Roast Pastor

Roast Pastor, It's what seems to be for Sunday lunch.

Why is the success or failure, of the church, put on the back of the church pastor. Why does the pastor receive the bulk of the nasty phone calls, emails, or a degrading meeting? Should all this responsibility be heaped onto the back of our pastors? Sometimes it seems like we put the pastor as the head of the church. Is it because we follow a man made structure for church hierarchy, with the pastor placed at the top of the ladder.

This subject has been running through my mind today after hearing from a friend, a story of a lunch run in with a couple of local pastors. They were feeling a lot of oppression from their congregations and one of them was brought to tears as he shared his story of the difficulties he has had in ministry. People problems. I wonder if part of the problem is that we hold them to standards that no human being can attain in this fallen, sinful state. Yes he should be above reproach, he should lead by example, he should be Jesus with skin on, but he should also be human, and should be given the same amount of grace that we all have received. the apostle Peter publicly denied Jesus three times , and the all knowing Jesus Christ, prior to Peter doing this, knowing that Peter would deny three times, looked at him and told him that " on this rock, I will build my church". That's grace, Amazing Grace! Our pastors deserve that grace. They are not perfect, and if they mess up they need to be corrected and restored. So how can we change this?

I believe we need to make the church a simple place again. If you read Acts 2:42 you will find a simple formula for church order, function and worship. No fancy names that people can't understand, no special formulas and charts to mark your spiritual growth, they did this, (Russ paraphrase)" they devoted themselves to the apostles teachings, they had fellowship together, they broke bread together and they prayed." Four simple yet profound things. A very easy ministry plan that everyone could understand and follow.

So what about the church hierarchy? This passage in the New Testement, lays out a great plan for a healthy church.. In 1 Cor. 12:14-18 Gods word say that the church is made up of many different parts working together. If we have Christ as the head then the rest of body follows the heads direction,(like our brain directing what we do). Remember this passage doesn't put the pastor as the head. I do however believe it is an important body part category. Eph 4:11 talks of this,"it was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers." Very important body parts but not the head. They are to join the rest of the body in unified worship and service to Father, Jesus and Holy Spirit. Follow the head! Does the pastor need to lead? Yes, with the other church leaders. The apostles were the church leaders, but they did it as a group and they sought God for wisdom to make good decisions.

So what should we do. Love your pastor, you don't have to agree with everything he says, Paul and Barnabas didn't agree on everything, in fact, they parted ways because they couldn't agree, but they continued to love and serve the Lord. Love your pastor and pray for him. Pray ,pray pray. Talk to him face to face. Don't cook him at 350 for 2 hours and serve him with potatoes and gravy to everyone you meet. Keep your mouth shut to others and talk to him directly. Most of all remember that this church thing is not about us. It's about Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and meeting them were they are moving. And believe me when I say this, I have just as much work to do in this area as anyone. It's so easy to speak before I pray.

We need to build the church based on Gods biblical blueprint. God's word is black and white, lets follow it. Lets keep the main thing, the main thing.

God bless you.

Russ.