The role of the modern pastor is a sham. If he is a decent
pastor, his church will measure in the hundreds, at a minimum, but then he will
no longer be a decent pastor.
Every church I have ever attended on a regular basis has
been a “megachurch”, meaning a church whose regular attendance numbered at
least 500 people. In these churches, I learned a lot about God and about the
Bible, but not until I began attending a recovery group for a pornography
addiction, did I finally come to know God. The model of the modern church is
ineffective.
Ask any pastor how well he knows the members of his church. He
may know their names, where the children go to school, whether or not they play
baseball or volleyball, but does he know
them? Can he tell you what upsets them? Can he tell you their temptations?
Does he know what makes them angry, or sad, or afraid? What makes his flock
happy? What gives them joy? These things reveal who we are to others. Does he
know every member of his church in this way? These are the things that a
shepherd knows.
There are two problems that work together to destroy any
pastor that is worth his faith: (1) the time that he steals from his family to
care for his flock, and (2) the selfishness of people in large groups.
As I write this, I am contemplating a future for my children
who desire to be useful to Christ. I desperately urge my son to avoid any kind
of pastoring ministry. Either you have a family, or you have a church. You can’t
effectively do both. The problem is people.
We Christians, as a group, do not embrace growth. Sure, we
embrace bible study, and worship, and even church attendance and service, but genuine
growth is not on this list. We know, either at a conscious level, like my
father, who refused to ask for patience because he knew God would put in situations that required patience, or at some deeper subconscious level, that true growth requires pain. The
Bible tells us “Those whom he loves, he disciplines” and “He disciplines us for
our good, that we may share his holiness”. Don’t confuse discipline with
punishment; these two are not the same. Punishment is for the sinner;
discipline is for the children. The purpose of punishment is the punishment itself;
the purpose of discipline is holiness.
We are too happy to attend church, to sing, to read of His
glory, to accept his temporary blessing, yet how many of us honestly and
sincerely ask for the character of Christ? How many of us declare that we are
his, that we will follow him anywhere, that we will do and say anything he
commands? There is not one child of God in Scripture that did not suffer,
either from failure or tragedy or both, on the path of knowing who God is.
We are selfish as a group because while we seek the peace
and joy that come from church attendance, from prayer, from worship, and study,
we at the same time neglect the true pursuit of God that requires stillness, solitude,
sacrifice, patience, and humility (often with much humiliation). Like a swarm
of leeches, we molest those in service to us until they have nothing to give to
their own families. We do this because in our need, we only think of ourselves,
and we decline to seek God on our own, unable to trust that while God gives us
a pastor who cares for us, he is more willing to give himself. God is willing
to give this trust, if we are willing to endure his discipline.
