Counter-Point:
Charismatic cult leader of the day: Marshall Applewhite
Posted on 05/03/2005 1:55:42 PM PDT by suzyjaruki
I appreciate your sticking with and to the topic, Colin. You and Christian must have some pretty interesting debates.
First of all I don't know that he's a pastor but I know he's posting an article critical of other pastors and their methods and especially critical of pastors who seem to be increasing the size of their flock.
When a church gets to be a certain size, it becomes impossible for the pastor to perform that task. It is also impossible for the pastoral staff to perform that function.
Well gee willikers. When a church gets that size its not time to praise the lord for the harvest, but to criticize the pastor because his job is now made impossible. Hey Colin, that's where the idea of the Pastor as CEO comes in. If God calls a man to have a properous ministry, I would suggest that God is also calling him to delegate many or most of the jobs that can be delegated so that he can concentrate on those aspects of the ministry that he is best suited to. Our senior pastor essentially teaches the flock and makes decisions regarding the direction of the ministry. Most of the other pastoral duties are assigned to the other 19 full time pastors. Is it run like a corporation? In many ways it is. So what? The key is to make it run efficiently. The pastor is not required to do all the biblical duties, just to make sure they get done. He is responsible to God for that job, not you and not me.
I have been in some really big churches and I never knew a single one of the pastors of any of them.
Gee, whose fault is that? If you wait around after the service, I suspect they are available for prayer and consultation. If you just want to meet them to say that you met them, then I suspect that with a large church you are simply wasting their valuable time, especially if you wish to meet and confer with the senior pastor. At my church there are usually about a half dozen men leaning up against the flyer table waiting anxiously to talk to anyone who wants to talk to them. They are the junior pastors. I'm sure they would love to speak to you or counsel with you or even invite you over for a BBQ. For the most part they look lonely.
Frankly I've only met with my senior pastor on one occasion. I could meet with him every Sunday if I wanted to waste his time and mine, but I don't. He's a busy guy with more responsibility to God than me and I'd just as soon see him spend time with someone else. If I have a spiritual problem there are plenty of other pastors who are itching to speak to me or counsel me.
Now, I am in a relatively small church and know the pastor on a personal basis. We can have coffee nearly any time I pick up the phone. It is just a shame that he is one of those Baptists who doesn't drink otherwise he could share in the discussions over beer that Christian and I have.
I might be willing to bet that the pastor to parishoner ratio is higher in my church than yours. We have 19 full time pastors and hundreds of volunteer counselors. We usually get between 10,000 and 12,000 people who regularly attend some service during the week. That's a full time pastor for every 526 people that show up. If you add in the 100 or so trained counselors that's a pastor or a trained biblical counselor for every 100 people.
I believe that was the point of the author and I was therefore quite surprised to see that you called that idea heretical, especially now that you are defending the very point that the author was making in the first place.
the heretical statement was in regard to the author's contention that it is impossible for a pastor to fulfill the duties of a pastor in a large church. The fact is that if he delegates his dutes and is a good steward of his managerial skills and his time, and if God is in charge, then ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Something guys, like the author of this article, seem to forget that fact or ignore it.
This is an excerpt from bibliotheque sacra (http://showcase.netins.net/web/agros/pastsmal.htm)
It is one of the points in a larger piece on small churches. Another section deals with the strengths of the small church.
Weaknesses of the Small Church
The small church also has numerous weaknesses, one of which is inadequate resources. This helps explain why small churches are small. According to Madsen five factors persist: an inadequate program, an inadequate field (limited population to draw on), inadequate evangelism, inadequate vision, and inadequate personalities. Inadequacies of the small church are amplified by constant comparison with other large and prosperous congregations nearby. The upright piano does not sound so good after one hears the pipe organ at First Presbyterian; the ladies trio pales by comparison with the 60-voice choir at Faith Baptist; and the struggling, overworked pastor seems at an unfair advantage when stacked up against a 12-member multiple staff team over at Calvary Bible. This is less a problem for the rural church than the urban or suburban church since the points of comparison are magnified in the latter two situations.
One of the resources often found to be inadequate is money. Willimon and Wilson claim that "finances are a perennial problem. The small congregation tends to spend a large proportion of its income (often between one-half and two-thirds) for pastoral services. Even then, it generally shares the pastor with one or more other churches, or employs a part-time minister who also holds a secular job."
