22. The Gift of Pastor

The first thing I want to say is that last week, preaching on the gift of hospitality, apparently I gave a couple of people the impression that to exercise the gift of hospitality did not mean that you can't use your candlelight and silver.  Some people exercise their gift of hospitality by means of candlelight and silver.  Certainly you understand that.  I'm just saying that it is not a prerequisite.

Now, today, Ephesians 4: "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 for building up the body of Christ until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man to the measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ.  As a result we are no longer to be children."

Leslie Flynn tells the story of a flower girl in a wedding rehearsal who, when she was introduced to the minister, said "Are you a preacher or a pastor?"  And the minister said, "Honey, do you know the difference between a preacher and a pastor?"  And the little girl's response was, "Well, I think a preacher thinks a lot about himself, but a pastor thinks a lot about his people."  And there is some truth to that kind of a distinction.

Today we are talking about the gift of pastor - or the Pastoral gift - which many of you are kind of surprised we're even touching on because you've got that locked in your mind as a profession.  It's a profession that requires a mysterious call, a minimum of eight years of schooling beyond high school, a special super-spirituality, and an eagerness to pray or take an offering at the drop of a hat.  And anyone who has that, has the call or the gift of Pastor, but everybody else is left out.  Now I believe that there's a confusion between the office of the clergy (or the office of minister) and the call, or gift, of pastor.  And I want to point out that distinction.

Let me describe three churches that I'm aware of - three church situations.  Church A has a pastor who went to that church and found it absolutely in disarray.  No one knew who was responsible to do anything and so either everybody tried to do it and got in each others' way and angry with each other, or no one tried to do it, and it fell apart.  This pastor arrived on the scene in that church.  He is now one of the most smoothly-operating organizational functioning things you've ever seen in your life.  Everything in the church runs in grease.  The only problem is, all of his people feel like they're little names in his organizational chart.  Everybody feels somehow like a number, or a computer printout.  His sermons are really beautifully outlined, but they're kind of lifeless.  And broken people and confused people rarely go to him for counsel.  In fact, now that everything's running so good in the church, they wish he'd leave.  And he would, and will, when he gets a chance.

Church B has a pastor who can preach and communicate the basics of the Christian faith so well, and in such a captivating way, and such an understandable way to the non-initiated into the Evangelical lingo, that non-believers come to know Christ.  Numbers of them.  All week long, this man loves to walk the streets, drive around town, park his car, go in and fill up for gas, fill his tires - do anything just to have a chance to interface with people and share Christ.  And he does so in such an effective way, exercising his gift of evangelism, that many, many people come to know Christ.  And these people come into the body of Christ in the church this man is serving.  If you go to his church, you sense a great deal of what you sense when you go into a nursery.  When you go into a nursery filled with little kids, there's a very decided aroma in the air - it is made up of a number of different ingredients, none of which I need to describe for you.  It is filled with noise and confusion: babies cry when they're hungry or wet or feel like it.  Babies spit up, all kinds of things.  And that's kind of like this church.  It's full of spiritual babies.  There's a lot of life.  There's a lot of excitement.  But, oh, everything's...   And many of the people that are babes in Christ in this congregation have been babes in Christ for ten years in his congregation.  They aren't growing.  They were brought into new birth.  There's a very active obstetrical ward, but there's not pediatrics.  The people aren't growing, and they're hungry for meat.  And they wish he'd leave.  And he will leave when he finishes some of the plans to become an itinerant evangelist.

Church C has a writer that is a genius.  A conversation with him that lasts for more than thirty minutes will strain your brain unless you're a genius too.  He has the ability to write in a very articulate and precise manner.  He doesn't waste words with his writing.  What a joy to pick up a real little thin volume that he's written and find it is just full of what half the time the popular books that are written in the religious field today - it would take this much of your shelf to say what he says, because it's so much fluff.  Not him.  He teaches in major Bible conferences all over and boy can he lay out the meat of the word.  College professors love it.  Seminary students eat it up, but there hasn't been a spiritual birth in his congregation since he's been pastor there.  Nothing's happening.  Oh people are growing.  They're being fed the meat.  They are becoming mature, but they're not doing anything with their maturity.  And his people wish he'd leave too.  And he will too, as soon as the chaplain job at a college opens up.

