Pastor's Job

Yesterday I posted about the great teamwork that has developed at Bean's Corner.  There has always been some good teamwork happening at BCBC as long as I have been here, but in the last few years it has really increased as we have sought to broaden people's responsibility and let people use their gifts and make decisions.  This causes me to think about my "job" at church.

There are a lot of different perspectives on the job of a pastor.  The traditional view seems to make the pastor the CEO of the church, overseeing all the programs of the church as well as the schedule, the calendar, the day to day work.  Some of this picture arose from the idea that the pastor is often times (although not in our case) the only paid employee of the church.  I don't think this means he should do all that work, but I understand why that model develops.  There is another reason why the CEO model is so common though.  Pastor's think it is their job to make the church work.   I guess I can agree with that statement, but only by redefining what is meant by "church."

The Church is not the incorporated organization that exists in any geographical location.  The Church is the believers that assemble and make up the organization.  My job as pastor is to make the church, the individuals, work.  This is straight from Ephesians where it says, "And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;"  (Ephesians 4:11-12 NAS)   This is just a fancy way of talking about making disciples and training disciplemakers.  The pastor's job is to help the saints to the work not do the work for the saints.

This is why we have structured things the way we have at BCBC and why I do not attend most of the board and committee meetings.  Our Missions Board is filled with spiritually qualified people who have a heart for missions.  They are doing a great job increasing missions awareness at our church and connecting to missionaries.  All without me there.  The Christian Education Board has overseen the growth in Sunday School attendance, the building of a very strong children's ministry and cared for the teachers.  All without me there.  The Board of Trustees are doing excellent work in maintaining and improving the physical property as well as overseeing the budget.  The Deaconess Board has built a great prayer chain, is caring for the woman and families of the church and helping maintain a vigorous care ministry.  All this without me lifting a finger.  Each week the church is cleaned, the phone answered, the mail collected, the bulletin run off by those who serve the church and partner to see the ministry take place.    This is how it should be.

So what is my job then, if I have avoided so much of what a pastor traditionally does?  Referring back to Ephesians, it is to equip.  There are more in the church that need spiritual encouragement to grow into the servants they can be.  They need Biblical teaching, personal encouragement, spiritual nudging and guidance.  In other words, spend intentional time with people in personal and spiritual discussion.  Again, this is just fancy talk for "Making Disciples."   I work with Mac & Nate discipling them while also working with them.  We work on setting forth the all important spiritual goals for our fellowship to help us become more effective in our #1 mission; making disciples.

This week the two biggest jobs I will do in terms of time and effort are: 1) spending time in indepth study of the Word of God preparing rich teaching to feed the flock and help them learn to feed themselves.  2) spending time with individuals in the flock for the purpose of encouragement and spiritual growth, or in other words, making disciples and disciplemakers.  As for what that work entails, well, that will be another blog post.  :)