God, Family, Church

In this month's the Briefing, Simon Flinders has written a little article called 'The pastor and the evangelical priority list'. His basic argument is that the sayings like "a pastor's first congregation should be his family" are, in his opinion, incorrect. He is humble and gentle, and it is ably written. But I think his logic is flawed, and his argument ultimately wrong.

Firstly, a particularly questionable quote:

Is it really practical for a pastor of a congregation of God's people to place consistently the needs of his family above the needs of his church? [He answers no].  

Notice any problems with this Q&A? If you can't provide the needs of your family because of other commitments, then there are some serious problems here. But I don't think he means needs. He can't. I mean, he's not going to withhold food from his family for the sake of his church. I think he means desires, or even ideals, but not needs - please God that he doesn't mean needs. I feel for his family if he does.

Now he makes the good(-sounding) point, that the Bible doesn't provide straight-forward, easy answers to questions like this. That appeals to people, we like ambiguity, and we like to think things are more complex rather than less. But I don't see any genuine, satisfying justification for this in his argument, but rather he says he himself finds it tricky to navigate this issue.

Further, he argues that the Bible emphasises both as priorities (church and family), but never explicitly emphasises the needs of one over the needs of the other. I'll return to this in a second, but first a little aside.

He has a comparatively lengthy section on particular scenarios, including this one: The pastor comes home, the baby needs feeding, the kids need bathing, and then the phone rings. Someone in the parish is very ill and in hospital. What does the pastor do?

Now this is tricky, but it's irrelevant. Flinders argues that if he stays home he is prioritising his family, and if he goes he is prioritising his parish. Well, not really. Not wholistically.

Firstly there are other issues. Leaving your wife at home to do the bathing and feeding can be a godliness issue for her. As a couple you have decided it's ok to go on this occasion because that is the role you guys have chosen.

Secondly, this isn't about needs, it's about desires, and ideals. Perhaps your wife (and you) would desire to be at home, but this is maybe not the wisest choice. Perhaps it is ideal that you'd be at home rather than go out that night, and perhaps not. Your family life is tied to your godliness and your servant-heartedness, and your church life is too. So your family life and your church commitments are linked. Doing one option over another does not reveal your priorities in such a straight-forward way. This is a major problem with the article.

Ok, back to the Bible:

The relationship between husband and wife is a covenantal one. You made a solemn oath on your wedding day to treat your wife in particular as Christ has treated you, in a special, one-to-one way that demands your commitment to her physical and spiritual needs, and particularly you promise to present her pure and blameless on the last day, in so much as it is up to you.

A pastor has made no such covenant with their 'flock'. They are exhorted to protect them from ferocious wolves, and to treat them as family in a way, but the covenant (if there is one at all) in this case is nowhere near so binding as that. Similarly with the church. Flinders argues that the Bible never emphasises your blood-family over your church family. Yes it does! Your blood family is talked about often. Your church family is too, but not in the same way. Treat one another with purity, be concerned with one another's godliness, but with your family the rules are much more strict, and the relationships are expected to be much more intimate, of course.

Finally, I would think one can argue from the trinity of the necessarily stronger covenant between God and Jesus than God and us, and it has to do with different uses of the word family. But that would take a lot of words and people would disagree with me, so maybe not for today.

Flinders makes some excellent points, but I think his arguments are fatally flawed. I agree that it must be hard for a pastor to juggle his roles. I agree that it must be hard for missionaries to send their kids to boarding school (and would argue that if they are 'conflicted' as he says, then perhaps they shouldn't - but this is another matter again). But I cannot agree that the relationship between a pastor and his church is biblically on the same level as a man and his wife, and kids. The Bible never gives you such an out with your family.

As a final thought, consider this: If your wife became terminally ill and required full time care, would there be any question as to you leaving your job to care for her? A pastor is no different. Even if that church would fall apart, there would be no question.

Woops - and one more final thought! - The covenant you make with your wife is a binding one. A pastor may only be a pastor if, within the appropriate fulfillment of his promises to his wife, he has the time and energy to fulfil more roles to his congregation. It is the same for any new role. I cannot do ministry at my church at the expense of my relationship with my wife, because on my wedding day I made promises to my wife, and I must keep them. Just because I'm a physicist I don't think the rules are different. A pastor cannot neglect his wife for the benefit of his church, and so there's only one more option - if need be, he must neglect his ministry for the benefit of his wife.

I will write a letter to the Briefing. I'll try to be kind and thoughtful, which is not my strong-point when writing.

Does anyone have any comments that might help me think about this - or themselves?
Cheerios

Preaching II (and a clarification)

I was looking through my posts so far, and noticed one very unclear little sentence.

I said:
When I still lived in Australia I had a bit of a beef with the preaching

This implies one. But preachers are many. I wasn't having a go at preaching at my home church per se, but with the state of preaching everywhere that I had access to: Uni, my home church, churches in my town, churches I have visited, and sermons I download.

I'd say Tim Keller is my favourite preacher pastor who I don't know personally (Don Carson is my favourite speaker and writer but he's no longer a pastor). I don't agree with all his theology, but he has a lot to teach me. Nevertheless, I find his weekly sermons get pretty old pretty fast.

So what's going on? I am still happy to admit that my sinfulness is a problem here. But maybe it's not just sinfulness. Maybe there's a problem with my expectations... What is it that I should expect from a sermon? If the preacher gets something out of the passage that I couldn't get for myself then there's something worrying about my ability to read or his ability to read (know what I mean). Isn't there?

So I know that what I would love is to have my eyes opened (about something) every time I hear a sermon. But that's unrealistic, and frankly a bit unfair on the poor old preachers. So then what is the point of the weekly sermon? Here's a rough list off the top of my head:

1. It's good to spend an extended time reflecting on one chunk of the Bible. It aids rumination
2. A preacher can spend the week figuring out the wider biblical context of the passage, which is something that takes time and it's nice having someone do it for me at times and teach me to do it through his example.
3. A preacher can draw the threads through our Christology - another thing that can be hard and learnt from example.
4. We easily forget and need constant reminding (a very Islamic concept - but I suppose Islam got it from the Israelites too?)

There must be more, and significant ones I've missed. But when I think about it all these things are done in a good sermon by Tim Keller or back home. But these things can be a bit mundane. The breadth of Christian theology is in some ways vast and in some ways quite narrow. Drawing everything through our Christology is so extremely important that if it's not done it's not a good sermon, but then again, doing that same thing every single time can get a bit old. The wider biblical context is also not really that wide. The Bible is 1000 pages. There are only about 7 major epochs (or whatever you call them). Genesis 1-3 seems to explain most of the whole world and the Biblical trajectory of most things pretty well.

So I think the problems are: I'm sinful and tend to gripe, my expectations are unrealistic, biblical Christianity can be quite narrow which is both a wonderful thing and (see point 1: I'm sinful) at times a bit dull.

Full Time Ministry

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?