“A” PASTORAL SEARCH

As indicated I have been and continue to pursue the pastoral ministry having been out of it on a full time basis for some years. I have frequently been asked why I think that it has and is taking so long to return to that field of ministry for which I was prepared. It is a good question, but not being privy to the mind of God in such matters I cannot of course know exactly why this is the case. I do know this, our Heavenly Father is absolutely Sovereign in all that He does, and when in the lives of His children He does not do that which they pray about so very fervently as we have, then … I do not think that this is at all trite or simplistic … He most assuredly has His reasons.

Still it has been a most interesting time doing this search for over the past few years I have contacted literally hundreds of churches of many different, shall we say, “stripes”. And the great many responses that I have received back not to mention the great number of churches that have given no response whatsoever, have led me to believe that the church on a nation wide and indeed, a continent wide basis has gone through many great changes. Alas, the great disappointment in it all has been that the changes for the most part have been anything but positive in terms of the Scriptures or the Scriptural admonitions that the Word gives to us for the improvement of our spiritual lives. No, the greatest number of changes that we see today are for the most part cosmetic. They are there so that, we are told, the world will see something in us that they like or they admire or that they are drawn to and will therefore come in to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ being preached and “hopefully” somewhere along the line they will get saved. To be fair, it is a wonderful premise, but the problem is – it has no Scriptural support whatsoever and therein it falls apart.

Now of course I am not the only man seeking to enter (for the first time) or re-enter (as many other men are attempting) the pastoral ministry. And of course too there are a great many churches out there in North America, and in Europe and often we find that there are other countries of the world that are seeking men to minister in their midst whose primary language is English. We find in this wonderful technological achievement we know as the “internet” a fairly large number of web pages that have devoted themselves to making their services available to not only churches, prospective pastors, but a myriad of para-church ministries seeking workers. This is a wonderful resource for all.

One need only bookmark, as I have done, web pages offering these services and then visit them on a weekly basis. And when churches post their pastoral openings, usually with an appropriate e-mail address, then they receive from those of us who are “seekers”, an initial response with a pastoral profile of ministry experience, statement of our doctrinal convictions and in my case a very helpful and informative article by Pastor Mark Dever on the marks of a healthy church. The cover letter that goes out specifies the basics of our call to ministry, and what we have been about in terms of ministry over the past several years.

Well, as I have noted, I have sent out this “pastoral package” to a great many churches over the past few years. Then too so have many hundreds of very fine, qualified and I am sure, godly men. Sometimes the churches are so overwhelmed by the large number of replies they just do not seem to be able to get back even with a “canned” response. This is really too bad. Men in ministry or should I say “hopefuls for ministry” are as any men. They need to know that they are at least being considered, or prayed over or thanked for what they have done. But alas, it is not uncommon for better than eighty per cent of churches written to that do not get back with even a line or two of acknowledgement. As far as business and industry we are never surprised by this type of “lack”, but from professing brethren, we do expect more and it is disappointing not to receive it.

Well, so much for my pity party. I shall let it go at that.

There are of course a number of churches that do respond, often with very gracious and heartfelt words. The interesting thing here is the number of church “buzz words” that have begun to crop up in these responses. For example, many, many times I hear this expression: “Our search has taken us in another direction…”. I have never been able to figure out just what this means. I thought we were all going in the same direction. Apparently not.

Another expression that seems to be prevalent today amongst search committees is one that has been more or less loosely adapted from the business world. Churches today on a very wide scale are looking for men that will “… take us to the next level”. I am not sure if you were to ask these committees what the next level is all about if they could give a reasonably clear answer as to what this is all about. What level are they presently at? How many “levels” do they feel the church has? Or should have? And how would they know if and when the next level had been attained? It leaves me in a bit of a quandary every time I see this prerequisite being put forward.

Now not all of this work on my part has been in vain. Not at all. About two years ago I was taken at church expense to a small Southern Baptist church in northern Colorado. I preached twice; met with the elders board and enjoyed a wonderful week in a most beautiful part of the U.S. The problem? I will get to that shortly.

