An email drops into my inbox. I read the words in the subject line and sigh. I know what’s coming. It’s from the secretary of a church with which I had brief contact some years ago. Why has he written? ‘We’re currently without a pastor. We know we need to call a man and we wondered if you might be able to help us in our search.’ He hopes that I might be able to provide him with a list of men who might be suitable candidates and whom I would recommend.
I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been approached in the past few years with the same query. There are clearly many churches that are searching for the right man and having little success in the search.
But… but… but…
I know that some readers will already be shaking their heads in disapproval. Why? Because they are sure that the idea of ‘calling a pastor’ is unbiblical.
First, there are some who will question the assumption that a church needs a pastor – what was traditionally known as ‘the minister’ – a full-time leader who takes responsibility for the bulk of the preaching and who acts in practice as CEO of the church. They point out that each New Testament church appears to have been led by a group of leaders, all of whom were known as pastors (shepherds) or elders (senior men) or overseers (supervisors) – see Acts 14:23, Philippians 1:1, 1 Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9, and 1 Peter 5:1-4. Some suggest that to appoint a single pastor is to buy into a worldly view of leadership. Others hint darkly that this is a step towards the Roman Catholic doctrine of priesthood.
Well, I for one have no issue with their reading of the New Testament. Yes, ideally every local church would be led by a circle of gifted men, displaying the characteristics Paul lists in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, thoroughly trained for the work of preaching and teaching, set apart for the ministry of the Word and prayer, ready to shepherd the flock night and day. And yes, where there is such a group of leaders, I would use the word ‘pastor’ for each one of them.
But most of the churches I know well are small. Blessed is the church that has one such leader. Better to have one man who matches the New Testament picture of a pastor/elder/overseer than half a dozen men who hold any or all of those titles but fall short of the reality.
Every church needs at least one true pastor – a man for whom preaching, teaching, pastoring a church is the great calling of his life. He may not necessarily be full-time in his ministry. He may support himself as Paul supported himself by tent-making in Corinth. But whatever work he does to support himself will be secondary. Paul was not a tent-maker who did a little preaching and pastoring; he was a preacher-pastor who did a little tent-making!
And as soon as funding was available, Paul gave up the tent-making and devoted himself full-time to the work of planting and pastoring a church in Corinth (Acts 18:5). That is surely the New Testament model of church leadership: Paul urged all the elders of the church in Ephesus to take him as their role model in his single-minded shepherding of the church (Acts 20:18-35).
A church may have an ‘eldership’ made up of godly, gifted, and caring men, and yet lack the sort of leadership that the New Testament calls for – a pastor or pastors who are equipped for the shepherding of the flock and who lay aside other priorities to pursue that calling. In such circumstances, yes, I believe that the church needs to call at least one pastor and set him apart to fulfil that role.
But is it right to call a man from another church? That is the second objection often made to the idea of ‘calling a pastor’. Surely it would be better for a church to appoint a man from within its own membership rather than looking elsewhere? Maybe. There are great benefits in appointing a shepherd who already knows and loves the sheep, and whom the sheep know.
But what if there is no suitable man with the needed maturity, gifts, training, and personality within the church’s membership. Is it then wrong to approach a man from another congregation? Surely not. It was fundamental to Paul’s church-building strategy that he moved gifted men from one congregation to another. Timothy, Titus, Aquila (with his gifted wife at his side), Tychicus, Epaphroditus, and others were transplanted as and when it became necessary.
Churches need pastors. And if the Lord has not raised up the needed men within a congregation, the church must be prepared to call them from outside.