A second weakness may be called an exclusionary atmosphere. Schaller makes a distinction between the fellowship circle and the membership circle. He refers to the dividing line as a wall which protects the insiders from the outsiders. Hansell expands the concept to include three concentric circles inside a square (see the chart). Everything inside the square is membership but "acceptance" does not occur till a parishioner makes it into circle B (this is parallel with Schaller's membership circle). Point C on the Hansell diagram is comparable to Schafler's fellowship circle but Hansell adds point D to describe the area where the real power of the church resides. This model does not fit every church. However, the fact that levels of acceptance do exist within the local church emphasizes the exclusionary atmosphere that can come because of long-term leadership dominance by certain membership families.
(Insert Chart)
Another weakness of the small church is pastoral discouragement. In many small churches the pastor is the outsider, a fact often headlined by the common phrase, "We've seen pastors come and go here." Pastoral tenure is generally very short in North American churches -- a fact which complicates ministry in a small church, especially when mixed with inadequate resources and the control of a few strong families in an exclusionary atmosphere. Sometimes discouragement comes simply from inappropriate comparison. Besides being difficult and unnecessary for a small rural church to be transformed into a large church, it is probably unwise. The key issue is meeting needs through the Word of God, not a sense of se!f-actualization through successful involvement in the numbers game.
Then too, few things are private in a small community. Everyone knows the pastor's family, his finances, and his faults. Some men find this transparency difficult to handle and therefore view the small church only as a stepping-stone to a "stronger ministry." Inadequate congregational identity may lead to inadequate ministerial identity, an uncertain road to discouragement. Pastors of small churches should memorize and frequently recite 1 Corinthians 1:26-30.
Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things -- and the things that are not -- to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God -- that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption.
Bibles in every pew seems like all the "resources" a healthy church requires.
A quick reading of that pew bible you mentioned, a review of Acts and Paul's letters, reveals bible reading was only one of the many activities in which churches were involved.
That's certainly not true.
11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,God didn't just give us a book, and leave us on our own to read it and figure out what's going on. He didn't even leave us just with a book and the Holy Spirit to figure out what's going on, but rather, gave us various gifted individuals to provide the church community with a multitude of resources.
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
13 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 which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
14 As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;
15 but speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.
-- Eph. 4:11-16 [NASB]
The attitude that "Bibles in every pew" is enough to make everything okay is the sort of simplistic analysis that kills churches. A fully functional church is more than a library; it is a thriving community.
I'll say this: the thriving and growing churches do more than place a Bible in every pew.
So, if a certain large church in a certain western state had "pew Bibles" in a certain sanctuary where a certain musical group performed you would consider that a "healthy church?"
Not this again.
...to avail itself of sales tax exemptions, real property exemptions, local and state income and franchise tax exemptions...
...the contributions and gifts to the church are not tax deductible and the church might have to file tax returns or informational returns declaring its income. It might have to pay the other taxes and lose other privileges that flow from the Determination....
...if the church does not have the Determination...the people no longer have the exemption from taxation....
A church can (and IMO should) avoid 501(c)(3) and risk the ire of the tax collector, whether that taxman comes to collect federal, state, county, local, property, use, head, or sales taxes. IMO the Church does not owe them, period. That the State should claim the authority to levy any of these against the church, or even the authority to "grant exemption", says much about this age we are living in, those pastors who seek 501(c)(3) exemption, and of the civil government we are living under.
I guess your Bible doesn't have the part about rendering to Ceasar and all that.
Any church that follows your advice deserves to have their facilities confiscated and their leaders thrown in jail for tax evasion. Tax exemption for churches is not a Biblical mandate, but a cultural tradition dating to the late Middle Ages.
The Jeffersonian distinction between Church and State is very different from the idea promoted in our day. The very phrase "separation of Church and State" is very misleading. It is not a constitutional phrase but it came afterward in the writings of Jefferson. It originated as a Calvinist/Puritan distinction between the spheres of authority of church and civil government. The Church and the State are separate spheres of governmental authority. Separation of Church and State does not mean separation of the civil sphere from God. The issue is not whether the Church should intrude on the State's affairs. The Church should not. Neither should the State intrude on the Church's affairs. But Jesus Christ intercedes in the affairs of both. Civil government is not secular; it still stands under the moral Law of God. This was the understanding of most American legislators until the 20th century.
Good article Suzie
I have agreements with both of you.
So long as the law is written as it is, and so long as it isn't a law that directly challenges God, then it should be followed.
In principle and per Constitution, though, I also have some agreement with Alex. Basically, a LITERAL reading of the 1st Amendment says, "Congress shall make NO LAW respecting an establishment of religion, or denying the free exercise thereof."
