Needed: A Few Good Churches for Pastoral Training

Well, more than a few. It is my contention that any church should be willing and striving to be directly involved in the training of men to be pastors. As I mentioned yesterday, I remain convinced that the New Testament never envisioned ministry apart from that which flows directly from a local church. The injunction to equip the saints is in the context of the local church. The prescription to entrust the truth to faithful men who will do the same with other faithful men is in the context of the local church.

Therefore, one of the first solutions to our present problem in effective ministry training (Again, I am not discounting seminary education or suggesting we abandon it) are congregations that will embrace this as a part of their Great Commission task. I mean by this much more than having “Higher Education” Sunday where we preach a happy homily on the value of giving our money to Baptist (yep, I’m biased) colleges and seminaries. The need is not another scholarship fund or budget percentage in a local church set up to fill the bank accounts of colleges and seminaries. I’m not totally against that – I just don’t think it is the greatest need of the moment.

Instead, we need a congregation that would embrace, promote, work toward, produce and offer the following:

1. A pastor (preferably a pastoral team), solid in theological conviction, skilled in biblical exegesis, faithful in pastoral shepherding and humble in sharing the glory (and grunt work) of the ministry with someone other than himself.

2. A congregation who lovingly supports their pastor(s) and sees that it is the responsibility of churches (their church) to start churches, thus, churches to train pastors of churches. The practicality of this is that members of the church would be intentionally involved in the molding and shaping of man in his preaching, teaching, and shepherding skills. They would see that the qualifications in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1 are those which the congregation is not merely to uphold but in which to help equip a man for future ministry. I think a congregation should be so involved in the life of the pastor-in-training that they could, in the end, vote with personal knowledge (oops, my Baptist leanings) to affirm the man as receiving their support in planting a new church or being sent to an existing one. I absolutely do not think that graduation from any academic institution alone adequately prepares a man to be a pastor.

3. An intentional process that involves and trains the future elder (same a s a pastor – absolutely no difference J ) in every facet of church life and ministry. From how a pastor studies to how he visits, calls, manages his time, the paper on his desk, his family responsibilities, etc. In other words, this probably is not a three month summer youth intern program.

4. A budgetary commitment to find ways to invest in a man for such a training process. The legal and medical world finds ways to make this a reality. Resources are probably not our main problem – more on that later.

I would suggest that even before a church begin this methodical process to train a pastor, they think through how they equip one another. Methodologically, how is the congregation being intentional to train their people in theology and ministry? Practically speaking, how is the congregation being encouraged to see starting churches as their bailiwick and not that of the denominational bureaucracy?

I know, “good theory with too many headaches ahead.” I know, “more detail and specifics.” I will flesh some more out later, but I don’t want to merely sit back and waste my life complaining about it. I am deliberately setting my life to engage the issue. I hope you are too.

In my next post (no promises as to when), I’ll comment on a few commitments I think are necessary from the academic side of the aisle.