I found it interesting to expand upon a comment I made on Dalrock’s site. What I wrote is there, but I thought on what I’ve heard in the process of my college classes as it relates to what most careers entail, along with the stories I have from my own life and from others. The fact is that jobs almost always entail something much different than what most people are led to believe. This is done for trying to get people in the door, along with the “paying dues” aspect of things. They don’t want the younger ones to have it any better or different than they did in breaking in. Counting the costs is always a good thing to get into when it comes to any endeavor:
For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, Saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish. (Luke 14:28-30)
The original comment from okrahead was:
Maybe more manosphere bloggers should look into becoming preachers.
To become a preacher within the realm of Churchianity requires becoming a pastor, minister, reverend, or whatever the title that is assigned. This usually involves going to a seminary, Bible college, or the like. Then in most cases, you are expected to go full-time as an official of either a local church or a denominational organization depending on the denomination in question. You will have to pick a denomination, since they have differing standards and will only typically allow their own to preach in their Churchian environment.
Given this schooling requirement, it is natural that there will be several men and women coming out of school and claiming they have “the calling”, but ultimately treat being a pastor as a vocation. These are expected Churchianity buzz words that people respond to, and there isn’t any way to independently verify an experience from God, and people don’t challenge them, so they go on. Despite the other issues that exist with the headship of Christ over each and every individual in His Church, there are some other things that can be said outside of Scriptural arguments.
First, it has been expressed several times that the seminary experience can be very destructive on a person’s faith, riding them off the rails of following Christ in any way. There can be various reasons for such things, from the environment to how the teachers push, but it happens. “Whitney from Candler School of Theology” notes that the atmosphere of sin bothered her:
What I didn’t expect, I think, is how challenging seminary would be to my faith. . . Then I come to this much smaller school where everyone is a Christian, and suddenly I’m encountering much more alcohol, sex, swearing, etc. than I ever did in InterVarsity at UNC! So these types of experiences have been forcing me to reconsider my own boundaries and the boundaries of what I consider Christian community to be—I am re-learning who I am as a person and as a Christian.
Several of my friends went through crises of faith during seminary, ranging from shock that Moses didn’t write the first five books of the bible, to textual criticism rendering that the bible is the “exact word” difficult, to feminist interpretations that challenged long-held theological assertions.
There are a number of other reasons why and how faith can be broken from the regular college student pressures, to seminary professors pushing on you to break your faith understanding, to having to speak doctrine that’s against your heart-felt beliefs to be accepted within the denomination. The second person notes that people can get through seminary with their faith intact, as well. But the point is, there are challenges in this light.
Second, being a pastor isn’t all about learning the Bible. The major thrust of a Bible college or seminary education is learning about how to “do church”. It involves managing the resources put under your control (the building, money, paid and unpaid staff) and carrying out the programs, policies, and procedures that are expected of you by the local church or the denomination, and getting results as defined by that group. Most all of the goals of Churchianity can be distilled down into these three non-Biblical goals, which all pastors will typically have to meet or exceed for them to keep their jobs:
1. Increase attendance. They do not have to accept Christ or believe in Him, just have to be attending. Needless to say, doctrine has changed in many churches to fit this goal.
2. Increase offerings. Increasing attendance helps in this matter, but the goal is to get them to give money to you. Regularly. And often.
3. Provide an appearance of “spirituality”. This is just providing enough Scripture to seem “spiritual” but going after feel-good things. Another way to say it is to “feed the hamster”.
Given this is an increasing burden upon people put in these positions, they can be swallowed up by fulfilling them. This burden can be quantified by the following business statistics (1), which could only have gone up since 2008:
• The value of real estate held by churches in the US: $230 billion
• Amount given by people to churches annually in the US: $50-60 billion
• Church building debt, service (major repairs and renovations), and maintenance consumes about 18% of that value.
• “Overhead” (as defined in a business sense – any expense that does not involve directly providing the good or service – in other words Biblical functions) consumes anywhere between 50-85% of that total (the average trends towards the 85% mark and some up to 90%).
