This is a guest post from Aaron Stead, responding to my post about a Theological Vision for Ministry, which was inspired by the book Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls. Aaron is studying for an MTh with Union School of Theology.
Some time ago I was talking to a vicar who after 50 years in ministry retired in the early 2010’s. He was somewhat frustrated at the changes his successor made. Now this is not uncommon. But what was surprising was the thing that had most got his goat: his successor’s hiring spree.
At the time my acquaintance retired he had on staff: himself, a part-time administrator, a women’s worker, and a pastoral trainee. For many small churches this is the staffing of dreams.
But this was not a small church. It was a church of a few hundred, of good reputation, in a leafy area of London, with a wealthy and generous congregation. All things considered compared to other churches of its size and wealth it had remarkably few staff.
Now in his successors defence, the retiring minister was not particularly attuned to the administrative and organisational realities of the modern world; and additional staff were probably required.
But then comes the inevitably question as a church and its staff team grows: who do you hire and for what roles? What is your vision for how the church should operate and downstream of that how should finances be invested?
I, like Tim, have had myself feeling vindicated by the excellent Ancient Wisdom for the Care of Souls by Coleman Ford and Shaun Wilhite; and it has led me to ponder on two interconnected things:
- How are modern pastors spending their time?
- How should churches be utilising their staff teams?
And from this reflection, a particular recent innovation in church staffing has caught my eye: The Executive Pastor (“EP”).
The Executive Pastor
For churches of a similar size and wealth to the aforementioned leafy London church, an increasingly popular hire has been an Executive Pastor. They have become somewhat ubiquitous in churches of a certain size and evangelical lilt. Now, I have been in a number of churches with EPs, and this is not to say that those men have not been gifted or productive in the life of those churches. Yet I find the role somewhat superfluous conceptually.
Now there is a rationale for the role. The idea is that you want someone with a degree of pastoral and theological nous to lead the operational endeavours of the church. However, to me the term is an oxymoron.
Biblically pastors are those who are to devote themselves to prayer, study, teaching, and pastoral interactions with the members of the church. Biblically speaking, this is the only justification for paying a pastor. Now you may pay someone who is qualified to be a pastor to do other duties. But if you are paying them to do other duties, you are not paying them to be a pastor but to fulfil other duties. If a church employs a retiree to be a part-time caretaker who also serves as a elder you do not call him a Pastoral Caretaker; you call him a caretaker.
Until the last 50 years of Church history, pastoral duties were what pastors were paid to do, and little else. Admittedly 50 years ago was a different age, devoid of safeguarding, health and safety, charity filings, council grants, and a myriad of other necessary, albeit bureaucratic, obligations and opportunities besides. But whilst church history does contain pastors who were administratively gifted; they were the exception rather than the rule.
Leadership was for the most part theological. Looking at great reformations, whether the monastic reformation of the late first millennia or the protestant reformation; the leadership that was prised was theological in nature not operational. Revivals were not spawned from operational optimisation but from theological wisdom and insight.
The word ‘Executive’ by its very nature speaks to operational oversight. It is a term born of the pages of corporate management, rather than via biblical mandate. Pastoral oversight is not analogous to operational oversight. We see this biblically in the appointment of deacons to undertake operational tasks. Now there may be a hierarchy between the pastoral and the operational. But if you need to hire a pastor to take on a full-time role overseeing the operations; then whilst they may be doing one aspect of being a pastor (that of overseeing) they are not, as part of their employment, being a pastor in a holistic sense. They are not being paid to pray, study, teach, and be present in their congregants’ lives. In what sense therefore are they, as part of their employ, being a pastor?
Surely a more befitting title would be an “Executive Deacon”? As their role is operational not pastoral. Afterall, deacons need to be theologically sound and meet similar character qualifications as elders/pastors. A deacon should not be a theological novice, nor an unprincipled corporate operator. A deacon should possess the theological nous required to undertake the senior executive roles that arise in a large church setting.
But I think the desire to give the title “pastor” instead of “deacon” is two-fold. First is due to an unspoken and informal clericalism. Second, a lack of confidence in a biblical ecclesiology.