What's wrong with those churches?  Now I've been here thirteen years and I don't know how many of you people wish I'd leave - and I'm not asking for a vote so keep your hands down.  Anyway, I predate most of you and I built a power base, so...

I want to describe a very real problem that we see in churches.  Did you know that the average length of the pastorate in the United Methodist church is two years and six months?  The average length of pastorate in the Evangelical Covenant Church of America is five years and three months?  Why?  And why is it that the first six months or a year or two years that the pastor is in his church, everybody is trying to get acquainted, then they do some work and then as soon as that work is done, then they wish he'd leave.  And the last six months or last year of the man's pastorate, things are just kind of unrestful.  Why?

Part of it is because of the problem that is involved in transferring responsibility for the work of the ministry to one person.  Somewhere along the line, churches A, B, and C, that I referred to, have lost sight of the Biblical doctrine of the priesthood of all believers.  They have lost the realization that there is a distinction between the office of the ministry (called the "clergy") and the gift of Pastor.  Somehow a pastor is viewed as super-Christian.  And he must be looked to as the fountainhead of all knowledge and wisdom and virtue.  And when he is not, which is most of the time, then let the murmuring begin.  Sundays the menu reads "Roast Beef and Roast Preacher".  And that is not honoring to God, nor is it according to His plan and purpose.  In that kind of a church, there is little for the layman to do, because little the laymen are allowed to do or know they can do except come, support, and listen.  And in that kind of a church, the pastor is under an unbearable burden.  He is totally unable to evangelize and counsel and bring healing and care for the poor and the lonely and the needy and expound the scriptures and teach and be a man of prayer and a student of the word of God, and challenge the forces of evil in his community.  And the result is both the church and the clergy are frustrated and angry and spiritually lethargic.  And the result can frequently be schism.  The discontent of churches A, B, and C with their minister was due to a lack of the pastoring gift in operation in the body.  And their erroneous assumption that this gift, in particular, resides in the office of clergy.  And it does not, exclusively.

It's to avoid that kind of misunderstanding that Paul wrote our text.  "He gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers..."  Why?  For the work of the ministry.  What?  To equip the saints to do the work of the ministry.  That's you people.  And the goal is that we, all together, are no longer children, but become mature in unity.  And it's to avoid this kind of failure that I've been preaching for a year now on the gifts and the Holy Spirit, in order that you might know yourself - not only as redeemed - but as gifted.  But with the gift of pastor, we just slip back into confusion again.

What is the office of pastor?  What does it mean to be a clergyman - the office of pastor?  The Bible uses several terms as synonyms for our word "pastor": elder, presbyter, overseer, bishop, shepherd.  In fact, the Greek word "episcopos" can be translated either "bishop" or "overseer".  Obviously, it is the root from which the word "episcopacy" comes from.  As such, a person was limited to one particular location.  You don't find a person being an elder in this church and an elder in this church at the same time.  There is a deep, longstanding relationship between the elder and that church.  And, as such, he was referred to frequently as a "ruling elder", and such people who we refer to as "ruling elders" were (in all likelihood) full-time, supported economically by the body that they ruled over.  But the analogy of "rule" is modified by the terminology "shepherd".  And that analogy is one who cares for the flock: guarding from wolves, feeding, seeking, tending wounded, and calling the stray.  And persons like that, who have been called to the office of pastor (or clergy), to bear rule in the church are called to exercise their authority - not on the basis of power trip or waving their ordination papers around, but they are called to bear rule in the church by the authority of an authenticating life on their own part.  That's why Paul was able to say to the churches that he wrote to, "you know how you ought to follow my illustration."

And you people know how much I want to be able to say that about my life to you.  And you also are as aware, as I am, of the areas where that is not yet possible.  But by God's grace it shall be.  Because I am extremely conscious of the fact that I have no authority except that which is accrued to me by the spiritual stature that God, by His Spirit, allows me to attain before you.  I am not called to tell you what to do alone, but I am called to model for you what it means in our world.  That's why I continually seek the opportunity to interface with the world, like you do.  Not keeping myself within the confines of the body of Christ - insulated from what you have to face, day after day.  That's why I stay with Operation Nightwatch and find interfacing with the world on the most basic and brutal area and way possible, because I want to know how you struggle and I want to have the same struggles and I want to come out, by the Spirit of God, on top, so that I can say "Come join me, it can be done."  That's the role of the office of the pastor - not force of personality.