A month later, my wife and I were taken to a lovely area in California, and there we spent two weeks with a small church about half way between San Francisco and Sacramento. We had a lovely time not only enjoying that part of the state, but having some wonderful fellowship with several members of the church a number of whom had specifically mentioned that they were looking forward to our ministry with them. The problem in this instance was their present pastor. He had apparently told them some months earlier to begin a pastoral search in light of his health which at the age of seventy eight was beginning to deteriorate. They had agreed and begun the search. They made one large error (in my opinion), he remained with them to “help” in the search. In fact he had even called me on two separate occasions to ask questions just to make sure, as they say, that we were “on the same page”. Both times it appeared that he was satisfied with my responses, but when it came time for the church vote, he chaired the meeting and made it very clear that he was not in favor of our being called. It was a “show of hands” vote, and his was the first contrary vote to be registered, and enough followed suit to seal the matter. Though the church was fairly small, it was from that point on a divided congregation.

A few months later we were flown to Vancouver, British Columbia to spend a week with the folk of a small Baptist church. Again, I preached on two Sundays, took the Wednesday prayer fellowship during which time I answered all questions that the folk brought forth. It all seemed very positive. One of the Deacons, however, seemed very reserved in all of our times together, and when during a very casual discussion I happened to mention something about an upcoming Missions Festival that was shortly to be held in greater Vancouver, this man took great exception to my comments, and without going into the matter with me in any detail, used it to bring the congregation to yet another negative vote. While this did not do any “dividing” with respect to the congregational unity, such as it was, the one deacon that I had had a great deal of discussion with, was so dumbfounded by the whole matter, that he and his family left the church shortly thereafter.

But now what about that little matter that I alluded to a couple of paragraphs above? Well, in one sense of the word it has primarily to do with certain convictions that I hold to rather strongly. Of course I realize that in this day of rampant relativism, which by the way is fairly strong within as well as without the church, one thus should not be holding on to certain convictions that tend to go against the mainstream of both public as well as “church opinion”. However, I guess that I am just naïve enough to believe that convictions are convictions and should be stuck by in spite of the opinion of the masses. It is undoubtedly one of the things that has kept our marriage together over many years despite the number of contemporary couples that daily fall by the wayside because of “burnt toast and infidelity”.

Anyway, I have two rather strong beliefs that have gotten me into some rather warmish water over the years. The first of these has to do with the sanctity of the marriage vow. I believe, and I think that I have some rather substantial Scriptural backing that a man and a woman who take the vow of marriage before “God and these witnesses” have committed themselves to a lifelong marriage relationship. And, if perchance the marriage comes to an end because of, as they say, the “exception clause”, then there is to be no further marriage relationships established by either partner.

Now, I know, I have heard all and sundry of the various arguments about the alleged “innocent party” in these situations, but what God has for us here, prefigured in the relationship between husband and wife is the relationship that Christ has with His Body the church. Paul makes a rather interesting not to mention extremely strong statement on this in his letter to the Ephesians:

“’Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.”

Well, I suppose if we were to hold with the Arminians who maintain that man can lose his/her salvation and hence no longer have a Christ-relationship, then sure, if a man and his wife ‘divorce’, then they are free to re-marry. But, if we take these words of Paul at their face value (and a strong value it is!), then a man who is truly regenerated by the Spirit of God and has received the new life of Christ, then he is and ever shall be a member of that Body. Christ will not divorce him, nor shall he divorce Christ. It just will not happen. So, if the same relationship exists between a man and a woman, then “divorce” will not happen. There may be, in fact there often will be a physical separation, but in the eyes of God that “one flesh” relationship will remain.

Well, I mention all of this because I have brought these personal convictions which I believe to be Scripturally based, to a number of churches and even those of the same theological persuasion as my own, and have gotten shot down more times than I like to think about. I guess if I were to assume a more loving approach to the whole matter and just simply concede that well, it’s all right, for God doesn’t want any of His children to be unhappy. Problem is, I do not believe that is what the Word teaches. Hence, many of my rejections have been based on this belief which is opposite to many in the church of our day.