Informal Clericalism
When I say an unspoken clericalism, I think this is especially true in evangelical charismatic circles. Those who tend to have the largest followings, or be lavished with the most praised are those who inhabit one of the five-fold ministries: Prophets, Evangelists, Apostles, Teachers, Pastors. These people are placed upon pedestals and respected. These people are sometimes seen as more gifted, or more godly, or closer to God than the average Joe in the pew.
This means to contribute significantly in other ways is often undervalued. Which is somewhat sad reality in a movement that is supposed to prize the New Testament expectation that all church members bring significant and vital contributions to their local body of believers. In church, in an inversion of the corporate catchphrase: no one is replaceable. And this holds also for the high-functioning-strategic-administrator-deacon types. Yet it is hard to coach a culture where being an administrator is cool, or to truly inhabit as a community what it is to be a priesthood of all believers.
It is far easier to honour the strategic administrator types by simply slapping the already respected title “Pastor” onto them. Even if this dilutes the meaning of the slapped-on title itself.
Weak Ecclesiology
The second issue, is a lack of confidence in biblical ecclesiology. My point here is simple, church growth strategists rarely ever say to pastors: pray, study, and teach. They evangelise a gospel of organisational optimisation. That is not to say that none of their insights are helpful. But what it is to say is that lasting revivals do not spawn from precisely drawn organisational charts but from the proclamation of the gospel.
Yet to live that is brave. As fundamentally, preaching the gospel and praying feel rather inadequate from a human perspective. One needs to inhabit a certain humility and reliance on Christ to be happy with paying people to actually pastor. Even more so, to be a pastor and zealously guard diary time to pray and study. It feels far more pro-active to be busy. It feels far better to employ complicated and intricately formulated organisational hierarchies to streamline and optimise church life.
It can be far easier to convince trustees, or congregants, or the treasurer to hire for a potential pastor for an administrative role where the outputs are easily visible than it can be to hire pastors to pastor.
Now, such optimisations are not all bad. Jethro is lauded for his wise counsel to Moses to alter the organisational structures of the wandering Israel. But most organisational intricacies are not the primary concern of a pastor. They are the concerns of deacons.
Consequences
Now, in some ways, it may be said that this is all an argument over semantics. But I think it is important for two reasons. First, is to guard what pastors do and the expectations of pastors. Second, is to guard the pastorate from those who should not be pastors.
If you start calling operationally talented people pastors, you create expectations of them in the congregation that are unlikely to be fulfilled. Afterall EPs will be far more invested (as they are paid to be) in how the Welcome team is structured than spending 18-months diligently walking alongside a married couple on the brink of an avoidable divorce. But also, it creates an expectation for non-executive pastors that they should dabble in operational issues. It serves to crowd pastors diaries and prevents them from doing what they are fundamentally paid to do: provide spiritual care for those under their oversight.
Second, you end up in scenarios, which have become increasingly common. A senior pastor moves on, and his deputy assumes the role of senior pastor. But the deputies are no longer traditional associate pastors; those who also have been heavily involved in pastoral visitation, study, teaching, and prayer. Increasingly the deputies are EP’s. But an EP’s skills are not the right fit. They want to tinker with operations, restructure, reformulate, refocus. They can struggle to loosen their grip and let God do what God will do. They will tend towards meetings, teams, and policy papers ad infinitum; as opposed to blocking out a day weekly to study, or half a day to pray. They can miss the wood from the trees and see pastoral visits as an unavoidable drain on their time.
I’ve noted that EP’s who become senior pastors often prioritise operational rather than pastoral hires when room allows in a church budget. They would rather plan and strategize as they seek to optimise, optimise, optimise; or grow, grow, grow. In so doing, they like Icarus fly to close to the sun; and they become burnt out, or they burn others out, or they do both. Which is an antithetical outcome to true pastoral ministry for both the congregants and the “promoted” EP.
What people crave is theological vision, not organisational excellence. Do not misunderstand me, people will abhor a disorganised mess of a church; and in all likelihood leave disgruntled eventually. So, by all means hire someone who can keep things ticking over. But if the choice was left to me, then give me an additional pastor on the church payroll over an EP any day of the week. One who prays for me, one who prays with me, one who cares for me, and one who preaches the deep things of God to me.
Photo by Ben Rosett on Unsplash
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