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Good men doing a misguided thing
Abraham Lincoln said about the men of the South, fighting to defend slavery in the American civil war: “Never have so many good men fought so valiantly for something so bad”.
This is true for many, if not most pastors.
Good men, trying very hard, to do something, that is inherently wrong.
One Man Leadership
One of the biggest problems in the church today is the pastoral system. The notion that one man, plants and then controls a congregation indefinitely are not visible in the Bible. An easy test is to try and find out who the “pastor” of the church of Ephesus was.
- The answer is: “we don’t know”.
- The reason is that there was no “pastors”.
This applies to each church mentioned in the bible. You cannot find one person who has authority over or in a congregation like the modern pastor does for any of the 40 odd churches mentioned in the New Testament.
A Big Departure and a Big Mistake
The introduction of the “pastor” is a big departure from the original church model and a very big mistake. It is like taking a father or a mother out of a family. The family can limp along and try its best, but we must acknowledge that this not the natural order and certainly not God’s original design.
The pattern in the Bible is clear, even though not common today
see New Testament Church Structure
Pastors are one of the five main equipping gifts we see in Ephesians 4, but neither pastors not the other four equipping gifts are ever seen to rule or have sole authority over congregations. Pastors are not to operate without the involvement of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, and teachers. This is in fact like removing the father and leaving a single mother in charge of a family.
Malfunction in church life
Due to this departure from the Biblical pattern, there are now often huge numbers of unforeseen malfunctions in church life and even more bad strategies to fix or compensate for these malfunctions.
Control & Fear
The most obvious one is the use of control and spiritual manipulation though fear. Seeing as the pastor is convinced, he must remain in control of the church he will resist, derail or mame boys who are becoming men. The system does not honestly support or desire plurality of leadership.
The only control in the Bible is self-control and mothers who control young babies. Even God does not control us.
Secular business administration models are used to control and coerce Christians into submission to this so-called “pastor”. In many cases, would be “elders” do not have real authority but live in fear, subjugation, and spiritual manipulation to the pastor. The supposed elders in charismatic churches are handpicked by the “pastor” for submissiveness and for being “yes-men”.
Elders
Titis Elders are absent simply because no Titus Elder will submit to a pastortute.
Superstition and witchcraft
Some strategies for keeping saints inline involve the notion that God will curse you if you do not submit to the pastor or the pseudo-elders one finds in typical charismatic churches. The infamous book “Under Cover” by John Bevere is one such tool.
Diotrephes
It is sad to realize that often the man we call pastor is in fact the usurper. This is especially confusing if God used them to plant the church and touch many lives. We struggle to realize that holding sway over a congregation is false.
I wrote to the church, but Diotrephes, who loves to have the preeminence among them, does not receive us.
3 John 9
Where did this one-man controlling pastor come from?
Some elders and FiveFold ministers in the first few centuries started promoting themselves and their careers into the clergy system. Also, in modern times it’s quicker and easier to outsource things to professionals.
The problem with the “pastor system”, it is a bit like outsourcing your relationship with your wife. It just does not work.
Each man must love his own wife and raise his own boys into manhood. School helps, but the bulk of the work and all the authority remains with the father. We cannot have a human being as intermediary in our relationship with God and His church.
Mother’s heart
The “mother’s heart” of a good pastor is nurturing, protective kind and gentle, and this is why pastortution is so successful.
Most Christian appreciate the gentle support and encouragement of the pastor. Pastor’s usually don’t expect much from Christians other than tithing and church attendance. We all start as spiritual babies according to Hebrews 5:13 and need a mother (pastor) to nurture us through those few early years.
The problem is however that in our effeminate world, mothering style pastors, dominate church leadership.
The mother’s heart (nurture and control) is not designed to make men out of boys (spiritually speaking). Most people have significant respect for the pastor, but this is not supposed to degenerate into long term submission.
Some boys submit to this maternal manipulation, but many adult men tend to leave. They leave physically or worse, they leave emotionally. They stop caring and then limp along in a dysfunctional way, hoping that kiddies church will save their children.
Either way this is a problem. Boys who do not grow into “spiritual men” by proper FiveFold ministry and community are not powerful in the Spirit and tend to just engulf themselves in their careers without much guidance or understanding of the Spirit or of their real role in church. Money, career, and political success ultimately begin to dominate their thinking and ironically this suits pastortutes who preach tithing.
