for the name of Christ in 'the real world'.
And I have decided to do the same thing. The first year of my PhD was spent learning Koine Greek because I was off to Bible College. But then I got convinced that someone in my position could be well used staying in academia and working out how to bear the name of Christ in that capacity.
It's a much less well defined route than Bible College, but it's so important!
Really, Bible College is a bit of a contrived thing. We need pastors, that's for sure. But being a pastor isn't a real world thing, it's like... in ethics language, a retrieval ethic. It's like we shouldn't need pastors, but we do, so we have them. I have nothing against this, please don't get me wrong. But the job of a pastor is pretty well defined. The job of a truly godly person in the workplace, or in a mum's group, or a sports club, or whatever - now that is a job that's really hard to do, and should have the most godly, well equipped, thoughtful, and convicted Christians taking it on.
No?
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I agree with half of this post. People outside of fulltime ministry are just as important as pastors, and they have a difficult role to fulfill.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I think you may have been a bit harsh on pastors. Paul certainly thought they were necessary as he shows in his letters to Timothy and Titus. God thinks they are necessary as they are mentioned in the list of gifts of the spirit.
As christians we are called to meet together in churches or assemblies of some sort. Any organised group, once it reaches a certain size) needs some kind of structure and leadership. That's not biblical but empirical evidence backs it up.
In addition, pastors often do, and I think should, take on some of the roles you mentioned. For example, our pastor is a regular at canteen duty at his kid's school. His wife in treasurer of the P&C.
Being a pastor is an unusual job, as is being a condensed matter physicist, but that doesn't mean you are divorced from the real world. A good pastor will still live in the real world and interact with the community in which he pastors.
I'm not sure that I was harsh toward pastors, and I apologise if it sounded that way. I said it *can* (read: potentially could) be a cop out. Had I gone to BC when I was considering it during the first year of my PhD I think it would have been at least partially a cop out. I would have been opting out of the ill defined course I'm now taking, and following a much more clearly defined route. I certainly wasn't accusing all, or even any pastors of copping out, I was just saying it would be possible because of the nature of the job. I don't think this was harsh... Was it?
ReplyDeleteIn terms of the work - retrieval ethic thing: I agree with you about Paul (how could I not?!) But I think much of the New Testament is a kind of retrieval ethic. I'm not entirely comfortable with that choice of words but I can't find a better one either. I don't think the nature of this world lends itself to the existence of pastors. The real world jobs I would get from any reasonable extrapolation of the creation narratives. So swinging a pick and being a physicist both fall under that umbrella. But a pastor, I think, is a job for a stuffed world. To borrow Jeremiah's language, it should be the case, and one day will be the case, that no one need say "know the Lord" because we already will.
In the same way being an evangelist (whether you're in ministry or in a secular job) is this same retrieval-ly type thing. It shouldn't exist but it must for now.
Being a godly person in the workplace (or in the family or mum's group or whatever else I said in the post) is a real thing though. Whether the world is stuffed or not, those jobs would still exist.
That's all I meant about the contrived thing. I'm not bagging pastors, I'm just saying I don't think they would ideally exist!
And finally I agree, a good pastor would be a part of the community in many ways. That's a good point.
In any case my concern is that we don't all go to Bible college if we love the Bible. It annoys me no end that there are teachers in public schools who don't have a single Christian colleague. And I think it would be a very sad thing if the only Christians in the workplace were the ones that don't take the Bible seriously (enough to go to college). This may sound like a silly comment, but I genuinely think that in some places people are encouraged to go to college and taught to have that framework in their mind as a first option. I'm not sure that it shouldn't be the last.
Wow! Intense stuff! It took me years to recover from the Christian group teaching from the University I went to that overtly and subtly taught that the only valid thing for an intelligent Christian man (especially) to do is to trot off to Bible College and head into full-time ministry. And for women to marry said men and support them through BC and in their ministry. I am now totally convinced this is an unbiblical perspective and somewhat convicned that it is not God's big plan, but indeed product of man's wisdom and strategising!
ReplyDeleteIn my own 'journey' both in the work place (school teacher in various systems, Christian and secular)and in church and family and social life God has taught me: RELY, He spent a whole year teaching me just one word and challenged me to lay down my significant intellect (I'm sure I'm nowhere near as brainy as you Tony). And subsequent lessons have been similarly 'simple'. Not that I reject or devalue studying the Bible deeply. But I am now convinced that the Christians reality is about being a disciple of Jesus and that that means following along after Jesus every moment of every day and asking him "what are you doing here and can I be involved?" This is really spiritual and whilst we may well use our knowledge and understanding of the scriptures in the 'ministry-opportunities' He shares with us I have found that often it is all about prayer and care and messy stuff.
I go to a home church that doesn't have paid ministers and we all see ourselves as 'ministers' and our ministry to be 24/7 being God's obedient disciples.
My favourite poem (hymn) is called Light Shining Out of Darkness by William Cowper and in the last verse it says "God is his own interpreter and He will make it plain". This means alot to me because that was my experience, before I became a Christian I impressed many with my fabulous comprehension of the Bible, but after, I understood the truth and reality and it brought LIFE, this is the Holy Spirits work not some clever scholars!