In the end, a pastor just spends his time trying to stoke the machinery and keep it going week after week. It can be a spiritual drain as well as physical one with the pressure of keeping money coming for the increasing salaries and building expenses.
Then you’re supposed to fit a sermon in there somewhere. 95% of the people involved will only know the sermon as the only thing you do. And you would have very little control over what you say or do in some denominations as you would have to follow a ritual and lectionary to the letter.
Finally, the problem with becoming an actual factual preacher in these venues is that you serve at the pleasure of the people (be it the congregation, denominational authority, or otherwise). In short layman’s terms, you’re an employee. An employee with certain responsibilities, goals, and such to meet as any employee has to anywhere else in order to keep your job. These involve meeting the three Churchian goals listed above. In that way, it affords the people you act as preacher to a certain level of control over you and your message. If they don’t find the message pleasing (Isaiah 30:8-10; 2 Timothy 4:1-5), they’ll drop you and find someone that will, sending you away with bad references (insubordination) which will follow you elsewhere and really crimp your ability to preach anywhere else. These factors make it so you become a servant to men and not a servant to Christ (Galatians 1:10).
Yes, preaching on women’s responsibilities is a great idea. I have seen it done. The women revolt and the pastor is quickly fired.
Pagan Christianity says it this way as part of relaying the conclusions of some statistics cited (2):
Imagine for a moment you were working for a company that paid you on the basis of how good you made your people feel. What if your pay depended on how entertaining you were, how friendly you were, how popular your wife and children were, how well-dressed you were, and how perfect your behavior was?
Can you imagine the unmitigated stress this would cause you? Can you see how such pressure would force you into playing a pretentious role – all to keep your authority, your prestige, and your job security? (For this reason, many pastors are resistant to receiving any kind of help)
Given the expectations placed on these men, is it any wonder that there will be bad results out of it. The book continues in making observations about the statistical survey results of pastors as it was given (3, 4):
• 1400 ministers in the US are fired or forced to resign each month.
• The average length of a pastorate in the US is four years. 40% of those resignations are due to burnout.
• Professional standards of conduct dictate how pastors are to dress, speak, and act. This is one of the major reasons why pastors live artificial lives. In this regard, the pastoral role fosters dishonesty.
• Most pastors state that they can not stay in their office without being corrupted in some way.
• The politics involved in the position is a huge problem that causes isolation and poisons relationships with others.
• Loneliness is common in the position. It drives people into other careers or (worse) into destructive behavior.
In conclusion, here is some of the truth that’s been found about what the position of pastor is about. Only your own conscience can decide what you do with all of this. Hopefully, if you have considered becoming a pastor, you’ve seen this and can use this as an aid to “count the costs” and see if that calling is really right for you. Otherwise, for those not considering it, hopefully it’s somewhat of a window into what is going on in the rest of the life of the pastor. Consider and do with it what you will.
(1) Pagan Christianity by Frank Viola and George Barna 2008 page 41 (2) ibid page 139
(3) ibid page 138 (4) ibid page 140
And yes, I know this sounds harsh, but I definitely would have loved for someone to tell me “the rest of the story” and not just the positive parts when it came to what I do (which for full disclosure is not “pastoring”) before I went down that road.
I started Seminary nearly two years ago. I stopped. Not a crisis of faith but because the deeper into my own church, which is not fully feminized but since our latest pastor getting deeper and deeper in, the more it became clear that the sort of conversation you have counseling drunks and drug addicted men are not the same you have with congregants.
To imply that the people in your church are in any way sinful like these fucked over, fucked up and broken men: unthinkable, unacceptable.
To call your church to repentance? To point out the dismal number of disciples they make? The lies, the bull, the state worship? Forget it.
Nietzsche was almost right. Not God, but the Church is dead. At least in the West.
The church I’m now looking at has a Senior Pastor with an exclusive focus on spiritual leadership and another pastor with the title “Executive Pastor.” The EP’s role is exclusively the business of the church, freeing the other one to keep a steady hand on the rudder. It’s a far larger church than I am used to, but it seems very sound. Of course, it’s a situation that is somewhat unique. How many churches can afford so many pastors (the West Shore Free Evanglical actually has a stable of pastors)? They have been blessed.
