- First, let me say up front that this is not going to be an exciting sermon. I say that because the subject is one that is not particularly pressing. It is important, but most prefer sermons that focus on your personal walk with the Lord. This message deals with a corporate concern.
- Secondly, this is not an issue that our church is dealing with (unless there’s a Deacons’ Meeting scheduled for later tonight that I don’t know about). Of course, every church has to deal with this at various points in their lives, but that’s not where we’re at right now.
- This is important, though, because the leadership of the church is a core issue. A church is rarely going to advance beyond the pastoral leadership that it has.
Hiring A New Pastor: Often, the standards used by churches in hiring pastors have more to do with the personnel department than Biblical standards.
- We all know the basics of how companies hire people. Figure out what you want, compile a bunch of resumes, and then find the most qualified person.
- Churches often make the hiring of a new pastor essentially the same process: it’s long on what the church and short on what the Bible says.
- This is also seen when churches pick deacons (or whatever the leadership is called in various churches). Rarely do churches look carefully and prayerfully over the Biblical qualifications to discern who meets the standard. More likely the questions in mind are “who can we can get?” and “who would be easy to work with?”
- There are specific instructions on who is qualified to be a pastor.
HOW TO CHOOSE A PASTOR:
- When we were in chapter 3 earlier in this series, I dealt with the passage focusing on various forms of church governance. I want to go back there and unpack it regarding choosing a pastor.
1. A pastor doesn’t need to have a special “call.”
- 1 Timothy 3:1.
- In Baptist life, there is the presumption that anyone who is a pastor has to have a special call from God to be a pastor. In my own life, that did happen to me – I very strongly felt pressure from God to become a pastor instead of pursuing my chosen field of law. The fact, though, that my experience looked like that does not mean that everyone’s experience has to look like that.
- This passage makes it clear that’s being a pastoral leader is something that a person can essentially volunteer for.
- The most famous example I know of this in contemporary Christian life is Andy Stanley. Andy is the pastor of the North Point Church in Georgia; he is also the son of Charles Stanley. He talks about asking his father if he could sign up to be a pastor even though he didn’t feel a special call. His father affirmed that he could.
2. Focus more on the character of the person than the role of the pastor.
- 1 Timothy 3:2-3.
- When most churches pursue a new pastor, the things they focus on are almost exclusively centered on the role of pastor. “How would you grow the church?” “What’s your preaching style?” “How do you handle conflict?” “Are you evangelistic?”
- Relatively little questioning or investigation happens on issues of character.
- Verses 2-3 focus on these character issues.
- This reminds me of one of my main thoughts when it comes to voting. Some people focus exclusively on ideology when they choose a candidate. Obviously, ideology is important, but before I get to ideology I first look at character and competence. You want someone who is morally solid as well as smart enough to handle the complexities that inevitably happen. A person who checks the right box on hot-button issues may not have the character to handle the pressures of money in politics. A person who echoes my sentiments on the party platform may not have the basic competence to know how to implement solid solutions.
- A similar dynamic is in play when it comes to the hiring of a pastor (although hopefully you don’t have to do that as often as you have to vote). It’s great that they sound just like you when they describe their belief in the inerrancy of Scripture. It’s exciting that their priority for evangelism echoes your heart. But what about their character? What about their competence?
- Do pulpit committees make even token gestures toward finding out this information or do they only rely on what’s on the resume and what the candidate says?
3. Look at other areas of his life.
- 1 Timothy 3:4-5.
- This passage specifically mentions a pastor needing to manage his family well.
- I’m going to presume that Paul doesn’t mean that a pastor needs to have a perfect family. If that is the case, the candidate pool of pastors is going to significantly decrease. I presume Paul means that a pastor needs to be doing a solid job of leading his family. As we all know, even in the best of situations, sometimes there are kids who go astray. I would presume that having that does not in itself disqualify a potential pastor.
- That caveat having been stated, the job that a pastor does with his family is not to be ignored. If his family is a mess, that is worth considering. As Paul says, if he can’t even manage a household, how is he going to manage the much bigger family of God?
- I would like to take this idea and consider it in a broader context. It’s a good idea to look at the other areas of a potential pastor’s life.
- Is there a history of angry confrontations in the kids’ sports’ leagues he’s been involved with? Danger sign.
- Are there few folks among his friends who express love for him? Danger sign.
- Is he in a second-rate job without any reasonable explanation? Danger sign.
- We all know that people who are a mess in one part of their lives are usually not killing it in the other areas of their lives. (Sure there are exceptions, but the general principle holds.)