The qualifications are marks of character.  "It's a trustworthy statement, Timothy, if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.  An overseer then must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not addicted to wine or pugnacious, but gentle, uncontentious, free from the love of money.  He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity.  For if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how can he take care of the church of God?  And not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the Devil and he must have a good reputation with those outside the church", on and on and on.  You see the kind of job description that's laid out.  It is not the office that gives the right to rule within the church - it is the authenticating life of the man or woman who has those gifts and exercises them.  And the clergy seeks to develop and grow the spiritual life of the body by applying the word of God to its life as well as his own.  For he, indeed, is a part of the body.  Now, implied in that (to my way of thinking) is a loving and a lasting relationship with the flock that gives a pastor a chance to know the people and give them a chance to know him and care deeply about one another.  Now hear me clearly: most people who are called "pastor" in the United States today, or at least many of them who occupy the office of pastor, do not have the gift of the pastor.  Nor do they even need it, in many cases, because not everyone who has the gift of pastor has to be in the office of it.

Ray Ortman, a pastor for many years at the Lake Avenue Congregational church in Pasadena California (a tremendous church of 3,200 members), did not have the gift of pastor.  He did not have the pastoral gift.  He was a tremendously effective clergy.  He was tremendously effective.  One of his outstanding pastors - one of the fellows who was one of the most important men in his congregation - had lunch with him every year.  And he felt himself to be one of the elite because they're only 365 lunches in a year.  And he had 3,200 members.  What about Bob Schueller at Garden Grove community church.  I don't care what you think of Bob Schueller and his glass church, but the fact of the matter is Bob Schueller has 7,000 members and he does not have the gift of the pastor.  And he says so too.  And he doesn't need it, because Bob Schueller has 789 people in his congregation who have been identified as possessing the pastoral gift and are exercising it on behalf of many churches within that large body.

And that's why I say: don't assume that the man who stands here, Sunday after Sunday, in this (or any other) church is the repository for all of the gifts that are called upon and described as a pastor.  His may be other gifts, or his gift mix may be in a different direction.  You too may have been called.  It's not a person in this place that the Bible says will equip the man of God adequately for every good work.  It is the word of God that will equip a man and adequately for every good work.  And I hope to goodness you people know how to feed yourself from the word of God.  2) Some people are in the office of clergy or pastor have the gift of evangelism or administration or exhortation.  In church A, B, and C, which I described, those fellows had gifts which are gifts of the Holy Spirit and they were utilizing their gift for the building up of the body of Christ, but everybody else is sitting around for him to do everything, and that's the rub.

What is the gift of the pastor then?  What is the pastoral gift?  The gift of the pastor is the supernatural ability given to some members of the body of Christ (remember, that's the beginning of all of our definitions) to take a long term and personal responsibility for the spiritual welfare of other believers.  That's what it means.  To be willing, by the grace and the power and the giftedness of the Holy Spirit to take long-term and personal spiritual responsibility for the welfare of other believers.  And, oh I praise God that there are those that have this gift and exercise it.  And there are some in this congregation who have this gift and exercise it without knowing why they're doing.  They don't know its a gift.  But today I want you to know it is.

You know, in most churches, this gift is not seen as operative in the layman, because nobody's looking for it there.  But that's where it is, as well as in the clergy.  It is not limited to full-time.  Anyone doing the work of a shepherd on behalf of others.  Notice while Peter says, when he writes - not to a seminary, but to a church under persecution in I Peter 5, he writes to the elders (plural), "therefore I exhort the elders among you" (not "over you", not the guy that's the pastor in the church) "as your fellow elder and witness of the sufferings of Christ and partaker also of the glory that's to be revealed, you guys shepherd the flock of God among you."  Clearly this is a shared ministry - not an area of academic specialization - but of Spirit-empowered giftedness.  Paul and Barnabas' ministry to the church is described in Acts 14, "And when they had appointed elders for them" (for the churches, in every church).  "having prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed"  Or again, Paul's counsel to the church elders of Ephesus given in Acts 20, "Be on guard for yourselves and for all the flock among whom the Holy Spirit has made you overseer, to shepherd the church of God which He purchased with His own blood."  It is the work of the Holy Spirit: He has called, He has gifted, and He has placed.  And to shepherd is from the Greek word "epoemon" which has been translated into Latin as "pastores" which is the same word we get our English from: pastor.  And so when we say "pastor", we think in terms of high-tone spiritual specialist.  But that's not what it means.  Originally it's meaning is "epoemon" which means to "shepherd" - to care for.  Same counsel is then to the elders to shepherd or to pastor the church.  That's what it says.

