Good comments. I don’t disagree with you. The Church has too long elevated the singular role of the pastor, while at the neglect of the other roles, as well as the role of the body of Christ.

We have slimmed church leadership at times into one role…the pastorate.

I don’t think culture should dictate the gospel or church, ministry, etc. In fact, I think we have a responsibility as Christians to be creative people, people who lead, who engage the culture…who are involved, but who are in the process of transforming those communities through their vision and love of Christ.

But here is my thing with technology. I see it as a door opener in many ways…or a door kicker downer….haaaa. When a church fails to embrace the multi-faceted dimensions of leadership (multiple gifts in the body), and when the church fails to empower the laity, or fails in disbursing the power/decision making/influence…keeping it only in a top-down hierarchical model…..well, then I see technology as a great antidote to that. So whether these churches or pastors like the new way of doing things or not, they now have to reckon with a body that can organize, communicate and lead without going through all the red tape that it used to have to go through.

I have a fundamental problem with a room full of people limited to pastors and exec. staff…the majority men…making decisions for the rest of the body. It’s a consolidation of power that I don’t think is Biblical.

But I think you and I agree on some points…lot of it is how we use the language and phrase it…cause sometimes there are some subtle differences.

Phil:

Sort of the same for you…in the sense that I think technology is helping bridge the gap in churches that need it bridged….bridged between leadership and laity.

Many churches do this well already, with or without technology. They empower the laity, they lead from a position of humility, not power. Those are not the people or churches I’m concerned about. I’m more concerned about places where that doesn’t exist….and technology is really a way to force the hand if you will.

Technology is both a tool, and it’s also becoming a space that we occupy as well. So it will be interesting to see where all this leads.

rhett

“I used the word facilitator in yesterday’s post, and what I mean by that is that the Church is beginning to have the ability to organize on their own, which frees the pastor up to facilitate the movement and truly shepherd the people.”

Most of the “great” pastors I can think of do this well. They let people be what they were called to be and purposed to do according to their gifts and calling; not necesarily their vocation. There is a need for release from the sense of “control” we feel as pastors. Again I reference pride as the reason that most pastors won’t get this concept. It represents a shift that removes them from a “position of power.” What we forget is that the pastorate isn’t about power but influence. Influence that was never to our own credit in any way. (1 Chronicles 29)
This shift is not dictated by anything other than a recognition that people have firgured out how to harness this technology in such a way that it opens a flood gate of “gospel centric” possibilities that have never been realized before. To resist this “shift” is to miss opportunities that should be relating the most powerful message ever lived to an audience of people not bound by geography or time. The message should remain consistent with the Bible but the methods in and of themselves hold no intrinsic value. The message and the repsonse of people is what truly has value.
I long to shepherd in such a way that all people get the chance to hear of Christ’s power to redeem. My prayer is that I can effectivley use the tools at my disposal as an extension to that ministry. My fear is that I will cave to pride and not be willing to see what truly needs to be happening and miss global opportunities for Christ’s sake.

Rhett, I think I hear your heart in this post. Technology is just another tool…more effective than I have cared to embrace…but I am coming around. I appreciate your encouragement and the conversations are refreshing. Your voice is valued.

Would we then allow culture to dictate that homosexuality is ok under the Christian doctrine because it seems to be culturally ok now? That is an extreme example but the most present-day example affecting the church.

I agree that we need to look at what the roles of pastors are meant to do but part of the areas that I feel the mainline/evangelical groups fail to recognize are the other five fold ministries in the church. Pastors shouldn’t necessarily teach, hence why Paul gave the need for teachers. Apostles expanded the kingdom but also got the vision accomplished that the prophets felt God stirring in their own spirits and then the evangelists obviously brought people the Lord.

Have we simply slimmed church ministry leadership into one role, the pastor?

Yeah, I agree, we are in completely different camps for sure.

I guess I would ask what is the role of the Church in the Scriptures, and looking at that, does it align with the role of the Church today? Is the role of the pastor today congruent with the role in the Scriptures?

In some cases sure. But I think we have moved quite aways away from it.

The position of the pastor today as well…the full-time vocation, etc, etc. doesn’t seem to fit in what we see in Scripture anyways.

I think that communities will always have pastors, but will they look like they do today…I sort of doubt it. Also, I question your idea that I am minimizing the role of the pastor….I in fact think we have maximized and elevated it to an unhealthy place in many communities. The idea that truth can only be contained by the pastor underestimates in my opinion the role of the community in teaching, preaching and preserving truth.

We can talk about this forever….but I will stop for now.

Thanks for commenting.

rhett

Now, this speaks to the larger issue that we are in two completely different camps in the overall Body of Christ but that doesn’t mean we read different Bibles.

The more that liberal theology ascertains itself in the modern church, the more we move away from what the church was in Acts and the Epistles, to a form of humanism that looks no different than the forms of worship that Paul was pleading for people to walk away from.

I would certainly hate to be a rancher considering they lead the cattle to their demise, haha. I think that it is even more disheartening to see how rebellious groups have gotten that operate with house churches and gatherings that don’t have strong pastoral oversight. This isn’t about hierarchy, it is more about not going beyond the borders of heretical doctrine. By minimizing that role, we open up the church to a deeper possibility of heresy.

Now, I do agree that technology has created a new sense of communication, larger than anything we could have imagined. However, that expansion of technology has come at a cost. Even as the apostles evangelized throughout the world, others would run with their message and fill it with half-truths. So how much more will we these things progress with the tool of technology?

THEN, what the heck is the church on earth to even do? What does it mean when we are considered the Bride of Christ? That is a whole other topic that doesn’t fit into this post.

Awesome thoughts. Also, I don’t me to assume, though I do….that technology is the answer to everything. I just think technology is a great tool, and that social media is a great “space” to help empower ministry, etc.

I think lots of ministries are doing great things, really empowering people, using more collaborative means to help the church. The early Church in my opinion (like we see in Acts 2) real embodied this collaborative, participatory environment…and they did it without “technology.”

But as long as we have such great tools at our disposal that our relatively cheap or free, I think we should be using them . Also, since we often live so far away from each other and attend churches where people don’t live in those communities, technology is a great way to bring us all together.

Also Phil….I don’t think you are behind the curve at all. Just by the fact you are engaging in this conversation with others shows to me that you are ahead of the curve. And I think many are ahead of the curve without using technology…but what they are doing is re-imagining and re-thinking the way ministry should be done. And they are getting away from top-down systems of leadership, and instead moving towards bottoms-up styles of leadership, empowering the people, etc.

Let’s keep chatting.

Tyler. Always appreciate your thoughts…a lot. Thanks for being such a faithful commenter and dialoguing partner. Appreciate it.

rhett