“… believers [need] to be engaged in building the Kingdom. A high proportion of the country’s evangelical pastors are due to retire over the next few years. Planting a church should strike a chord with the younger generation’s desire to do something for God and allow them to participate directly in building the Lord’s community”

The writer seems to imply that a high proportion of evangelical pastors being due to retire soon is a bad thing. Perhaps it is a good thing, since it shows that most “elders” are indeed older men – should that not be the norm?

There is also the implication that the normal desire to do something for God should lead to church planting and that this allows people to “participate directly” in building the Lord’s community. Does that leave the rest of us doing things only part-time for God and building the Lord’s community? Rather, we should be encouraged in how we can be involved in God’s work in our everyday lives – speaking and living for Him as we rub shoulders with people at work, at home and elsewhere. “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:17). The gospel spreads through ordinary people living and speaking extraordinarily – doesn’t it?

“Does the rise in ministers mean that less ministry is happening overall?”

I fear this may be so – patterns and views of ministry that are espoused in evangelicalism can be less than Biblical and (therefore?) mean that less ministry is actually happening and part of it is linked to how people become church leaders.

An elder is an older man

Biblical descriptions and qualifications of church leaders – elders, older men (and also ‘ministers’ – ie, deacons) – seem to assume age. It seemed normal for potential church leaders to be married with children – so that their suitability for caring for a church could be judged by how they managed their own household. They had to be well thought-of by outsiders – which, one imagines, might well include the ability to earn their own living and not be dependent on others [admittedly, this last comes from 1 Thess 4 where Paul is writing to the whole church – but an ability to earn one’s own living should cause one to be well-thought of by outsiders].

In contrast, our default model seems to be approaching students or recent graduates and ask them to consider full-time paid gospel ministry. Why are we looking for ‘elders’ among people in their early twenties? The Bible pattern seems to be that church leaders are drawn from older men already suitably qualified rather than from a pool of people who have been on the “church leader development track” since their twenties. Although, there is a “church leader development track” scripture – and every man is on it whether he likes it or not. This track is simply the normal Christian life – often buttressed by the testing grounds of marriage and fatherhood and the need to earn a living (see above).

This is neither to say that young men should not lead churches (one imagines that we should not despise latter-day Timothys because of their youth); nor that people should not be trained – but the norm appears to be older men being elders.

I do some work for a trust that funds theological students and I see applications that include lines like “I felt called to church leadership while at university”. Firstly, I might want to probe how the person felt called. The main calling in the New Testament is to follow Christ. Perhaps a better line would be, “People said I should consider paid Christian work because of my character and gifts”. A good response to this might be “Are they offering you a job? If not, then perhaps you are not being called right now but come back in 20 years (when you really will be an elder). In the meantime, be faithful in the small areas God has put you in; perhaps raise a family; search the scriptures to check what you are being taught by older men; earn your own living; speak and live for Jesus there; and we shall see how you get on with that.”

A further drawback is that young men “studying for the ministry”[1] often rely on the earnings of their wives. Should that really be so? The wife serves two masters (her husband and her employer) and the natural result of sexual intercourse is carefully avoided[2]. Furthermore, the young man then gets to lead a church while his children are still very young – and it is therefore not easy to see if his children are submissive or believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination.

When my full-time paid, secular job was made redundant no-one at a church which follows the “train younger men to be older men” model suggested I consider paid church leadership. At 48, was I too old to be an older man?

More ministers – less ministry?

I suspect less ministry might be happening since selecting younger men and training them to be older men implies that the gospel is furthered best by more people being paid to pastor and evangelise – ie, paid spiritual gift exercisers (PSGEs – people who earn a living practising a spiritual gift[3]). This therefore leaves non-PSGEs unsure as to what they can be doing as Christians – ‘ministry’[4] is relegated to spare time and financial support. There is little vision for what ministry looks like outside a paid role.

“The Purpose-Driven Life” – a book by Rick Warren, a US church leader – starts with a great reminder that “it’s not all about you” [ie, that God is the centre of everything] and says many helpful things but the great disappointment for me was the close of chapter 36. Near the end of the ‘Made for a mission’ chapter (and what a great reminder that is) Mr Warren tells us about his father, who was a paid pastor, and his passion for souls (“One more for Jesus”). Mr Warren says, “I intend for that to be the theme of the rest of my life. I invite you to consider that to be a focus for your life too”.

But how? Unfortunately Mr Warren has little practical advice for us. The two people he invites us to emulate – himself and his father – are both pastors, a role very few readers of the book will play. And this, I suspect, is at the core of so many problems the church has in the west. PSGEs tell us how to run our lives, what to focus on, from very different positions and are poor at speaking into our own situations.

I think it is significant that the two examples Mr Warren chooses – and holds up as role models – are both PSGEs. What would someone look like whose focus was on winning souls and yet who was not a PSGE? Mr Warren does not tell us. Perhaps he doesn’t know many people like that. I certainly don’t. Now that would be an interesting topic.

The sheep look up but are not fed. Who is going to teach us how to fully live and speak for Jesus without being PSGEs?

This might seem like an unfair criticism – but I am responding to the question originally posed concerning how much ministry is going on and suggesting why there might be as little as the questioner feared.

