Professional Jesus People

Somewhere down the road (although it scares me), I may wind up as a senior pastor or even a solo pastor at a church. At some points, this is really exciting....something I really look forward to. At other times, I think I'd like to keep the job I have forever.....hanging out with teenagers and playing my guitar for a living.

What perhaps frustrates me most about being a pastor are some of my future colleagues. To be sure, this is no slam against my senior pastor, who is one of the most laid back and socially adequate pastors I've ever met. What drives me crazy, however, is the constant flow of pastors who come back to my seminary classes and try to impress the professor or us as seminarians with their large storehouse of knowledge. A couple semesters ago, we had this guy in one of our classes who we called "Professor Student". He was obsessed with sharing every bit of knowledge he had ever acquired and pumping up his own abilities in Greek and constantly reminding us how we were still in seminary and "not there yet". Yesterday, one of these guys just reeled off four sentences in Hebrew while he talked about how he uses it so effectively in his ministry.

I know the church he comes from...its floundering. Maybe try some English.

There's a catch 22 here. Having feet in two denominations has opened my eyes about the necessity of seminary education. Its obvious that certain pastors and leaders in my current denomination would have benefited (some just a little, but some huge amounts) from a mandatory seminary education. Firstly, the Biblical knowledge and theological perspective would help. However, exposure to ministry in different settings and the cross-fertilization of ideas would benefit them greatly. On the other side, ministry in the CRC seems to be defined by intellectuality, and it drives me crazy! When churches want to call you as a pastor, they want to hear your sermon tapes, as if sermons are the only thing you do. In order to get my license to preach in CRC churches, I have to promise to preach Christian Education and Heidelberg Catechism. Never mind relevance. I've taken multiple "exegesis" classes, learning how to interpret the scriptures for preaching and teaching. What did we do? Memorize the original languages. Argh. Today we discussed how we would teach about the Hebrew language and applications of the Jewish mishnah in adult bible study classes by lecturing. Wow.

One of the things that really cracks me up is the pride that pastors take in programmatic development and how closely its success is related to themselves. I addressed this in my most recent sermon. We always view ourselves so highly, as if our churches would become a hole in the ground if we would leave or somehow the passing down of the gospel will cease if I am not the facilitator. Shame on us.

My greatest concern when I go to fill pulpit supply now is not how prepared my sermon is, or how well I can announce songs (because everyone knows hymns are the only music we use), but whether or not I'll get a swift kick for not wearing a suit. If being a preacher means wearing a suit on Sundays, dressing up like a bank owner during the week, trying to dispense knowledge at every turn, and enjoying the sound of my own voice, then I'll stick with plucking my guitar.