Marks of Maturity: Understanding the Pastoral Vocation
Discipleship Pathway
We will communicate, illustrate and articulate the roadmap of discipleship for all members, child to adult to see where they are and where they should go in faith.
CHAMPIONS:
Larson, Lindsay
Harbols, Lauren
In this epistle, I want to address a particular problem we often face in our LCMS congregations—a problem specifically related to serving in vocation. Here is the problem, stated as a sort of paradox:
Some churches have a fairly low view of pastors, viewing them as optional rather than necessary. Anyone can preach, teach, or administer the sacraments. This often creates confusion and conflict about teaching and practice. Other churches have a high view of the pastor, only allowing pastors to preach, teach, and administer the sacraments. However, this can create a culture in which laity are passive rather than active in the congregation and its mission.
As you probably guessed, LCMS congregations are more likely to suffer from the second rather than the first malady. Our churches can become “pastor-centric” or overly reliant on pastors. More on this in a moment.
Looking at this positively, the LCMS takes the words of James 3:1 seriously:
Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness.
Our churches teach that no one should publicly teach in the Church, or administer the Sacraments, without a rightly ordered call.
Our Lutheran Confessions set this boundary to guard against false teaching and confusion about the gospel, especially in a context where some self-appointed preachers were denying infant baptism, the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper, and advocating for rebellion against the government. In a modern context, this boundary is a safeguard against self-appointed pastors starting churches built around personal charisma rather than the church’s ordinary process of preparing, ordaining, and calling ministers.
Healthy as this boundary may be, I think it has the potential to throw a wet blanket on the gifts of the Holy Spirit being exercised among the laity for the expansion of Christ’s mission and the building up of the Church. Every baptized believer is a priest in God’s kingdom, called and equipped with gifts and good works. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1 Corinthians 12:7). Nobody gets to be the appendix in the Body of Christ.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you’re on the preaching schedule next Sunday. That’s not your vocation. What it means is that when it comes to the mission of our congregation, no one sits on the bench. All of us have gifts that we’re called to use in the Body of Christ. Life in the Church is not just about passive reception of spiritual gifts, it’s about receiving and sharing these gifts together.
A good deal of spiritual maturity consists in our ability to avoid extremes and live with some nuance. Take, for instance, Paul’s word of exhortation in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-21: Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good.
One extreme would be to question and quench the gift of prophetic utterance. The other extreme would be to accept such messages without testing their validity. One extreme shuts down the work of the Spirit among us. The other allows the world, the flesh, and even the devil to masquerade as the Word and work of God. The Holy Spirit calls us to discernment. Discernment means that the members of our congregation know how to collectively and prayerfully “kick the tires” of what’s being spoken and done in the congregation.
With this said, here are a few thoughts/observations/questions about what it might look like for Holy Cross to be a discerning congregation that makes use of the gifts of the Spirit among the laity, or stated differently, a congregation that is not “pastor-centric”:
Let’s have a clearer understanding of the purpose of the pastoral office. The pastor is not a “professional Christian.” He is just a Christian with a vocation to preach. He stands on equal ground with all the members of the church. Someone needs to get up in front of the congregation and publicly represent Christ through preaching, teaching, and the administration of the Sacraments. For the sake of good order, the congregation calls a man (or men) out of the pews and up to the pulpit and altar. That’s it. That’s what the pastoral office is. Just as some Christians are called to a medical or construction vocation, the pastor is called to a preaching vocation.
Let’s remember that the pastor’s call to study the Scriptures does not relieve the laity from deep study of the Scriptures. One of the reasons we encourage open Bibles at Holy Cross is that these Scriptures belong to every Christian. We are all called to know these Words and wrestle with their meaning and application together.
If the pastor ever preached something false, would you know the Scriptures well enough to know that he preached something false? How can the laity be discerning enough to “test everything” unless they know Scriptures well enough? I have had people take issue with a sermon because “I didn’t like the way it made me feel,” but I cannot think of a time when someone questioned me about a sermon because it conflicted with Scripture. Either I’m a consistently orthodox preacher (this is what I labor and pray for), or we don’t know our Scriptures as well as we should, or both. I really do appreciate it when my hearers listen closely enough to ask, “Well, what about this portion of Scripture? Did you take this into account when you preached your message?” We want to be like the believers in Berea, who “received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so” (Acts 17:11). Entire denominations have slipped into error on essential doctrines because the laity did not fulfill their duty of “testing everything.”
When it comes to our congregation’s mission of growing disciples, who is responsible for a successful outcome? We often look to the pastor. Yes, the pastor is important. But not as important as you might think. Pastors come and go. What matters is each member of the congregation embracing and owning the outcome of the mission. Embracing the mission will always mean praying and giving to support the mission. It might mean teaching Sunday school, or visiting members who are homebound, or talking to visitors in worship. The main idea is that this mission is our mission, our responsibility, and our calling.
This is why Life Groups are so important. When Christians meet together for prayer, study, and fellowship, they begin to use their spiritual gifts to serve one another. They begin to counsel, encourage, shepherd, and even gently correct one another. Issues are often resolved before they ever come to the pastor’s attention.
No one in our congregation needs permission to do good works. Yes, we need to communicate well and organize thoughtfully. But no one is stopping you from making that call to an inactive member, or visiting the member in the hospital, taking a meal to the member in crisis, or meeting with members to pray and study the Word.
How might your gifts, talents, and resources help move the mission of our congregation forward? Where is there a need? Where are you gifted?
These are just a few thoughts. What thoughts do you have? I enjoy writing, and if these epistles are helpful and edifying, I’m happy to continue sharing them.
