For so long I've thought of church as event and/or organization.
Could we make a movie and call it church?
Could we fix a dinner and call it church?
Can we watch a football game, host a house concert, carve pumpkins and call it church?
Is church not just people in Christ's name gathered together. Can we embody Kingdom values as we do the things we do best? Can all our talents be gifts to God?
Church must become "living as citizens of a new world." It must pervade our lives.
If that becomes true, how does the weekly event fit into the mix? I'm not sure, but I'd rather concern myself with making the Kingdom reign in my life. We can worry about the event later.
Yes...yes...yes!!!
ReplyDeleteHas your class spent time discussing the role of the "ordained" pastor in all of this? If the church is a group--a citizenship, if you will, how does an ordained pastor fit? Is he/she primarily the leader that keeps people reminded of the vision? How does he/she justify a fully paid position? Or does the event, the "thing" perpetuate the position so that it has to become about events instead of Kingdom rule?
ReplyDeleteAnd, BTW, why is only the pastor considered ordained, since Hirsch is all about the 5-fold model of ministry. We don't ordain prophets. Usually we stone them.
I would say the pastor of a typical Western church is ordained and paid because that person carries a lot of responsibility. The pastor guides and maintains the church for all intents and purposes.
ReplyDeleteI would also say that what we think of as a pastor is a different thing than what the Bible means when it talks about pastors (which happens very rarely, by the way). Our pastors have to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, and teachers too. They should be paid. They're doing all the work of the church.
People in Alan Hirsch's camp are typically very anti-sympathetic to paid staff of any kind, and Hirsch's "pastor" and evangelicalism's "pastor" are very different things. In his more recent work, Hirsch doesn't even label that office "pastor." He calls it "shepherd," I think to differentiate it from the leaders of most hyper-Modern churches.
I'm also wary of elevating any gift above the others. Too often I hear, "But what about the prophets!" Maybe we stone prophets because they're often hard to get along with. Maybe they need to learn better interpersonal communication. It's one thing to call people back to God; it's another to tear people down. (And I'm speaking here as one whose primary gifting is prophecy. I need to learn grace.)
Perhaps we should "ordain" all five gifts. At the very least, it would be nice to see all five operating in more than one person.