West Shore Evangelical Free Church
Imagine for a moment you were working for a company that paid you on the basis of how good you made your people feel
It’s called PROSTITUTION, INC. It’s been around for a long, long time.
What if we sold off all our church buildings, gave the money to the poor, and started meeting in homes? (Oh, yeah, right… that’s a violation of zoning laws…. treasonously unconstitutional zoning laws but dont’ get me started.. Better to play some loud music and throw some beer cans on the front lawn, so the authorites and anti-Christian neighbors will think you’re having a secular party… )
In Judaism, you were required to have a minyan (quorum) of ten adult men, before you could start a new synagogue. Why ten? Because if TEN men each give 10%, that makes… one average income… and thus you can go hire a rabbi. If you don’t have ten tithers, you can’t afford a rabbi, hence no synagogue.
So… PROJECT MINYAN:
1. Sell the buildings and give to the deserving poor (thru Samaritan’s Purse, World Vision, local shelters, etc)
2. Organize the church into cell groups of minyans — ten tithing Christian laymen (at least).
3. Each minyan, by tithing, supports one fulltime pastor, at the same average standard of living as the congregation (and btw, this level of support also allows the Catholics to be more flexible about married priests, if their leadership should so choose). Some minyans may support overseas missionaries; indeed relieved of the expense of buildings, we could send a lot more.
4. Meetings are held from house to house, like the Amish or like the Ancient Catholics. With ten men (at least), this means that each one hosts the meeting only once every 10 weeks, which should minimize trouble with zoning laws. “It’s just a party officer; we’re serving bread and wine!”
5. As the congregation grows beyond 10, and/or as people feel led to give beyond the tithe, the excess money should be funnelled right to the poor, as in item 1. Relieved of the expense of buildings, there should be a lot more money for the poor.
6. When congregations grow too large for a house, they split. New leadership is cultivated and promoted from within to take care of the new groups.
7. Once in while, larger group meetings are appropriate; rent a meeting hall or select a reservable public park space for this…. as long as it is safe for Christians to do so.
8. With most “church” happening in smaller groups, the need for singles to find mates needs to be addressed. (Of course the current institutional church has catastrophically failed on this point… forcing many of us to resort to the internet.) The occasional larger group functions serve this purpose partially, and also the local church groups need to schedule purely social matchmaking events — dances, hikes, beach parties, etc — fairly regularly. Internet matchmaking can still go on, as long as it is safe for Christians to use the internet..
9. The house churches should NOT be incorporated under 501c3. etc This means they are largely off the government radar (at least for now), and can freely teach on politically sensitive topics.
10. There is no rule 10.
I’d never consider being a pastor of an institutional church. I MIGHT be persuaded to become a leader of one of these house churches…
ugh… can you fix the format of item 5…. somehow I missed the linebreak.
[B: Done.]
VR beat me to asking (in a roundabout way): do you see a way out of this? Or I should ask: what, if anything, do you see people doing, in the not too distant future, to get out of it? Is a return to house-churches really feasible, especially for those for whom denominational authority is important?
I’d change the word ‘vocation’ in paragraph six to ‘career’ or ‘trade’: the traditional meaning of the word is at odds with the informal meaning you intended, and, given its etymology, it looks particularly strange when contrasted to ‘calling’.
Is a return to house-churches really feasible,
Outright collapse of social order — with or without intentional persecution of Christians — may soon force it on us. If it’s not safe to travel far from home, and/or if there’s no fuel to drive, a house church witihin walking/biking distance is the only game in town.
especially for those for whom denominational authority is important?
Even the Catholics once met in houses, and this didn’t seem to interfere with the operation or development of the hierarchy at all.
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There’s a difference between building an institutional structure and going against it, though. Barring ‘outright collapse of social order [in the US]‘ (which I suspect would mean everything going ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ in short order, rendering this question moot): given that a large portion of the blame for Churchianity lies in institutional leadership, they’re unlikely to look kindly on anti-Churchian decentralization. They’ll call it rebelliousness – which, in at least one way, it will be. A few possible reactions follow, most of them bad, and none of them pleasant.
‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’
Great book. And I’m sorry to say, I’m pretty darn sure, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. The “Red Dawn War” is almost upon us. Unless I’m totally delusional, a hypothesis that cannot currently be ruled out.
One of the things Pagan Christianity pointed out that I didn’t quote is how amazed the author was at how many pastors couldn’t connect their stress to their job. That said, the problem that’s always happened for setting an earthly man in such a prominent place, in full control of a publicly known institution with all the money and influence it entails, is this: It makes men prideful. Men always seek the money and power and will do everything they can in order to both gain more and to keep it. This is why you’ll never see such changes short of violent changes in the norm. It’s also why they can’t see the fruits of what they are doing. They are literally rotting from the inside out.
When I study Scripture, though, it gives me the feeling (given the fact that God’s people are almost always persecuted by those who claim to be God’s people) that Churchianity is going to represent the violent change in the norm. Sometime in the future. It’s just a feeling that I wouldn’t present as preaching of truth, but a consistent feeling I have nonetheless.
I guess career or trade is good there as well. I was trying to convey the idea that kids coming out of high school think of being a pastor as nothing different than any other career choice. In other words, “I can go to school to be a doctor, lawyer, or pastor.”
@RTP
Did you find that church through Voddie Baucham-related channels?
Well, I guess this will teach me to comment. The minyan idea van Rooinek presents above has merit. Now some thoughts:
1) You do not have to go to seminary to be a preacher. That’s Pharisaical thinking. The Jews in Christ’s time were amazed that the twelve Galilean rednecks who followed Him around could expound on the law, but they were the one’s Christ picked to get the Gospel out. “Not many wise of this world…” etc. If you are a member of a denomination that requires you to parrot doctrines you do not believe and that has feminized the Gospel maybe you should consider a change of scenery. Or, if you prefer, keep protesting until they kick you out. If it’s because you’re telling the truth there’s no shame (for you) in that.
2) Deacons, as defined in the New Testament. The purpose of the deacons in the New Testament Church was to take care of the day to day temporal affairs of the congregation so the apostles could be free to preach and teach. Deacons serve the same purpose today, only they free up the preacher/pastor to do his work.
3) Be ready and willing to suffer for Christ. If you are ready and willing, He will make you able. I reiterate my point: If you want to be a MRA, take up the Bible and the Cross. Don’t waste your time complaining about ear-tickling “preachers” who desire to please womyn, instead just get out and do the job yourself. You don’t have to be eloquent, or a Greek/Hebrew scholar, or polished or pretty. John the Baptist walked around wearing a camel skin eating bugs. Would that I could force Joel Osteen to do that for a week.
The Jews in Christ’s time were amazed that the twelve Galilean rednecks who followed Him around could expound on the law, but they were the one’s Christ picked to get the Gospel out
Galilean Rednecks? Interesting. I always thought rednecks were red-bandanna wearing Scottish Convenanters, and their Ulster and American backwoods descendants.
If the apostles were indeed Galilean rednecks, then this book makes more sense:
Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War
VR
I’ll let you know how this plan work within a couple months. RIght now my church is being sued by the ECUSA for our property, accounts, etc. We lost the case, appealed it, and now it is awaiting judgment by the Texas Supreme Court.
The good news is that your plan is way too long. All you have to do is tell the women, queers, socialists, etc. “No”, and poof! you’ve got your very own Minyan Project.
What it does lack though, is denominational rigor–there’s no hierarchy in your system. You may say that’s good, men are free to do as they wish, but it’s probably a good idea to take a look at what men have been doing with that freedom. Whatever it is: it isn’t church. As sad as the current state of affairs is, the denominations held it together pretty well over a long time. It’s not a coincidence that the rise of overt female church leadership tracks right along with the rise in non-denominational churches. Liberals splittered out, scavenged off members from traditional churches; who, in turn, panicked, and started to become like the non-doms.
Cane Caldo says I’ll let you know how this plan work within a couple months. RIght now my church is being sued by the ECUSA for our property, accounts, etc. We lost the case, appealed it, and now it is awaiting judgment by the Texas Supreme Court.
