Focus on Reproduction, Student Workbook, SW12

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F O C U S O N R E P R O D U C T I O N

What Truly Qualifies

Today in many Christian church settings, the primary criterion for Christian leadership is academic and professional preparation. In other words, unless you have a seminary degree or similar kind of academic and professional credential, many congregations would not even place you in the running, if in fact you had submitted your name for the pastoral leadership position. Some churches go further yet, demanding seminary or some kind of equivalent credential to even participate in music, youth, children, and other kinds of church ministries. What do you think truly qualifies a man or woman for exercising leadership in the Church of God? Be specific. The pastoral ministry is in disarray in some places. Many ministers are leaving their traditions in droves, being absorbed in “secular life.” Some denominations are desperate for new pastoral candidates; their seminaries numbers are shrinking, and they are having to resort to all kinds of new, innovative ways of sharing pastors with congregations, allowing pastors to become itinerant, shepherding a number of congregations. Some areas are truly hard hit, and many denominational leaders lament with the current systems of producing leaders, which are slow, expensive, and insufficient. Why do you think it is becoming so difficult to find qualified pastors for many of the existing churches today? What might this suggest about the need to raise up a new generation of leaders, using different strategies to train and fund them? In a conversation on the nature of church and the pastorate, one professor made a rather shocking claim about urban churches. He commented that many urban churches were not truly churches in any traditional way; they were a mixture of folk religion, Christian belief, and social family networks, and could barely be called “Christian” because they have not contributed like other churches to the theological and ministry structures of the historic Church. With not a hint of emotion or judgmentalism, the professor went on to say that if we use the traditional criteria for church that has been recognized in most denominations throughout church history, these are either barely churches, and some aren’t really Hard to Be a Pastor Those Aren’t Really Churches

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