“How then shall we live?”[5]

I suspect producing even more PSGEs is not financially sustainable. The Sydney article referred to above hints at this, “We are employing more workers and this has… significantly increased the cost base… [but] there has not been a matching growth in people attending church… this equation will become increasingly vexed”. Perhaps finance will force us towards where better theology would have done anyway.

1 Timothy 3 tells us that “If anyone aspires to overseeing-ship-ness[6] he desires a noble task”. It is a good thing to aspire to church leadership and (therefore, one might imagine) it should be the goal of every man – to be an elder along the lines that Paul goes on to describe. Yes, not all should be teachers (James); pastors and teachers are gifts to the church (Ephesians 4); but Hebrews 5:13 implies that all mature Christians should be able to teach. It should be the norm for older men in churches to be aspire to oversee[7] to some extent and churches should expect that of their men as they age.

Some men (and women) are terrific workplace evangelists. Such people should not be encouraged to leave their tent-making (at least, certainly not until they are ‘older’) but rather they should be equipped to speak and live for Jesus more and more where they are. Not only will they be effective there but they will be role models for the ‘normal’ Christian – and perhaps Risk Warren will write about them one day.

An 80s worship song talked about “An army of ordinary people”. Pray God we do not reduce it to “an army of paid gospel workers” – it is not Biblical; we cannot afford it; and it has not and will not reach the world with the gospel.

Presbyter Arneson – an older man but one who has never been paid to teach the Bible.

Simply that this subtly reinforces (in fact, not so subtly, given the exclamation mark) the message that ‘the ministry’ [I assume the writer meant being paid to exercise one or more spiritual gifts] is the best measure of committed discipleship. There is no room for sold-out disciples of Christ who  grapple with databases for the counci; sell kitchens; or dispense careers advice (as threee of our reading group do). Of course, the author would disagree, but out of the overflow of the heart does a man write – and speak. The writer would, no doubt, vehemently defend Christians living and speaking for Jesus in one’s everyday work – but why does he therefore hold out ‘ministers’ as a great proof of the effectiveness of evangelism?

Last month I got together with other friends – these were people with whom I had become Christians in my late teens in a church youth group. Of the men now aged around 50, all five were still walking with Jesus and – get this – only one was in ‘the ministry’. I think that is an achievement worth celebrating – ie, we had found ways to serve Jesus in the City, in a high-tech company, as a school teacher and in IT. People will hear the gospel only when ordinary men and women are living and speaking extra-ordinarily in their everyday lives.

And, Eddie, you’re the minister – but don’t feel too bad about it.

When people say they want “a better work-life balance” they may simply mean that they want to be paid the same money but work fewer hours. As well as it not really meaning what it claims, the term implies that ‘life’ and ‘work’ are distinct – but the opening chapters of Genesis teach us that work is part of life. Indeed, work is the main element of what ‘life’ should be.

But, returning to my friend, Andrew. Andrew should have been on holiday, leaving aside his work responsibilities and relaxing – shouldn’t he?

Well – consider the situation of a normal midweek morning and Andrew gets a ‘phone call from his wife and he is needed to help with a sick child. He is a father and a son and a husband – when at work, he does not relinquish the responsibilities that come with those roles; instead he may well drop what he’s doing to deal with that family emergency.

So, when Andrew is on holiday and starts up his laptop or jumps on a conference call, is he not just doing the mirror of this? The Christian should not be looking for a work-life balance – or, at least scripturally he should not be – instead he should be trying to deal with his responsibilities as both a family man and as a worker and colleague and not compartmentalising his life – and all this under the overall Lordship of Christ, rather than the oft-quoted hierarchy of God, family and then work.

Furthermore, knowing that he is able on holiday to take and make calls and send and receive emails, Andrew may well be less stressed in the lead-up to his holiday – knowing that he does not have to set in place systems to manage his two weeks away from the office. Also, he knows that an hour or two a day working, while ‘on holiday’, may well save him and his colleagues many hours – or even days – once he returns.

Andrew probably still works too many hours; he readily admits he likes the financial rewards that come with his many hours while acknowledging the strain on his wife as she manages the household, including young children. But part of the answer to 14-hour days in the office just might be to work more when you are on holiday.

The writer did not expand on what sort of price his Dad paid and why he paid it. Perhaps churches treated him badly; perhaps he over-committed to activities and people, But Paul tells Timothy that all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will get persecuted – not just those in leadership – and the desire to live a godly life is the norm for all followers of Jesus. We all have prices to pay.

The hard times will come because we are following Jesus, not because we are in Christian leadership. Certainly, the hard times Christian leaders get are going to be different from the price paid by others – followers of Jesus who are students or who work in an office are going to get different hassles as they seek to live and speak for Jesus – but should the price be more?

The danger in this is that we set up a two-tier discipleship: those who are in leadership and paying a price for it and those who not leading and therefore not perceived to be in the firing line.

While leaders might pay more obvious prices there are other dangers for the ‘ordinary’ Christian: not least because leaders often imply that it is the leaders who are paying the price and therefore there is no-cost discipleship for others.