Oh, my sympathies. You are in the midst of the awful Anglican vs Faglican civil war…
All you have to do is tell the women, queers, socialists, etc. “No”, and poof! you’ve got your very own Minyan Project.
It would have only taken ten righteous men, to save Sodom itself.
What it does lack though, is denominational rigor–there’s no hierarchy in your system
Well… as I said, the Ancient Catholic church operated that way for a long time. Just because you meet in houses, doesn’t mean you can’t have hierarchy, doctrinal enforcement and accountablitity. Indeed… accountability is *all the more necessary* in such a situation.
It seems to work for the Amish.
@van Rooinek
Thanks.
You might be right, but in the long run it’s probably just easier to take the churches themselves back. Pastors are humans, too. There are plenty of them that are just scared, and hanging on for dear life. I’m not saying pastors should be this way, but there it s. In some ways, pastoring is just a career. Someone has to pour the cups and break the bread. This is one of the things I grew to like about Anglican/RCC/etc/ churches: There’s a healthy pattern to follow, and the pastor can be a caretaker–though he should never be as submissive as most now. Without the ritual-enabled caretaker in the Baptist churches, I watched too many Baptist pastors flail around in an attempt to be “relevent”.
If your Red Dawn prophecy is correct, there are going to be a lot of empty houses of worship when everyone heads for the hills, gets rounded up, whathaveyou nightmare scenario. We can just use those.
If your Red Dawn prophecy is correct, there are going to be a lot of empty houses of worship when everyone heads for the hills, gets rounded up, whathaveyou nightmare scenario. We can just use those.
I don’t think it would be safe. The Faglicans/Lesbyterians/Pouferans, who aren’t real Christians, would simply drop all pretense of faith, and would gladly hand us over to the Communists. Real Christianity in such a scenario has no choice but to go underground. The institutional, visible, building-endowed churches will either be destroyed, or will become tools of the occupier.
Oh, and it’s not my prophecy.
http://terrybreathinggrace.wordpress.com/2012/07/09/have-we-renounced-our-citizenship/#comment-7941
@Cane Caldo
What about Congregationalist churches, which are effectively a federation of independent churches whose congregations decide their own policy, as in the UK do Baptists. And is denominational rigour, for example in ECUSA such a good thing. BTW surely it was because you said “No Poof!” that you were in the position of making a unilateral declaration of independence. It does not matter whether you have a denomination or not, if the people who lead the church are God-fearing men than you will have a holy congregation, but if the people who lead are more liberal with their theology then you will be back where you started. You may have shown correlation, but have you shown causation.
@Okrahead, if you look back in the history of the Church of Scotland, you will find that a lady called Jenny Geddes dealt with what she perceived as heresy by shouting “Daur ye say mass in ma lug?” (Dare you say mass in my ear) and then throwing here stool at the preacher in St. Giles cathedral in Edinburgh. They ended up kicking out the idea of episcopacy and the Church of Scotland became/remained presbyterian. There is indeed no shame in being kicked out, or leaving, if the majority of the church decide to be conformed to the society in which they dwell. Sometimes the enemy has a very soothing voice and many are deceived.
Eh, I don’t know about Red Dawn. Invasion is something that happens to countries without The Bomb. The problems of hauling an army across an ocean and having it occupy something here without anyone popping a W80 into it are probably insurmountable. (Not that the attempt might not be a handy way of solving China’s gender imbalance. I’m just saying it isn’t going to mean foreign boots in Peoria, or even Portland.)
That said, I don’t expect the US to be in one piece by 2030, and I don’t expect it to go to pieces quietly. It’s the main reason why I consider singleness less of a nightmare than you did.
@ukfred
I don’t know about the different flavors of Baptist in the UK, but here there’s one called the Southern Baptists, and they belong to the Southern Baptist Convention. They’re independent, but they do have to submit to the “Baptist Faith and Message”. So, in the scenario, they don’t have to be hierarchical.
