THE TEN BASIC TRUTHS OF CHRISTIANITY
DR. MICHAEL D. HALSEY
THE PASTOR
Although it's not one of the ten basic truths of
Christianity, any believer wanting to join
County Line Church should be aware of the biblical
responsibilities God has given the pastor of a local
church. Perhaps no other aspect of the
church has been so encrusted with tradition as the
office of pastor. As with everything else at County
Line Church, we chisel the duties of the
pastor out of the quarry of biblical marble, not from the
historical swamps of the traditions of men.
The historical swamps of tradition vary from region
to region. In another era across the
Atlantic, tradition dictated that the pastor was to ride a bicycle
higher than those of others. In some areas, he was
to dress differently and when he had
something important to say, he had to stand in a specific
place behind a certain article of church furniture
and speak in a different tone of voice.
Yet, the Bible is clear on the calling of a pastor.
God calls him and gifts him to be a
"equipper." It's a calling, not a "job;" the pastor is not a
"professional." The biblical pastor would be the
first to tell you that his calling is based
on God's sovereign grace-gift of pastor-teacher, the gift
mentioned in Ephesians 4.
Ephesians 4:11-12 puts the spotlight on the gifts
God has given to men and the men He's given
to the church. In the Greek language, "pastors and
teachers" (vs. I 1) is one gift, "pastor- teacher,"
so that the pastor is a teacher with a
God-directed purpose.
God is specific in Ephesians 4:12: the pastor's
calling is to equip believers to do the works
of service so that the body of Christ might be built up. The
biblical pastor (there shouldn't be any other kind!)
is an equipper, a cultivator of believers who
brings a person to be the servant God designed
him (or her) to be. The cultivator moves people
from being ineffective to becoming effective
servants of the Lord who build up the body of Christ. In
summary, the pastor helps you to become all God
designed for you to become.
At times the cultivation will be formal and planned
(sermons) at other times, it's informal and
incidental (in conversations, in one- on -one discussions, in
small discipleship groups, in hospital rooms). In
the formal equipping, the pastor-teacher
teaches the Word of God and what it means in your daily
living. He's not a lecturer on antiquities, but he
deals with the Bible and our lives now.
The Bible summarizes the cultivation work of the
pastor with the command to "make disciples"
(Matt. 28). The cultivator reproduces reproducers. He
leads God's flock by equipping them for the work of
service through teaching them to know and
live God's truth in such a way that they become
disciplemakers.
We can also capture the role of the pastor-teacher
with a modern equivalent, what we call a
"player coach," one who teaches the believers to
play their positions in the field, and then he turns
them loose to let them play.
Ephesians 4:11-12 drains the historical swamps of
the traditional, man- assigned roles of the
pastor. Ephesians 4 won't allow the pastor to keep his
hands on the reigns and do it all. These verses
won't allow the pastor to use people to feed
programs to get things done. He is a cultivator, not a
user. The cultivator equips believers who then
begin to do what God has designed them to do
in line with their gift.
God has written the des'cription of the calling:
"Equip believers to do the work of the
ministry." No pastor has a right to write the description, one
which would suit his preferences of performance.
Pastors aren't God's editors; they are
God-called and God-gifted cultivators given to the church.
It's a grace-gifting, neither earned nor deserved by
its recipient.
Certainly there are many things in a local church
that need doing. The beauty of the body is
that God gifts believers with all kinds of gifts (I Cor.
12, Rom. 12, and Eph. 4) who, once equipped, mesh
those gifts of administration, teaching,
helps, encouraging, et. al. into a vital and functioning
organism that has impact.
In the early church, one of the things that needed
doing was the administration of neglected
widows. In Acts 6 there was the potential of
diverting the apostles (the first cultivators) from their role of making
disciples and channeling their energies into
administrative/delivery duties.
The apostles saw the danger and alerted the church
to it. The church then chose others to
enroll the widows, keep the lists, administrate, and deliver
the meals on chariot wheels. This allowed the
cultivators to devote themselves to their
God-assigned role, saying, "We'll devote ourselves to
prayer and the ministry of the Word."
Cultivator. Player-coach. Disciplemaker. The
three words all say the same thing and are
terms that sculpt the biblical marble into the doctrine of the
biblical pastor.
Dr. Mike Halsey, Pastor