Category: Leadership

No more teaching pastors!

preach or teach?I’ve written a few times about the language we use for things. Most recently in a post about giving. You may think I’m making too much out of language. Our language shapes how we think about things, though, and it reflects what we already think about them. The group of people I want to talk to here knows just how important language is.

Why I loved teaching pastors

I have old business cards that show my title as teaching pastor. I chose that title after seeing it a number of other places. One of my real-life heroes then, Rob Bell, was a teaching pastor. In fact, it seemed that most of the pastors whose podcasts I would ever listen to were called teaching pastors.

One of the things I loved about Rob Bell and others like him was that when I listened to them, I felt like they opened my eyes to something new about the Bible and theology. Honestly, several sermons I had heard from “preachers” up to that point seemed as though they chose something they wanted to talk about and then found a Scripture that said something similar so that they could have a Scripture passage for their message. There wasn’t much evidence they had spent any time in real Bible study before they got up to preach.

Listening to some of these teaching pastors was a huge influence on me. Their devotion to serious study of the Scriptures has inspired me to do the same before I should dare to preach. They taught me that seeing Scripture more deeply can be a most spiritually enriching experience.

And so I remember a time when my primary goal for preaching (I called it “teaching” then) in worship services was for people to learn something new — for them to see the Bible with a greater sense of depth. Maybe this would include showing them a map so they could see just why Laodicea might be called lukewarm. Maybe it would involve showing people how the same Greek word is used over and over in the New Testament for both “simplicity” and “generosity.”

Making those teaching points wasn’t bad. Actually, they made for some of the sermons I still look back on as most impactful.

The problem

The problem is that my primary goal for the message in worship services was for people to learn something new. The standard of success I had set for myself was whether I tickled people’s brains, whether they walked away with new thoughts and new understandings.

By calling myself a teaching pastor and by calling what I did teaching, I taught my people that this was the standard.

The problem is that a proclamation of the gospel was a secondary goal. Now I think I usually met that goal, but it’s hard for me to look back now and think that it was only secondary. And it’s disappointing to realize that I gave more energy to making sure people learned something than I gave to making sure that people heard the gospel.

In Evangelism in the Early Church (affiliate link), Michael Green says three things characterized preaching in the early church:

  1. They preached a person. The message was plainly Christocentric, with the stress on “his cross and resurrection and his present power and significance.”
  2. They proclaimed a gift. “The gift of forgiveness, the gift of the Spirit, the gift of adoption, of reconciliation. The gift that made ‘no people’ part of the ‘people of God’, the gift that brought those who were far off near.” Two prominent aspects of that proclamation were pardon for the past and power for the future.
  3. They looked for a response. Specifically, they called for repentance, faith, and baptism. Though baptism is a one-time calling (in most traditions), repentance and faith are ongoing responses — responses that include our thoughts, our words, and our actions.

What great standards for our primary goals in preaching! [Use the comments to tell me whether you agree.]

In my humble opinion — which coincides with the humble opinions of most great theologians through history — a proclamation of the gospel is essential to a worship service. A Bible teaching is nice. It can often be a great aid to that proclamation. But it’s not essential.

And lest you think I’m saying that each service needs to be about an altar call for non-Christians… I’m not. I believe the strongest Christian in your congregation needs to hear a message about Christ, a proclamation of a gift from God, and a call to response. We all continually need to share in proclaiming and celebrating God’s love and grace and continually need to respond.

The “teaching pastor” title and the transition from “preaching” to “teaching” in worship services seems to have confused what’s essential and what’s helpful. In our pastors’ and congregations’ minds alike, we’ve formed the impression that the chief goal of the spoken word in worship is learning. We’ve created a frame of mind that doesn’t see a problem with a message that never mentions Christ, so long as it gives people a better understanding of the culture of the Ancient Near East.

The place of teaching

To be clear here, I love learning, and I love teaching. I think they have an important place. More often than not, I hope that my sermons will continue to teach. I think the gospel comes more alive as we learn more. I like the Jewish understanding of Torah study as worship.

I also think there are plenty of places where it’s fine to teach without preaching — Sunday School classes, Bible studies, seminary classes. (I didn’t take certain classes in seminary because they were so light on teaching and so heavy on “devotional” material. That’s not what I went to seminary for.)

And finally, if your “teaching pastor” is in charge of teaching classes, not speaking in worship services, then it’s a great designation. Let them teach!

But in our worship, a proclamation of the gospel is essential. Teaching is just one useful tool for that proclamation.

So let’s quit putting “teaching pastors” in front of the congregation in worship, and let’s start putting preachers back up there. If those preachers teach some along the way, that’s great. But if they’re not preaching, it’s not worship.

[A note: we’ve tended to misunderstand another role in worship, too. See a brilliant piece by Jonathan Powers, “Desperately Seeking Worship Pastors,” here. If he and I are right, a lot of churches are misunderstanding the two primary leadership roles in their worship services. That’s no small problem.]

Can an elephant give birth to rabbits?

rabbit - elephantA few years ago, BarnaBooks put out a book titled The Rabbit and the Elephant: Why Small Is the New Big for Today’s Church. 

The premise of the book: If you put two elephants in a room together and close the door, in three years you may get one baby elephant. Put two rabbits in a room for three years and you better watch out when you open the door. There’s the potential for just over 100,000 rabbits.

And then there’s the issue of history. Historically, the church’s growth has looked much more like rabbit reproduction than elephant reproduction. Early Christianity spread by the increase of new, small churches across the land.

No one should know a history like this better than Methodists, whose circuit riding preachers spread the faith across England and the United States by establishing new churches everywhere they went. It’s telling that when Methodist preachers met with their district superintendents in those early days, they were to report how many churches they had started. Now, they must meet with their district superintendents to receive permission to start a new church. What a change in roles and assumptions!