What are the characteristics of the pastoral gift?  Very quickly - I didn't know the press of time, but...  1) The pastor is to feed.  That is, the person who is called with the gift of Pastor is to feed.  To teach.  And this teaching is to be taught by counsel and by example.  Let me give just two Biblical illustrations.  In Titus 2, it tells older women in the congregation that they have a pastoral responsibility to the young women in the church.  The older women are to be models and illustrations and teachers of the younger women.  I have prayed since I've been a pastor at this church, "God give us some older women who can fulfill that ministry.  Because we didn't have them for many years.  We just didn't have any older people in this congregation.  And I didn't want to sit around and wait until we all got old.  Now God, in His mercy is beginning to provide for us in the congregation and I and you both know individual older women in this congregation who are exactly fulfilling that ministry described in Titus 2.  What a joy to see them fulfilling that call!  And you have been called - all of you - to a ministry, to build up together the unity of the body of Christ.  What's yours?  It may be described by Paul in Romans 15, "I myself am satisfied about you, my brethren" (he's writing to lay people).  He says that "you yourselves are full of goodness, filled with all knowledge and able to instruct one another."  Will you stop leaning dependently upon me?  I can't carry it.  I haven't carried it.  And if you try, you're going to be frustrated and I'm going to be guilty.  And neither one of us need to feel that way.  We are part of a body that the scripture says is thoroughly furnished.  There is no way in which I can be pastor, with all that that means in terms of shepherd to 700 or 800 people, that cannot be.  It was never intended to be.  And that's why God calls us and, by His power of the Holy Spirit, has gifted us all with His gifts.  And in this congregation there are those who have the gift of the pastor.  And I know it.  And it doesn't make me insecure - it makes me do hand stands, because it is a shared ministry.

2) Not only do you feed, but you guard.  Paul says to the elders in Act 20, "I know after my departure, savage wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock from among your own selves men will arise, speaking perverse things to draw away disciples after them.  Therefore be on the alert."  Part of the role of those with the pastoral gift are to guard.  Let me refer, very briefly to a painful incident in the life of this congregation.  Several years ago you, by your generosity, sent my wife and I to Israel (it was our first trip and it was an absolute delight).  While we're over there enjoying the incredible experience of walking where Jesus walked, sitting in the garden tomb, of being able to cruise on the Sea of Galilee and walk the streets of Capernaum, back here (and we didn't know anything about it) the body was being attacked by wolves.  I can recall very much coming home late one Friday night, jet-lag and all, and when I went on the drive home, there was a letter on my high-boy in my bedroom and it said, "I hate to lay this on you as soon as you get home, but this is what's happened in the time that you've been gone".  Some of you remember.  For those of you who don't, it's not necessary to go into details - it's just that the body was really under attack and there was an attempt to really draw out those, to attack the sheep and send them scattered.  But by the time I got back, two weeks, it was over.  Without the pastor being here.  Everybody called, "Oh! Where's pastor Bud?  Where's pastor Bud?"  "Pastor Bud's not here, he's in Israel.  We can't even call him back."  So what happened?  Those in the body with the gift of pastor began to function and the body was guarded, and the body was fed, and the body was gathered together until the danger passed.  They were brought back into the fold - back into the flock.  They were fed, they were encouraged, the confused were straightened out.  And when I got back, I was so thrilled with what God had done while I was gone.  And so glad I was gone, because I probably would have handled that thing in a very brusk and brutal manner.  And the body functioned in love.  And, by the way, all that is now healed.  Even the wolves have become sheep again.  Praise God for His goodness!  But for the functioning of the body of Christ, as the pastoral gift was manifested among it.