I do want to say though that the recent disgusting behavior (and I mean this century, not just last month) of the ECUSA and Anglican communions of the West, generally, doesn’t speak against hierarchy. It speaks against progressive thinking; against the idea of progress itself. They thought they could preserve the hierarchy of the structures (churches and clergy), while defenestrating the hierarchy of thought (scripture and tradition [affirmed and confirmed tradition; not mere habit]).
I can hear the Roman Catholics sniffing, “You don’t say!”
I note a denomination that is an exception to the above: Primitive Baptist. It’s nonhierarchical and there’s no seminary to attend.
Don’t quit your day job, though. Elder ( “minister” ) is NEVER a paid position. That’s actually one of the requisites for becoming an Elder . If God has called you to preach, you’ll do it for free.
denominational rigor? LOL
churches should be separate from each other, that way if one church goes astray they don’t lead all the others astray. For an example see every single denomination.
What makes it worse is that it is de rigueur for pastors to be married. Rumor has it that they don’t even consider pastors who are single. When you’re single, you’re the only one left out in the cold when you get fired – so preaching uncomfortable truths might be doable. When you’re married, the whole family gets kicked out with you (since the wife generally works in the church in some capacity). How many times do you put your family below the poverty line in the name of truth before you decide “forget preaching, I’d rather sell shoes” or “okay, I’ll never mention that subject again. There’s plenty of other truths I can preach that won’t get me fired.”
It’s a sad state of affairs.
“Imagine for a moment you were working for a company that paid you on the basis of how good you made your people feel. What if your pay depended on how entertaining you were, how friendly you were, how popular your wife and children were, how well-dressed you were, and how perfect your behavior was? ”
Hey! Sounds just like banking!
The sad thing is, the second other churchians think you know a little bit about the Bible, the first thing out of their mouths is “Wow, you should be a pastor!” I admit to have been guilty of this early on, but I’ve been cleansed.
Pastor is one of the last jobs/roles I’d want. In many churches, people tend to be lazy and assume everything is the pastor’s job. If pastor doesn’t do it, then it doesn’t happen and they complain.
I’m convinced most of the real information a pastor should know could be self- studied. Why pay a seminary $80,000 to hire people who don’t even believe what they’re supposed to be teaching when you can learn for free or cheap in the Internet?
@Pallas
That can happen, but that is a fearing mindset. Which is better: to get dragged the wrong way for a bit–even a long while, or to fall down alone and die?
Ecclesiastes 4
@Cpt Capitalism
Aren’t you the son of a preacher man. You must have more to say.
“Denominational rigor” has become rigor mortis for churches throughout the U.S. (I speak of the U.S because that is where my experience has been). In the end, each of us will stand before God and answer for our own actions. I will not be able to point out that I was a member of denomination x and so should be granted salvation. Either I will have chosen to obey God’s word out of faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God or I will have rejected Him. No one else, church, family, government or friend, can make this decision for me. Perhaps an over-reliance on a denomination to under gird our faith for us has become part of the problem. The Episcopalians, United Methodists, United Church of Christ (NOT to be confused with the churches of Christ), etc. have abandoned the Gospel of Christ for the social gospel and political “progressive” propagandizing in the pulpit. There is no Biblical basis for clinging to the corpse of a “church” that proudly, publicly flouts Biblical morality and even “ordains” “priestesses” who deny the Deity of Christ.
Study to show yourselves approved unto God, workmen that do not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of Truth.
Preach the Word in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke and exhort.
Endure hardship as a good soldier of Christ Jesus.
Always be ready to give an answer for the Faith which is in you.
Put on the whole armor of God.
Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
Above all take up the shield of Faith, with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one.
Fight the good fight. Contend earnestly for the Faith. Humble yourselves before God and He will lift you up.
Pray for wisdom.
And when you have done all of this, expect nothing in this life but a prison cell and a death sentence.
Then you are ready, and if God be with us, who can be against us?
I was in Bible College years ago. I not only got discouraged by the shameful, NON-CHRISTIAN conduct of both students, faculty, staff, and administration; not only was I angry at the scandalous conduct (probable adultery, financial misdealing, and molesting children); I also read a book required for one of my classes: Lectures to my Students, by Charles Spurgeon. It was a compilation of lectures (in essay form) that he gave to his students preparing for the ministry.