I come across a lot of people who agree with the premise of The Rabbit and the Elephant. I get the sense that more and more people in the Western Church are coming to see the “strategic advantage” of spreading like rabbits.

Not just a different strategy, a different organism

What I’m not sure is taken into account: rabbits and elephants are different organisms altogether.

An elephant can’t survive if it’s the size of a rabbit. Baby elephants are ~260 pounds at birth. We see that mentality plenty in the church: “You need at least 75 people for critical mass to start a new church.”

And a rabbit’s health isn’t measured by becoming the size of an elephant. What do you call a 15-pound rabbit? Obese.

The difference between rabbits and elephants isn’t just size, but the very makeup of their internal systems. The same is true of rabbit churches and elephant churches. A typical American elephant church will spend about 50% on staffing, 20% on debt and property expenses, and the other 30% on programs, missions, and denominational dues (give or take 10% on each item). Though they all differ, elephant church staff/leadership structures are relatively predictable: senior pastor, discipleship, missions, music, age-level ministries, and administration.

Look at the budget and leadership structures of the early churches and the early Methodist movement, and I bet you’ll find a significantly different internal system.

What are America’s small churches? Rabbits or little elephants?

Most of America’s churches are relatively small. The mega church isn’t the norm. So you might say that most of our churches are more like rabbits. I don’t think they are, though. I think most of our churches are very little elephants. In fact, they might be such small elephants that their odds of long-term survival are pretty slim.

Look at our little churches and you’ll see budget allocations that are roughly the same as the big ones, though they may be skewed because the churches are too small to handle the needs of a typical elephant structure. Look at their leadership structures and you’ll see something quite a bit like those elephant churches, though three people may be filling all of the positions, and some (e.g., youth ministry) may be future goals rather than present realities.

Look at our little churches’ aspirations, and you’ll see a little elephant mindset. If they could, they would become full-grown elephants, with a 50-person choir and the VBS that everyone in town wants to come to. They go to conferences at jumbo elephant churches to learn how to do things like them. Their denominational leadership sets elephant-like goals for them (i.e. growth = success).

Can an elephant give birth to rabbits?

You see, I think a lot of people in the American Church see the strategic advantage to rabbit-like multiplication.* But they’re still elephants. They think like elephants, they act like elephants, and their “success” is judged on elephant scales.

Which leads to my question: can an elephant give birth to rabbits? I’m dubious. I think it’s as likely for God to create a rabbit ex nihilo as it is for God to bring forth a rabbit from the womb of an elephant.

I know I’ve more clearly defined/identified an elephant church than a rabbit church. I’ll save further definition of the rabbit church, and my reasons for preferring its nature, for the comments or a later post.

I’ll close with a great quote from “Messages from the Chinese Church: An Army of Worms” [pdf]:

It will not be an army of elephants that marches into nations like Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Iran with the gospel, trampling down the strongholds. Sometimes it seems as if a lot of mission effort consists of “elephant” plans – huge and grandiose strategies for overwhelming the devil’s strongholds and making him surrender his captives. But it is easy for border guards to detect an elephant entering the country! It makes a lot of noise and is impossible to hide. Elephants are easy to catch because they move slowly and are so visible. This seems to be how much mission work is conducted today. (Please understand we are talking in generalities here, for we know many of the Lord’s people from all around the world have faithfully been
laboring in these difficult nations for years. God bless them!)

[…]

While an elephant cannot advance into sensitive areas, little worms and ants can go anywhere. They can go into temples, mosques and even into king’s palaces.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. Agree, disagree, want to ask a question?

————-

* Although let’s acknowledge that elephant-style growth — two elephant churches create a baby elephant every three years — would be breathtaking compared to current rates of new church plants. The reason we’re not seeing even elephant-like growth: giving birth to a 260-pound baby elephant is no easy task. And it requires a healthy elephant to begin with.

 

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Pastors, theologians, and seminaries — consider Spanish!

The Hispanic population in the US is growing rapidly. A good reason to consider Spanish.
The Hispanic population in the US is growing rapidly. A good reason to consider Spanish.

If you’re an aspiring pastor or theologian, I think you should consider learning Spanish. If you’re a seminary, I think you should consider offering it.

For pastors — with the increase of Spanish-speakers in the U. S., and the small number of Spanish-language worship services by comparison, I expect one of the church’s greatest new “frontiers” in America to come in the form of churches and worship services that use the Spanish language. Whether aspiring pastors are preparing to lead these churches, or simply preparing to more effectively communicate with those who do, I believe they can benefit greatly from facility with the language.

I’ve heard the United Methodist Church has had trouble figuring out what to do with non-English-speaking Hispanics who are pursuing ordination. Ordination guarantees an appointment, and they don’t know what to do if there’s not a Spanish-speaking appointment to give them. That’s something the UMC will need to figure out and get over soon, or they’re going to miss a significant, growing portion of the American population.

For theologians — I expect Spanish to be an important language for upcoming theologians. It’s pretty common to see German offered in seminary, and sometimes even French, so you can interact with the bulk of non-English scholarly work of the past few centuries. With the rise of Christianity in Spanish-speaking countries, I could easily see Spanish becoming the most important non-English language for interacting with 21st century theologians.

(Aspring) pastors and theologians, think about it. Might it be worthwhile to study some Spanish?

Seminaries and divinity schools, might you consider offering Spanish courses? You’ll be preparing your students well for ministry and theological work in the 21st century.

For a good laugh, here’s a look at some of my early stumbles trying to learn Spanish while living in Spain: “The most humbling experience of my life…”