Pastors – Page 2 – katyandtheword

We agree about pecans, but not about pastors

Here it is because Landon says it so well…:)

I learned a couple of very important things over the weekend.

First, most of my Facebook friends agree that the correct pronunciation of the word “pecan” is “puh-CAHN”. There is some slight disagreement as to why it is pronounced that way, but (other than a few outliers) that seems to be the consensus, whether talking about the nut itself or the nut in a pie.

The second thing I learned is that there is little to no consensus on what constitutes “Full Time” when talking about the work of pastoral ministry. In the conversation on my profile, I rediscovered a wide chasm between what we think pastors should be doing, the amount of time we think they should be able to do it in, and the reasons why we think so.

In Open Source Church, I quoted a paper I was a part of writing, “Raising Up Leaders…

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Katy’s Rant Against Associate Pastors, and a proposed solution

II think Associate Pastors are totally stupid for the following reasons 1. Didn’t Protestants break away from Catholicism to avoid a hierarchical governance of the church, yet here we are reinstituting it.

2. Most associates are women and most head pastors are men

3. Associate Pastors have to work for too many bosses. Regular pastors already have two (sort of) between the congregation and God. The associate has the congregation, God and the Head Pastor

4. Finally, the most important reason why I hate associateships is that the ministries that are put under this heading “Pastoral Care” (translation: sick and old people), “Youth” (translation: those who we don’t get) and occaisionally “Mission (translation: those outsiders who need our help) are deemed LESS important than the “real” church (which apparently is made up of insiders who aren’t sick, over the age of twenty well off enough to not need help and not so old to be considered frail.

This

a. severely limits the church. We are essentially giving the more powerful pastor to those in power in the church. Basically rewarding those who we think can pull their own weight which is a broken theology, because no one has everything they need to be perfect, and we are putting our human limitations on who we think can serve the church

b. Severely limits the ministry itself, causing more red-tape, committees, paperwork and channels to get this “specialized” ministry done.

c. Finally, it severely limits the gifted associate pastors, all of whom have an important call to work, and may have specialized gifts in ministry that should be recognized. (Plus there’s that whole male/female discrepancy, I avoided Christian Ed and Associates like the plague figuring if I started there I’d never move out)

Finally, I am aware that most pastors are lonely and sad, and am aware that we have completely ignored the fact that Jesus sent everybody out in twos (Mark 6). What if we took this one step further and move more and more towards the copastorate being the regular form of ministry as opposed to the solo! This is especially true, since Christ says we don’t need anything but each other to do ministry!!!

Therefore, I propose we do away with all associate pastorships and move instead to co-pastorships. (This idea which I’ve been bouncing around forever dovetails well with Jack’s in http://jackjenkins.wordpress.com/2012/04/30/hey-pcusa-i-have-an-idea/ to employ pastors. Could be the Holy Spirit is moving us one and one towards this new kind of employment).

One co-pastor could be parttime and one could be fulltime or any combo thereof (how would two parttime pastors with full benefits work–wouldn’t that be AWESOME!!)

The way it tends to work is both pastors still get full vacation (particularly important if your a married couple). The pastors take turns moderating session, and probably a “pastor” would be available to answer pastoral needs (no guarentees which one, it would be worked out between the two pastors).

Down with Associateships! Up with Co-Pastorships

Someone should do this…..

What is both wonderful and frustrating about being a pastor is that a lot of what is done is unquantifiable. Most of the time I am well aware of the fact that I am a “pastor” not only in the church but also, and perhaps more importantly in the community. What this ultimately means is that as a pastor, you wear a lot of hats–some of them better than others.

Whenever people ask how it is to be a pastor I usually say something along the lines that I’m a Jack-of-All-Trades and as such, I get a lot of enjoyment out of doing many different kinds of things.

However, my job also is “thereotically” to put myself out of a job. In between visiting people I should be training my deacons and elders to visit people, in between preaching I should be teaching others how to testify to the word, in between leading and organizing events I should be training/empowering others to lead and organize events.

On the one hand I love the teaching, on the other hand, I find that no matter how things go it is ultimately the pastor who (right or wrong) gets the praise or the blame. This means that whenever there is a suggestion of “Someone should do xxx” whether xxx is fixing the exhaust fans in the bathroom, creating a Farmer’s Market, improving the worship experience, or advertising the church itself (my church’s current cross to bear), that I automatically feel like “I” am the one who is responsible for all of these things.

I need to do x, y and z to keep the church going, I am responsible, I am human–sometimes I need to step back and remind myself that God is really in charge of things. Sometimes I need to take a day to be not just, pastor, mother and wife and be just a Katy. A simple human who God is making into the best possible version of myself.

In the meantime Someone should work more theologically on developing a better understanding in the congregation and on the street in general of who the pastor is and how that works in relationship with the congregation and the world–who knows maybe that someone might even be me 😉

Jonah, before the Whale–Growing Pains of Mainstream religion

Why did Jonah run away?

To me, this is the question of change that the church forever faces.

Item 1: Jonah was called by God (scary enough right?)

Item 2: Jonah was called to give bad news….

Item 3: Jonah was called to give bad news to people he didn’t like, and they probably didn’t like him either

Item 4: Jonah was asked to tell the truth/be a prophet.

Prophecy is a very scary gift, most of us run away from prophecy. Why? Because prophecy is foreseeing the future both as is and as it could be. Prophecy is envisioning the world from both our and God’s perspective and then giving the leaders/movers/matriarchs and patriarchs a choice.

And the choice, now the choice is the issue.

So often the religious message comes across as conform or die,……
or maybe its change or die…

Funny isn’t it? The choice which once seemed so certain is suddenly difficult. Who want to conform–who wouldn’t rather be Spiritual but not Religious, after all what is religion if it isn’t another way to conform…another way of predicting who is “in” and who is “out”…its all about getting saved after all isn’t it

On the other hand, who wants to change. Hasn’t what we’ve been doing good enough…and even if it hasn’t been, we are used to it; better the devil we know and all that…..

Except neither of these are what faith is about. Later Jonah says that he ran away because he knew that God would show mercy and he basically didn’t want God to have mercy on his enemies–why should he bother.

In a time when religion is viewed as primarily judgmental, I have to ask what is it the church is running away from today? What are we Christians afraid of…

Is it conformity?

Is it change?

Or is it God’s grace and mercy? Is it that God’s plan for us requires flexibility and grace (an ability to dance through life so to speak)—flexibility and grace which are neither choice to conform or to change, but rather the ever-dance in between.

PS: Notice that to run away from one’s call is to run away from God!!!

(Note: all italics are sarcastic)