One of these essays was about going into the ministry. While I can’t remember much of it (it’s been almost two DECADES since I read the thing!), I remember a couple of salient points. One was that young men, who’d failed at everything else, decided that God was leading them into the ministry. Not so, said Spurgeon: a successful pastor had to have business acumen and leadership to attend to the BUSINESS of running a church before and after sermon and couseling time. The second thing I remember (which really prompted me to leave) was this: he said that, if you can be happy doing anything else, then do NOT go into the ministry! Upon reading that, I felt that I could be happy, or at least content, doing many other things. Since I failed the two key litmus tests of Spurgeon and the aforementioned factors, I decided to call it quits at Bible College.
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The Baptist church in which I was raised did not allow pastors to be paid for their services (taking money for preaching the word of God? Heresy!) The house church idea is a perfect venue for a lay preacher who truly has a calling.
@ Cpt. Capitalism – the fear of man brings a snare ( pro 29:25)
Too many church leaders are NOT called by God ( I have no idea how they got into the ministry or why – my best guess is $$$$ and power).
Teaching is a double edged sword and “woe” unto him who causes a little one to stumble.
@Okrahead
Much of what you say holds true for the traditional denominations of the UK, just change the denomination names a little. When I look a little closer at the denomination I attend, on the national website http://www.methodist.org.uk/ and when searching on cohabitation you find a report that includes
“3.3 Although among evangelical participants there was strong support for Christian teachings on sexual matters as traditionally expressed, it is clear that these teachings have been and are being widely ignored among many younger Methodists. The practice of sexual intercourse and cohabitation outside marriage was regarded as widespread, sensible and right.”
This denomination also includes provision for civil partners and cohabiting partners of employees in its lay employees pension scheme. And it claims to be Christian. If being Christian means doing what Jesus told his followers and was an offence, is there enough evidence to convict? But it is not alone. Just about every major denomination has a gap between what the Bible says and what it does or believes.
Okrahead:
Eric S. Mueller:
I think these things lead into the second point. However, to address it directly, no you don’t have to go to seminary to be able to preach. The problem comes in being allowed to preach in a generally accepted venue, outside of becoming a pastor to meet the denominational rules. There’s always the non-denominational fringe groups, which accept you after paying them their seminar fee, but the problems I’ve seen with them indicate that they’re more off the rails than the other groups when it comes to correct theology, including some militant feminism.
As I’ve heard the same thing in the quote several times, I’ve personally had the desire and would probably accept any reasonable engagements anyone would put to me in person, but the problem is always what rules they impose on people that they would accept. But as stated above, it doesn’t take being a pastor to teach or proclaim. There’s always venues, and I’ve used a great number of them in the past before this one since I’ve accepted Christ. As I’ve stated before, I’ve always considered this a preaching ministry with the goal of both proclaiming the Word of God as well as contrasting that with the Churchian culture as things are. Consistent with that, there are several examples of posts on this blog that were written with preaching them in mind, and will be several more to come.
It’s not a question of denominational vs. non-denominational (I think “independent” is meant, since there are denominational independent churches out there). When there’s men involved, there’s always heresy involved as well. Both have their selling points, but both can be taken down easily. All it takes for a whole denominational order to be taken down is the leadership in the hierarchy to accept a heresy – it’s propagated to the rest of the churches by hierarchical order. While splits are possible, few out of the whole are usually willing to go that route given the costs. But it’s difficult to corrupt an individual entity.
Independents are harder to corrupt as a whole unit, but the individual units get corrupted easier because there’s no accountability past the elderships. The benefit in them is that it’s just one unit and one can move to another in town or the nearest next town easily. There’s always easy peer pressure if there’s a degree of interaction between these churches.
Being called really sucks. I’m trying to figure out how to fund going to seminary and at $9K/semester for tuition, it’s going to be tough. I already have serious disagreements with the political actions generally supported by my faith, but I’m bull headed enough to push onwards. When I get done, at best I can expect to make a lot less than I do now. And when I look at what I am driven towards, being a minister out in the community, I worry about how I’m going to eat.
Yeah, being called is also a curse.
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