3) They need to direct the straying, wandering sheep.  When you know that somebody is wandering away from the Lord, your job is not number one: call the pastor.  That's not your number one job.  The scripture says, "When any member of the flock is disobedient to the Lord's command, you who are spiritual, restore such a one."  It says in II Thessalonians 3 that, "you are to go to him and admonish him", or her, as a brother or a sister.  I'm there for the really tough cases.  And then we go together.

4) The one with the gift of the pastor has a shepherd's heart.  They just pour themselves out on behalf of the sheep.  They see the wounded and they're moved to bring healing.  And they see the wandering and they want to admonish.  They see the erring and they want to teach by example and by precept.  They see the frightened and they want to bring comfort.  They see the lost and they want to find creative ways to find them.

5) A person with the gift of pastor is one who is portrayed, not so much by a description of his job, but by the fruits of the Spirit: patience, kindness, long-suffering, gentleness.  You see, they're committed for the long haul.  They don't give you the one/two and then walk off.  They're the kind of people who lash their lives to yours and give themselves like a shepherd for his sheep.  Leading, feeding, guarding, loving, weeping, and caring.  I Peter 5 describes them "shepherd the flock of God among you, not under compulsion but voluntarily, according to the will of God, not for sordid gain, but with eagerness, not yet lording it over those given to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock."

Let me illustrate it, in closing, by this illustration.  Next Sunday Sunday School starts (I hope all of you are involved because none of you know it all, okay?)  Next Sunday in Sunday School, you will find there are a number of teachers who are teaching not because they have the gift of teaching, but because they love Jesus Christ and are being obedient to Him, and they have the skill, they have the training and they'll learn.  They commit themselves to it.  There will also be some that are teaching that have the gift of teaching.  And there will be some that will be teaching, sometimes among the children, sometimes among the older people, who when they teach they are well prepared, they are well prayed up and when they teach, they teach with a certain degree of finesse and expertise and ability.  They will pray for their class and for their own selves during the course of the week, but you won't see them again until next Sunday unless you happen to accidentally bump into each other in Safeway.  However, you will find that there will be some that are teaching who will be in contact with you rather regularly.  If you happen to be a youngster and you're in their class, they show up at your soccer games, you go out for pizza together as a gang.  You just spend time together.  You sense that the commitment they have that is not to that time frame on Sunday morning, but that the commitment is to you.  And you know what that is?  That's the gift of pastor.  That's the pastoral gift.  To lash your lives to those whom God, by his Spirit, has given to your care.  Not everybody has it.  Not everybody needs it.  But, the body needs several.  I know of several in this congregation who have this gift.  How thankful to God I am for your gift and for your exercise.  I'm in the office of pastor, but nobody (including myself) thinks I can do it all, or knows I'm doing it all.  But together as a body, we can.  As you exercise your pastoral gift in your home Bible study or your fellowship group or the caring group, in just the way you lash your lives in a long-haul relationship with other people.  We're a team in ministry.

By the way, do you have a pastoral gift?  How would you like to bump it up one degree and become the pastor of a congregation?  We have a congregation that meets every Sunday at 11:15, and it needs you, called "church for little people".  I can't think of anything more exciting than being pastor of church for little people.  Frankly I'd be a lot more excited being pastor of the church of the big people, because the fact of the matter is, most of you people there's not too much I can do about you - you've already been pretty well shaped.  The Holy Spirit can do all kinds of incredible things but you've already wasted a lot of your life if you haven't found Christ until your maturity.  But, oh, those little children!  No wonder Jesus said, "that's the kind of people the kingdom of God's made up of."  Maybe God has called me to be pastor to the church for little people once a month for eight or nine months.  What a joy to give yourself in a loving service to those whom God calls blessed of His Kingdom.

Benediction from the Hebrews 13, "Now may the God of peace Who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant equip you with everything good that you may do His will, working in you that which is pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to Whom be glory forever and ever.  Amen"

So go to a world of lost and confused sheep as one who has been found by the Shepherd and called to the task of being under Him.  God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit will be with you in your ministry and with me in mine until, by His grace, we're together again.