4. How spiritually mature is he?
- 1 Timothy 3:6.
- Paul tells Timothy that pastors should not be recent coverts. The reason there seems obvious: being given church power without having spiritual maturity is a temptation to pride. And that’s exactly what Paul warns of: that the neophyte pastor will “fall under the same judgment as the devil,” whose biggest sin was pride.
- I’ve again made the question a little broader than the verse itself: how spiritually mature is he?
- It’s alarming how often almost no spiritual maturity questions are asked in the pastoral search process. Maybe it’s because committees presume that if he’s a pastor he’s spiritually mature. (Not always true!) Maybe it’s because they’re most interested in getting someone who can “get things done” or “make things happen.” In that case, they’re less focused on his spiritual depth than on his professional ability.
5. How much love does he have for the unsaved?
- 1 Timothy 3:7.
- Paul instructs that the pastor should have a good reputation with outsiders. That in itself is a bit of a news update in some churches. Those churches that have created such a wall between themselves and the world that they pride themselves on their lack of engagement and on how awkward any relationships they have with outsiders are.
- Of course, we are to be in the world but not of the world, which is a world away from building a giant wall.
- It was initially a mystery to me why the verse concludes the way it does: “so that he will not fall into disgrace and into the devil’s trap.” How is that related to having a good reputation with outsiders?
- I think the answer is this: it’s destructive to the Kingdom when church leaders have reputations that push away outsiders.
- There are numerous examples of this. The pastor who blows his top at ball games and people say, “I’d never go to his church.” The pastor who is lazy in his secular job and people don’t see him as a person of integrity. The pastor who is dogged by rumors of infidelity that makes everyone think he’s a rogue. The pastor who is never friendly with anyone who isn’t part of his church.
- In all those cases, people are pushed away from God because they find the pastor to be lacking.
POTENTIAL TROUBLE SPOTS:
- Now let’s go back to chapter five and close out with a few of the potential difficulties.
1. A pastor is worthy of a fair salary.
- 1 Timothy 5:17-18.
- Some churches act like it’s spiritually beneficial to keep their pastors poor. Some churches have finances run by someone who is notoriously cheap and wants the salary as low as possible. Some churches think there is something wrong if the pastor is able to live the same lifestyle that the rest of the congregation can. Some churches never think to show their love for their pastor in financial terms. Some churches are full of people who never question whether what the pastor is being paid is sufficient.
- As Paul shares here, a pastor is worthy of his salary.
- This is a given for us in our church, but at various points in church history it’s been an open question whether a pastor should be paid. Paul makes an argument 1 Corinthians 9 on why he voluntarily chose not to take a salary, but that doesn’t mean that a pastor is not worthy of it.
2. Multiple witnesses are necessary for an accusation against the pastor.
- 1 Timothy 5:19.
- As you know, usually when there is a fight within the church that includes accusations against a pastor, all rules usually are thrown out the window pretty quickly. It’s rumor and slander and gossip, all in the name of doing God’s will.
- It’s worth noting, as I have before, that you cannot accomplish God’s will by doing something that’s not in God’s will. (That is, you can’t spread slanderous gossip in order to help win a church fight and expect God to bless that.)
- One of the ideas that we need to keep in mind in such situations is v. 19: don’t consider an accusation against the pastor unless there is more than one accuser.
3. When there is pastoral sin, you shouldn’t sweep it under the rug.
- 1 Timothy 5:20.
- We’ve seen countless times in recent years the dangers of covering up pastoral sin. The most obvious and sad example is the massive Catholic priest sexual abuse scandal, but there are lots of smaller stories with similar tragedy.
- I understand the temptation to come things up when a scandal like this happens. “People won’t want to come here if they knew this happened.” “It’ll hurt the name of Christ if people know.” “Let’s just handle this as quietly as possible.” In the face of such a horror, we mostly just want it to go away.
- The problems that creates are numerous. Rumors (sometimes worse) spread in the absence of any accurate information. The guilty pastor is free to go onto another field of service where he can repeat the behavior. We create an environment where secrecy is valued over honesty. The pain of the victim is never acknowledged.
- Paul’s instruction puts on a different path. It is more difficult in some ways, but more effective. If there is a sin that demands firing the pastor or is significant enough to require a rebuke, that rebuke needs to happen publicly.
- Given the context, I take this to be limited to pastors. There are other passages that deal with church discipline more generally, but this is directed at pastors.
