Category: UMC

The Modern Pastor and the Reformed Pastor

“There’s really only time for two things in ministry. Lead a fine worship. Visit the people. The program, leave to volunteers and gung-ho seminarians.”

Several years ago, I came upon that provocative advice from a man named Sam Stanley. It has constantly challenged me regarding the duty of the pastor.

Then a couple years ago I discovered Richard Baxter’s brilliant book, The Reformed Pastor. George Hunter calls it “the most influential book that most pastors today have never read.” That book probably influenced Sam Stanley considerably, whether or not he ever heard of it.

I wish the modern pastor could look much more like Baxter’s Reformed Pastor.*

The Reformed Pastor doesn’t have time for running a big enterprise. Only two things: worship and visit.

The Reformed Pastor can’t be consumed with climbing the career ladder or making more money. If they were unable to visit all of their people, Baxter told pastors they better cut their salaries and hire enough assistants to do the job. Here’s one of his not-too-subtle challenges for anyone whose congregation is too large to visit them all:

If you have but a hundred pounds a year, it is your duty to live upon part of it, and allow the rest to a competent assistant, rather than that the flock which you are over should be neglected. If you say, that is a hard measure, and that your wife and children cannot so live, I answer, Do not many families in your parish live on less? Have not many able ministers in the prelates’ days been glad of less, with liberty to preach the gospel?

Tell us what you really think, Mr. Baxter. The work is so good that I’m fighting to control myself from copying pages’ worth of direct quotation.

The value of visiting from house to house seems utterly lost. I heard almost nothing of it in seminary. I haven’t seen “model pastors” celebrated for it. I’ve practiced it far too little myself.

Before people are ordained in the United Methodist Church, they are asked, “Will you visit from house to house?” They affirm that they will. My friend Aaron calls it the biggest lie told at Annual Conference each year.

Why forsake more study, more sermon prep, more e-mails or strategic planning meetings, more church administration so that we can visit more?

A few reasons to focus on visitation, taken rather directly from Baxter:

  1. Evangelism – We have the best opportunity to convince people of the truth when we speak to each one’s particular questions and situation. We need to be able to say to the sinner, “You are the man!” and plainly mention his particular case. Too direct? Perhaps more later on our terrible inability to identify sin with clarity and care.
  2. Education – Visiting from house to house comes from Paul’s example in Acts 20. He says he taught in public and from house to house. Our people need personal instruction in the faith, not just public preaching. By the way, Baxter used a catechism for this.
  3. Preaching – Our preaching is much better when we know the people hearing it. This is the Word of God for the people of God. We preach best when we know both. I fear that more sermons now originate in the boardroom (the strategic direction speech) than a living room. I even worry that too many sermons originate only in a pastor’s study (the academic treatise or the personal reflection that misidentifies where others are).

A personal example: In a pastoral visit I made a while back, I ended up being able to confront someone very directly, yet lovingly, about some sin in his life. I also learned that he doesn’t read Scripture because he doesn’t feel like he knows how to, and I was able to give some instruction. I ended up standing in his doorway answering his questions about what sanctification is and how we receive it.

Yes, I believe visiting from house to house is one of the most important things for me to do as a pastor. I also know I do it far too little. My challenge is to find a way to give it the pride of place it deserves on my agenda. How about you?

So much more to say about The Reformed Pastor, visiting the people, Church discipline, etc. But I’d also like to get to some other topics. How interesting is this to you? Stay here or move on?

* George Hunter argues that Baxter was “a major source of error” and that John Wesley properly damned his work with faint praise and mainly ignored it. I get what Hunter is saying – that it shouldn’t just be the ordained acting as pastors – but I disagree with him on the value of Baxter’s work and how Wesley handled it. I think John Meunier gets it right on this.

Pastors’ Salaries and Church Buildings

pastor salary

Last week, I began to discuss pastors and their relationship to “church business.” Some of you told me you have similar concerns. Let’s press a bit further…

Whenever the church begins handling money internally – rather than giving it away – we get into sticky matters. How does the church properly use charitably given money?

Let me show you a few examples from my own tradition. I think they’re universally applicable.

Pastors’ Salaries

When the Methodist movement was growing rapidly, people began to ask whether John Wesley was getting rich off the whole endeavor. That would be a serious accusation against the man who wrote, “If I leave behind me ten pounds (above my debts, and the little arrears of my fellowship) you and all mankind bear witness against me, that I lived and died a thief and a robber.” Look at his brilliant response:

I look upon all this revenue, be it what it may, as sacred to God and the poor; out of which, if I want any thing, I am relieved, even as another poor man. So were originally all ecclesiastical revenues, as every man of learning knows: and the bishops and priests used them only as such. If any use them otherwise now, God help them! (from “A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists,” XV, 6)

  • How did they view the collection of the church? As sacred to God and the poor.
  • How did they pay their workers? They took care of their basic needs even as another poor man.
  • How long had the church’s collection been used this way? The bishops and priests originally used all ecclesiastical revenues this way.
  • Who should know that? Every man of learning.
  • What of anyone who uses the church’s collection differently now? God help them!

