It’s late November and the season for hunting down a new pastor is on us.
A lot of churches are looking for pastors — or at least they will be in the next ten years as the average age of Free Church pastors is 50 something. And they are looking for ‘men with experience’.
So, as well as having the boyish good looks of Jude Law, the theological acumen of Don Carson and the grace and punch of John Piper, they will be married with believing children and a wife firmly established in the Tesco tradition re employment… Buy one, get one free.
Experience
But he has to have experience. He has to have been both assistant and lead pastor. Preferably gone WEST or attended one of the ‘Hills’. So he’s mid-40s — ideally — ready to give you the best 25 years of his life.
Allow me to wake you from your slumbers. We have been dreaming. When are we going to wake up to reality?
Without wishing to in any way undermine the subjective sense of call, and most certainly the divine will, it has to be said that most men in their 40s and 50s have certain encumbrances — they are called children. The eldest is settled in the local very fine high school — and there are several siblings following on. Mum is settled in her home, she has friends, she is happy. She does not want to move.
Think again
If we seriously want to be settled with our new pastor, we had better think again and review our thinking and stop procrastinating. We have prayed as a church — and we are praying — now is the time to take action and to take a few risks — that is, by the way, very different from being risky.
Perhaps we had better employ some biblical criteria to our search.
It strikes me that Paul sent evidently younger men — certainly Timothy, who had some limited experience — and flung them headlong into challenging situations that they were to ‘straighten out’ (Titus 1.5).
It is clear that they did not have all the gifts — actually in some areas they were lacking — but three cheers therefore for an eldership who is committed to team ministry with both paid and lay staff to strengthen weakness and maximise evident gifts.
According to 1 Timothy 3, biblical appointment for the overseer of a local congregation really has three requirements which should be readily applied to pastors:
Are they well thought of outside the church, by the believers within and can they teach? It is character first and then gifting. We would do well to read the Pastoral Epistles as elders involved in the search and ruthlessly apply. And how about 2 Timothy 2.24? Is your possible new pastor a kind man, a forgiving man?— the Bible holds such in high esteem.
First shave
It may well be that the man you have preaching in a couple of weeks’ time looks like he is a boy who has just had his first shave. And before he rises up to proclaim the Word of God we may have made up our mind — we want someone with experience and we may miss out by not thinking again — and thinking biblically, thus consigning our church to many moons of interregnum.
Tiger A. Welsh pastors a Free church in England.