No Law = NO Law. I don't know how much clearer that can get. Certainly, a law about where they MUST fit in the tax code is A LAW and is, therefore, out of line.
Churches in America are not "granted" tax exemption. They are tax exempt, and rightly so, because any requirement to tax them would indicate a LAW on that subject was being applied. And it would, therefore, be unconstitutional.
So, I oppose this 501 thingy until it's overturned by new constructionist judges soon to take the bench after the "nucUlar" option is used.
There is a simple way around the whole isssue. Don't claim offerings and gifts as tax deductions, don't incorporate, and don't own taxable property, and don't claim any postal privileges or discounts. Just do ministry on a non-professional basis. That helps solve the CEO/shepherding debate since, by the nature of things, the gatherings will be small amd portable, i.e. "moving from house to house". It is really not a church-state issue, but a financial-material issue.
From my experience, the larger the facility and the more taxable property that is taken off the rolls of communities by non-profits, in this age of municipalities fighting for dollars, we, with our "bigger barns" are just asking for tax troubles.
Does it establish a state church, or prohibit the exercise of religion? It, rather, proscribes some minor hoops a non-for-profit corporation has to jump through for a tax exemption.
If you wanted to set up the First Church of Steve, Reformed, you could, and the State's police powers couldn't say boo! about it. But, church or no, you still would have to meet the State's police requirements, such as zoning or building code. For an added benefit - the right not to pay taxes, and the right to have your donors deduct their donations from their taxes - there's some minor hoops they ask. Don't like the requirements, don't take Caesar's money. But if you do that, you owe taxes.
Its a fair system.
Counter-Point:
Charismatic cult leader of the day: Marshall Applewhite
Just arguing constitutional understandings here, Jude, so I'm giving my reading of what it says. Specifically, the FREE exercise clause says "Congress...no law...denying the FREE exercise thereof."
One cannot take someone's money and say that that organization is unaffected in it's overall freedom. Therefore, to threaten their money is to deny FREE exercise.
No law = no law.
***Bibles in every pew seems like all the "resources" a healthy church requires.***
Actually, I have no clue what these criticisms are. I've seen good churches and I've seen bad churches.
Now, I've never been in a mega-church where the pastor could fulfill the duties of the pastor. He has to pass them off to so called "lay pastors." These people have various names and titles from "volunteer" to "prayer warrior" from the many churches I've visited. Unfortunately, none of these people are pastors in the Hebrews 13 sense.
I've also been in some small churches where the pastor was an outsider. I've seen abusive congregations.
But, I have never been in a large church where I knew everyone intimately, including the pastor. I have been in smaller churches where I knew everyone. I have never been in a large church where the pastor could visit everyone when they were sick or in the hospital or under great stress. I have been in smaller churches that were like that. In fact, the last large church I attended, the pastor was only visiting a small subset of the congregation when they were in the hospital. Now, I did try to organize a team to go do this, but you would be amazed at the lack of support from the pastoral staff.
Colin is right. This church we are now in is not perfect and it is not even Reformed in preaching. But, we can pick up the phone and sit down with the pastor over coffee nearly any day. There is something to be said about that. Something in Hebrews 13.
To be honest, my sister, this idea of "inadequate resources" speaks to me more of money than anything else. You can't have a large paid pastoral staff without enough money. You can't have that mini-mall of choices in a small church because of money. You can't have a large building where you host seminars to teach everyone else your church building method and marketing because of money.
Now, I wouldn't want to be the one who tells God that he can't care for the flock without enough money, but I have no problem saying with the author of this article that it is impossible for a pastor to fulfill his duties in these mega churches. After all, we do have the Biblical model for how the Lord dealt with the problem Moses had trying to serve the entire host. He divided the responsibility. This was the God ordained means of handling a large congregation. Unfortunately, "cell leaders" don't have the qualifications to perform this role.
In the service of the Lord,
Christian.
***with our "bigger barns" are just asking for tax troubles.***
Great Biblical reference to the problem.
The problem is that mega-churches are as much a business as anything else. They cannot survive without a nice revenue stream. This is the criticism and point of the article. We need look no further than the secular coventures that more and more of these churches are doing. Because these mega churches are populated by the YUPPIE type for the most part we see Starbucks move in; a Krispy Kreme (or however you spell those over sugared grease blobs); etc. All so you can attract the right kind of tither.
In the service of the Lord,
Christian.
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