What if we still followed Wesley’s understanding of church leaders’ pay and the sanctity of the church’s collection? What current practices would change or go away entirely?

A personal test for church leaders: Are you in it for the money?

Buildings and Debt

Look at this requirement of early Methodist pastors regarding their buildings:

It shall be the duty of every preacher belonging to this conference to use his influence against constructing expensive meeting houses. (1816 New England Conference of the Methodist Church)

What if this were still every preacher’s duty?

It might be worth noting that the American Methodist Church experienced its greatest growth while the above was the rule. It has experienced its greatest decline during the period where bigger sanctuaries, gyms, and fellowship halls has been the standard.

Why were those early Methodists so against expensive meeting houses? A great explanation from the first Discipline of the American Methodist Church (the Methodist book on how we function), 1784:

Let all our chapels be built plain and decent; but not more expensive than is absolutely unavoidable: otherwise the necessity of raising money will make rich men necessary to us. But if so, we must be dependent upon them, yea; and governed by them. And then farewell to the Methodist discipline, if not doctrine too.

How much better off I believe the Methodists would have been if we had never removed this from our Discipline!


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Why the American UMC Is Dying a (Somewhat) Slow Death, and Concerned Leaders’ Best Response (Pt. II)

This is part 2 of my post about change in the UMC. See part 1 here.

Lessons for Leaders

For those of you who are exasperated with the system – who feel that you are fighting your best fight to see the slightest change, or worse, just to prevent things from getting worse – I pray that you won’t give up hope. I know there are many who have had enough and decided to give up. Some have remained in the system, conceded defeat, and continue to go about ministry with a cynical half-heartedness. Some have left altogether. I hope that many of our most passionate leaders will choose a third option. I hope you will dedicate yourselves to the ministry you envision and to encouraging like-minded leaders in the same pursuit. Invest yourselves fully in your own study and growth, aggressive personal evangelism, and intensive discipleship. By your actions, fight for the great ministry to which God has called you more passionately than you have ever fought for it in a boardroom. 

If the members of the failed task force mentioned in the previous post had spent just 50 hours on campuses and in dorm rooms, rather than the 500 hours we spent in meetings and planning, we would have had more contact with students  (and, I believe, much more effect) than some of the ministries we were evaluating. I believe this personal investment in ministry is the road to significant change, not only in an individual’s parish, but ultimately with broad, conference- and nation-wide effect.

My further encouragement for leaders who desire revival and change in the UMC may sound counter-intuitive. I think you need to quit and decline the committees you are being asked to serve. If you have proven to be a leader, you will continually be asked. But our system does not want, or will not allow, the change you desire. It perhaps wants to hear your suggestions so that it can choose a more moderate option and consider it movement in the right direction; it may openly reject your suggestions and be happy that all options were given a voice. But unless you have seen radical change take place already, you have no reason to expect it will come with your leadership. You simply do not have the power to accomplish it. I needed to hear this, and if you don’t already know it, I believe you need to hear it, too. Let people who love meetings go to the meetings while those who love ministry focus on ministry.

Quitting and avoiding committees is no boycott and no sour grapes, and we will do no favors to ourselves or the system by treating it as such. We do not need to be cynical about the system, but we do ourselves harm if we become idealistic and lose sight of the system’s inherent constraints. The committees themselves are not the problems. The problem is the distraction and the lost hours and energy on projects that will achieve minor change at best. The problem is that every hour you spend in a meeting is an hour not in a living room or knocking on doors. Every hour fighting to move larger structures in a slight direction one way or another is an hour not spent in study and personal growth. I am convinced that the minor change you may accomplish across the larger Church pales in comparison to the incredible change you will accomplish by actively doing ministry. I fear that those who continue accepting each committee invitation will look back in twenty years and realize that they have spent far too little time doing the ministry they believe in because they were fighting for the idea of that ministry in a meeting.

Some will say that they have a chance to achieve broad change in meetings, while their time in visitation will change only an individual. Our movement tells us something different. I don’t know whether the Church of England had committees, task forces, boards, and other strategic teams in John Wesley’s day. Whether they did or not, I am thankful that Wesley chose to spend his time doing the ministry he believed needed to happen rather than advocating for it in a Church of England boardroom.

Wesley transformed the Church of England more than any other pastor of his time, and yet we have no record of him achieving institutional change by working through the hierarchy. For idealistic leaders in the UMC who deeply desire a return to some of the great practices of the early Methodists, perhaps we should recognize that one of those practices was spending more time doing the ministry that needed to be done, even when the system made such ministry difficult, and less time trying to change the system from the top down.

I believe the UMC is dying, but I do not believe its diagnosis is yet terminal. I believe our greatest hope comes from those leaders who believe in renewing Wesleyan theology, aggressive apostolic evangelism, and intensive discipleship. I believe our best hope for change is from the bottom up, coming from these impassioned leaders doing what they believe in. To those leaders, I pray that you will not lose hope because of failures to change the system. I pray equally that you will not be distracted from the ministry by trying to change or manage the system. Devote yourselves to study, prayer, evangelism, and discipleship, and I believe this dying denomination still has hope for revival. Devote yourselves to the system – whether its management or its change – and I believe that system will soon be dead.