Somewhat glum news tonight...it appears that one of our pipes has frozen. It's the cold water pipe under the Texas bathroom. This bathroom is notoriously under-insulated, as it was added on in what used to be the garage here at Possum Cough. We kept water dripping from the tap last night, but neither MeeMaw nor I thought about the fact that the temperatures weren't going to rise above freezing today. So, we're praying that the forecasted 48F high tomorrow will gently thaw the pipe before it bursts under the ice's pressure. At 930 tonight, with the temperature around 15 degrees, and pitch black outside, I'm not inclined to go crawling on my belly in the icy dirt under the deck (overhead clearance: about 12 inches), trying to locate the pipe and thaw it with a hair dryer. Ain't gonna. We're asking our generous Father to protect the pipe until it thaws. And if He chooses to let it burst, we'll chalk it up to a costly learning experience...and I'll bet we don't let our guard down in cold weather in the future.
Dave Black has posted a link to a very thought-provoking essay, one that I thought might be of interest to Jason in particular. Below, I've attached Dave's summary remarks about the essay, as well as the link to the essay itself.
After class a student emailed me a link to an essay by Paul Harrison that appeared in the Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society. It's called "Pastoral Turnover and the Call to Preach." It's a brilliant article. Harrison effectively punctures the shallow assumption that professionally trained and "called" outsiders can have the same credibility and longevity in ministry that home-grown elders possess. Harrison reached four conclusions:
1) There are inherent flaws in the way most churches go about selecting pastors.
2) These flaws contribute to the undesirable result of frequent pastoral turnover.
3) The Scriptures present a picture of pastors being selected from within each congregation, this selection being understood to have been overseen by God.
4) There is no biblical evidence for what is commonly referred to as the call to preach.
Please find a place on the mantelpiece of your mind for these vital truths! How do we know who the leaders are in our churches today? The same way the early church came to perceive them: by their day-in and day-out lifestyle, by their pattern of consistent, selfless commitment to the Body, and by their level of spiritual maturity and wisdom (not their degrees or résumés).
I think it will take some heavy spiritual lifting to begin fleshing this out in our churches. Professional thinking permeates our culture. This is no less of our church subculture. The assumption is that one well-trained person (usually an import from the outside) can do the work better than any number of home-grown "amateurs." One negative consequence of this is a "professional mentality." This is a far cry from the every-member ministry focus of the New Testament. I've noticed that pastors tend to approach this problem in one of three ways:
1) Some seek to empower the laity by delegating certain functions to laypeople. The focus here is on performing tasks that will assist the pastor (e.g., hospital visitation, leading song service, serving communion, etc.).
2) Others focus on a select group of laypeople on the assumption that one day they too will sense the "call" to go into "fulltime ministry."
3) Still others, convicted by the biblical pattern, concentrate their efforts on preparing laypeople – all of them – for ministry. In a sense, these pastor-teachers are trying to work themselves out of a job or at least out of a "profession." In my opinion, this is the one approach most calculated to "de-professionalize" ministry and return it to the Body.
(I've noticed, by the way, a similar pattern in government. In the terminology of political science, one can speak of a "polyarchy" – a system of elite decision-making and public ratification. A specialized class of intellectuals is deemed necessary to manage the "common interests." Laypeople are to be spectators, not participants. Not that the herd has no function or utility: its duty is to support the leadership class through willing subordination. James Madison held that the power to govern must be delegated to "more capable … men" whose view of government is to protect the affairs of the wealthy against the democratic majority.)
The New Testament, of course, presents a much different model of the church. Leadership was provided through elders among the people whose function was to encourage the ministry of the entire church by the Holy Spirit. These leaders were always plural, and they never constituted a separate class from the laity. It's my constant hope and prayer that God's people will one day again be elevated to their true dignity as fulltime ministers of Jesus Christ. We are incurably proud of our own man-made systems. Often it is only when we find our defenses cracking and our resources dwindling that we turn to the Lord and call upon His name. When pastors face burnout because they have accepted an unhealthy and unbiblical model of leadership, perhaps God is doing them a great service.
One final quote from Harrison's outstanding essay:
To summarize, there is not one NT reference in which the language of calling is used of anyone other than the apostles unless the calling is to salvation. Not one pastor is referred to as having been called by God to ministry.
Amen and amen.
[end of Dave's blog entry]
Here's the link to the essay.
Rest well, loved ones.