Being a follower of Jesus often carries little cost in ordinary every day work, family and neighbourhood life. But it should do. And if the only call to radical discipleship is linked with serving God “full-time” in paid ministry then the rest of us are left wondering what it means to follow Jesus day-by-day – and the world sees little difference.

Our default setting – whether we are single, married, parents or child-free – is self-centred pleasure seeking. Mine has and continues to be.  The single and the child-free – those who would appear to have more time to devote themselves to God’s word – can often spend this extra time on socialising and screen-based activities (and by that I do not mean the Bible on their iPhone). Of course, there are glorious exceptions, by God’s grace, but pleasing self seems to win out more often.

And one advantage of having children is that you are forced into a discipleship relationship – one that requires time and effort on your part so that Christ is formed in the young people for whom you have been given responsibility. We must not let the world – and parts of the church – deflect us in this. Just as the responsibility for feeding, clothing and educating our children does not lie with the state, so the responsibility for bringing up children in the discipline and instruction of the Lord does not lie with churches, youth pastors or Sunday school leaders. Scripture places this responsibility firmly on fathers.

I have been a father for 25 years and the total age of my children is well over 100. I have sought to teach my children God’s word – and not just by delivering them to church each Sunday, to youth groups and to Christian holidays. I want them to learn God’s word from their father – and it is good for me too.

This has involved reading the Bible with our children at the end of meals. Any meal where we are seated together – which is most evening meals – I have got out the Bible and read it. I have concentrated mainly on the gospels, Acts, Psalms and Proverbs. Readings from these seem to stand by themselves most easily and can be grasped easily by younger minds (although I am open to correction on this). When we are doing a ‘Psalm year’ we read the Psalm for the day – for the first five months of the year this means the day of the year (more or less – eg, 12th April is Psalm 102); from July to December this has meant the day of second half of the year – eg, August 1st is Psalm 31. In June and December we might tackle Psalm 119 – eight verses at a time.

With Proverbs, a whole chapter seemed a but much – although there is one for each day of the month. So, in the first half of the year I have tended to do the first 15 chapters, dividing each in two – so on the 10th day of a month in the first half of the year it’s the second half of chapter five. On the 20th day of a month in the second half of the year it’s the second half of chapter 25. I like playing with numbers.

When we tackle a gospel we might read an event or a parable or two at a time.

After these readings I might ask one or two questions on the passage and it might start a discussion – or it might not. Then I pray or ask someone else to pray, based on the passage.

When our children were younger I used to read with them at night just before bed. This would involve going through the Old Testament narratives, from Genesis up to Nehemiah. Over the years I must have gone through this half a dozen times. As our children reached mid teens I dropped them off the listening group, emphasising that they should take an increasing responsibility themselves for hearing God’s word. I am now left with just our 13 year old, our youngest, and we are approaching the end of 2 Kings. I might do another round with him – I might not.

The above two patterns – meal-time and bed-time reading, especially the latter, are common in Christian homes. But as my oldest son reached secondary school age I was aware that I wanted to be opening the scriptures with him, studying it, swapping ideas and grappling with the text together. So, as each of my children reached 11 I started studying the Bible with them for up to an hour on Sunday evenings. We have gone through some of Paul’s letters, gospels, Old Testament narratives, some wisdom literature, Revelation and even a children’s guide to the Westminster Shorter Catechism (just the once). As more children reached that age I taught them in pairs, until recently often having two studies a night – usually the same material, to save me prep time.

These three areas, family tea-time reading, before bed, and Sunday evening study have exposed me to broad swathes of scripture in a way I suspect I would not have been otherwise. Even going through 2 Kings with my youngest I am learning new things – or, perhaps they are things I knew once but had since forgotten. Studying Mark with my four oldest and John with my four youngest – systematically from beginning to end – on Sunday evenings has given me a sweep of those gospels that I have not obtained elsewhere. And I do know an awful lot of Proverbs.

Quote from a prayer letter received today from a single professional christian in his early 20s: I want to read this from a 40 something in secular employment:

 

I know that this next season is not always going to be easy but is so where I need to be right now. The best is yet to come! The series at church at the moment is ‘This is the best year of your life’, and has been such a challenge to claim this year as the best year yet! 2011 will be a greater year of challenge, stretching, growth, deeper relationship and walking it out in faith! I am pumped for the coming months and so expectant to see some awesome things happen in and through me. For greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world!!!

Actually, I don’t.

If he dies now, you lose him. If he survives the war, there is always hope… The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather.

Why is this so? Discuss.

Today, if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart.

The team was super; they worked incredibly hard, serving one another with joyful hearts. The fellowship experienced on team is a glimpse of heaven and the closest I have experienced to the early church of living the gospel. We met each day for devotions where we looked at God’s word for  ourselves, we sang and prayed together before a short briefing for the day set everyone on their way into an action-packed mission day.

It is great to hear of people partnering in the gospel as it’s preached – giving themselves in service to each other to make Jesus known. But does this fully reflect the early church? One imagines that in the early church people had to earn a living and a team on a summer beach mission does not have to be concerned about such things. How can we live out the gospel - partnering in the gospel and serving – while earning a living too?