Raising boys is critical
Raising boys is tricky. They start small and vulnerable but should grow into powerful adult males relatively quickly. When they are spiritually mature within a healthy church community, they are the backbone of everything and the community flourishes under and around them. If the pastors(multiple) however do not function in balanced of FiveFold ministry in conjunction with elder rule, then the single pastor would tend to “mother” and create a pyramid scheme. Emotionally healthy men tend to reject this and leave, either physically or emotionally. They just go elsewhere emotionally, and the church is spiritually and emotionally impoverished.
Pastors often start running programs staffed by zealous young men. The system tends to increase in control and decrease in real community.
What is a pastortute?
pastor+prostitute+substitute=pastortute
As with everything in life, there is a spectrum of things.
Some pastors are committed to fathering the saints, which means equipping them for adulthood and becoming peers and brothers in the fullest sense of the word. Many pastors however don’t get this right.
Prostitute
Many pastors seek money, fame, and a career, and that is obviously prostitution. Any perversion to the gospel and Bible text in order to make the synagogue work inevitably leads to prostitution.
Substitute – “Under Cover”
Often pastors love power and fall into the trap of “the man of God syndrome”. They will position themselves, not as a brother and helper to you in your relationship with God but as an intermediary, a “substitute”. The strong emphasis on the Sunday sermon is an indicator here. If an adult Christian needs the sermon as integral in his relationship and growth with God there are serious problems, and the pastor is typically functioning as proxy Christ.
In both cases, the word pastorate aptly describes what this man is busy with.
Sincerity does not solve the problem
Once again, many of these pastors are sincere, gifted, and anointed. However, good intentions are still not a substitute for the Royal Priesthood God describes in scripture.
The sad reality is that the pastors grew up in the pastortution model and really believe it’s God’s system. Bad examples of the pastor’s own youth, and a dose of spiritual pride has distorted their understanding of their own role and they have now become like Diotrephes.
Many pastors are overworked and struggle along like a single mother. They are often exhausted and in financial despair. This still does not make pastortution God’s plan or acceptable.
Discerning good from evil
If your pastor is not confusing the issue of money and his own role in ministry and is not substituting himself for your relationship with the Word of God and the Spirit of God, then he is possibly not a pastortute.
The easiest test is to see if the pastor is more “spiritual” and preaches more that the rest of the elders. If there is a group of strong elders and if the pastor’s death would not make a big difference in church life, then he is probably fathering the men around him, allowing them to eclipse him that is possibly a good sign.
We do need pastors, the scriptures are clear about that, but we do not need “pastors out of context”.
The boy pastor
As a quick aside this is the worst kind. This is just an insecure self-promoting little orphan. Sad to say these boy-pastors often had bad experiences with their own fathers and are now trying to give something they never received themselves. Very dangerous, especially if he has a theology degree.
The Biblical pattern of equipping but not controlling
With Paul, we see him planting churches and then leaving within three years. He then sends other ministers like Timothy to continue equipping the saints and though they have spiritual authority they do not control and dictate the day to day functioning of these local churches. Elders rule.
Scripture is clear that the local churches are ruled over by elders, who are per definition successful family men. Ongoing equipping happens by gifted people but not control.
Elders & Deacon’s
This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good work.2. A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach;3. not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous;4. one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence5. (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?);6. not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil.7. Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Likewise deacons must be reverent, not double-tongued, not given to much wine, not greedy for money,9. holding the mystery of the faith with a pure conscience.10. But let these also first be tested; then let them serve as deacons, being found blameless.11. Likewise their wives must be reverent, not slanderers, temperate, faithful in all things.12. Let deacons be the husbands of one wife, ruling their children and their own houses well.13. For those who have served well as deacons obtain for themselves a good standing and great boldness in the faith which is in Christ Jesus.
1 Timothy 3:1-13
The FiveFold
There should be a number of gifted individuals equipping the saints, and a number or elders ruling over the congregation and keeping the good order, but never one man. Some elders could be FiveFold but beware for the clergy system. Don’t outsource anything to “spiritual professionals”.
Pastors should be part of this team
He who descended is also the One who ascended far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.)11. And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers,12. for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ,13. till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;14. that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting,15. but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—16. from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
Ephesians 4:10-16
