Pastor

The Danger of Unauthorized Use of Pastoral Authority

Kirk E. Miller

The following is from Harold L. Senkbeil, “Leading Your Sheep,” in Pastoral Leadership: For the Care of Souls, Lexham Ministry Guides (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2021), 54–56.

“The Bible, however, makes a clear distinction between authorized power and unauthorized power. The only legitimate way to do ministry is by way of the authority of Jesus: doing what he’s given you to do. … Many unfortunate dysfunctions arise when power is confused with authority. When pastors operate not out of their divinely commissioned authority but rather out of their private opinions and desires, conflict usually occurs. …

This works for a while; it may even work for quite a while, depending on the strength of the pastor’s personality. But you can see that it’s a strategy fraught with danger. It breeds resentment and discontent within a congregation for sure, and often these situations get ugly. People may suffer silently for a while, but eventually their resentment spills over into open resistance and rebellion. Now you’ve got a power struggle and contest of wills on your hands, as the pastor keeps trying to outsmart the opposition and form allegiances among his fans against his enemies. It’s a powder keg situation politically speaking. And you know for sure you’re in for trouble when the church is viewed increasingly from a political point of view.

So when you do ministry by power, you’ve got a potential brouhaha on your hands organizationally speaking. Worst of all, where pastor and people lock horns in a political power struggle, a church is collectively delivered into the hands of the great politician, the great power broker: Satan.”

An Unbusy Pastor | Eugene Peterson

Kirk E. Miller

From The Pastor: A Memoir by Eugene Peterson. Excerpt originally published at YouthWorker.com.

‘As a congregation, we had achieved critical mass, we were self-supporting financially, we had built a sanctuary that gave visibility to our worshipping presence in the neighborhood. It was the beginning of what I earlier called the badlands era in which the euphoria of establishing a church had gone flat,the adrenaline of being involved in a challenging enterprise had drained out. I had worked hard for those three years. The congregation had worked hard. We couldn’t sustain it.

Except that I tried. I formed committees. I made home visits. Longer hours. A longer workweek. Just a few years previous to this, Roger Bannister, the first 4-minute miler, wrote his autobiography in which he described life following his high-profile athletic celebrity. He wasn’t breaking records anymore.He compensated by working harder and harder. He described himself as a carpenter who “made up for his lack of skill by using a lot of nails.” That was me. I had tried to slow down. I had tried to relax, but I was afraid of failing. I couldn’t help myself.

One evening after supper, Karen—she was 5years old at the time—asked me to read her a story. I said, “I’m sorry, Karen, but I have a meeting tonight.” “This is the 27th night in a row you have had a meeting.” She had been keeping track, counting.

The meeting I had to go to was with the church’s elders, the ruling body of the congregation. In the 7-minute walk to the church on the way to the meeting I made a decision. If succeeding as a pastor meant failing as a parent, I was already a failed pastor. I would resign that very night.

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Must Elders Be Old? (Or, Can Elders Be Young?)

Kirk E. Miller 1 Comment

The following is from a correspondence I had with some area pastors over the question, Must those who hold the office of elder (aka: pastors, overseers) be old. Or, in other words, can they be young? Does the term “elder” necessitate a certain age criteria?

On the age of elders:

The word undoubtedly comes from the Jewish context, in which it refers to the leadership office within the Jewish community. The term seems to originate from the fact that those leaders were generally the aged and experienced men in the community.

However, the word seems to come to serve as something of a technical term for that leadership office, not necessarily implying in any absolute way a certain age requirement. (We want to avoid the etymological fallacy here of equating etymological origin with meaning.) This seems to be the type of use that is carried over into the New Testament church context, where it serves as a technical term for the leadership office.

But don’t hear me wrong. The terms used for the office seem to convey something of the meaning and nature of the office. So, for example, the parallel term “overseer” implies that this office is one of oversight. Likewise, designating the office as “elder” implies a certain wisdom and experience. (So, whereas the terms “overseer” and “pastor” seems to designate something of the function of the office, “elder” seems to designate a qualification to the office.) And no doubt (cf. 1 Pet 5:5) this sort of wisdom and experience implied by the term “elder” often does come with age (although age does not guarantee this maturity any more than youth makes this impossible). So I don’t think it’s entirely moot or irrelevant to consider the age of potential elders.

But, especially when we note the context of the church as a “spiritual” community, it becomes clearer that the sort of wisdom and experience in view here is likely that of one’s Christian faith. So for example, an older man who newly coverts would not qualify, even if he is an “elder” in terms of his physical age. This is made clear when Paul says that an elder cannot be a recent convert (1 Tim 3:6), which seems to show that it is a candidate’s “spiritual” experience that is in view in the idea of “elder.”

On the other hand, this implies that a young man may be qualified if particularly wise and experienced “spiritually.” Paul seems to assume this when he tells Timothy not much to allow anyone to look down on him for his youth (1 Tim 4:12). He also assumes this when he gives instruction to elders on how they are to relate to those who are much older than them (1 Tim 5:1ff), which implies these elders must be relatively young, or at least much younger than many of their congregants (so not the “elders” of this community as far as physical age).

Again, this is not to say that age is not a relevant factor. Often times experience does come with age. But I would hold that the Bible does not outline age as an absolute requirement (or qualification for that matter), given the sort of maturity in view — primarily “spiritual.”

Doug Wilson wrote a good article on this here.

Why I Aspire to Be a Pastor

Kirk E. Miller 6 Comments

1 Timothy 3:1 says something like, if anyone wants to be a pastor, they desire a noble task.

I aspire to be a pastor. Let me give you a few reasons why.

An introductory comment

As far as many of you are aware, I was currently preparing and planning on entering academia. For some time now, I have wanted to be a professor. However, that has recently changed. I want to be a pastor. Now, in one sense, not a whole lot has changed. Originally I wanted to be a professor and a lay elder (pastor). That is, I wanted to make my living teaching in the university but serve (unpaid) as an assistant pastor of sorts in the church. However, now I desire to be a pastor full-time so to say. This is a change in direction. Maybe not a terribly drastic change. It’s certainly not a abrupt change; this has been developing over a long period of time, even prior to my noticing it. But it’s a change nonetheless.

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