The second problem is one that is a little more difficult to get hold of for it involves something that has been with us for a much longer time, but has really only come to the fore in the last decade or so. That is the increasing problem of alcohol and the Christian believer. During my interview by the combined boards in Colorado the matter reared its ugly head in a rather surreptitious manner. I am still not exactly sure how it happened. At any rate, one of the deacons who had up to a point remained rather quiet with respect to many of the questions that I was fielding, suddenly became very animated in terms of whether or not he could take a “social drink” whenever he felt like it. My reply did not satisfy him. I tried to point out that of course Christians have such freedom if in fact they do feel “free” to so imbibe. My greatest concern was and is that those members of the Body who have taken on leadership positions would refrain from setting an example that could and probably would have a detrimental effect upon younger and much more immature Christians. We discussed the Scriptures that dealt with such problems, but slowly I came to the realization that I had met a brick wall. Had this come up with respect to some strong doctrinal issue I would certainly have been pleased to go over the matter in greater detail. But such was not the case. We were discussing the personal habit of a man who was not about to give up his Saturday afternoon beer with the boys because of someone who might stumble into a habit that he would be better off without. My potential “call” came to a halt at that point.

There is one other issue that has caused my wife and me more grief over the past ten years than divorce/remarriage and alcohol combined. In one sense it has more doctrinal issues at its root than perhaps the other two, but looking at it with a more casual glance, many would not see what they are.

About ten years ago the church that we had been members of for almost twenty years, and very much involved in ministry during most of that time, was introduced to what was more or less just getting underway here in Canada at that time. That was, under all of its various titles: the “mega church growth movement”; the “seeker sensitive church”; the “purpose driven church” et al. My initial read on it was simple – “it’s just another fad that will probably die away in a short time”. In this frame of reference, I lightly dismissed it. Unfortunately I was foolish to do so.

A short while later the pastor of that church announced his retirement and since I was on the elders board, I was automatically on the search committee as well. We proceeded to go through all the motions and procedures that were required of us and following a very intense year of search, we brought a man in from of all places , Colorado. He had all that the church was looking for, though for me personally I detected something that could develop into a problem if not addressed up front. It never was. In fact, the whole situation hit the fan the first week of the man’s ministry, and inside of nine months he was back in Colorado. During that time, however, he introduced the church to the whole “Willow Creek” experience and a number of the board members went to Chicago for the seminars. Before long we had a number of the church’s people very interested in a new way of “doing church”.

With the Colorado pastor’s exit, I rather hoped that the whole thing would be forgotten but the seed had been sown and before long the board was receiving recommendations – rather strongly worded, to look for a new man who was geared in this direction. After a few months such a man was brought to our attention and one evening the combined boards of the church met with him for over six hours. I probably brought more questions to him than anyone else and by the end of the evening I was certain that this would be this man’s direction for our church. A few evenings later, a select group of church leaders was brought together to get a presentation from this candidate on what he would do should he became the church’s next pastor. He was very specific and stated unequivocally that in his opinion “the mega church growth movement was where God was working”. Period.

He also went on to make clear that those who did not see things this way, they would have to be “said goodbye to”.

As it turned out, when I came to the realization that the preaching of the Word would be set off to the side in favor of all that the seeker sensitive movement promulgates as having more “relativity”, we felt compelled to leave.

Now, I say all of this for but one reason. This modern day movement has quite literally captured the hearts and minds of literally thousands of churches around the world. I do not agree with it for a number of reasons which hopefully in future “blogs” I will be able to give more attention to. For the present I will say only this: it is once again one of the prime reasons that I have not as yet been granted – from a strictly human point of view – a pastoral ministry. The main reason however, is simple: God in His Sovereign working in our lives has not as yet opened a wide and effectual door to us for ministry. In the meantime we continue to pray … and search … and learn … and wait upon Him, and Him alone for the direction that we know only He can give.

We do not seek a perfect church for the very simple reason that such a church on this side of glory does not exist. What we do seek is a body of people to whom we may, in His grace, minister the Word … and the Word alone. Church growth may involve numbers of people attending. Of course it may. But for us the growth of the church involves the growth of Jesus Christ in the lives of His own. Nothing is more important than that.