2/20/14. THE CHURCH AND ITS LEADERSHIP … DEEPLY IMMERSED

BLOG 2/20/14. THE CHURCH AND ITS LEADERSHIP: MUST BE DEEPLY IMMERSED IN THE REALITIES OF DAILY LIFE.

Our walk of faith as the people of God, and as leaders of the church, is in the “stink and stuff” of daily life, what with all of its enigmas, compromises, intractable problems, hostility, challenges, joys, sorrows, camaraderie, and engagement with all of the forms of the culture of darkness, which is a formidable calling. This means that our formation into Christ must never seek to isolate itself from that dominion of darkness out of which we are to call men and women so that they may come into the dominion of God’s dear Son. That profound immersion should be especially true of those who are the church’s leaders. Life as the people of God must never be an escape from the very world that Jesus came to seek and to save.

A response to my previous Blog raises a very germane and uncomfortable question about those of us who are its ostensible leaders, and who often rely on our seminary training to qualify us to be such: “… a question (among many) regarding the teaching-shepherd: Do modern-day seminaries ‘miss the point’ by training would-be clergy to be mere custodians of the church? Have they always ‘missed the point’? Did they go astray at some point? If so, when? Are some better than others at avoiding neutering a gift/role that you claim is critical, and one that can be performed [only] by an ordained pastor? Why do some seminaries produce [here he names two such disparate examples, one commendable and one questionable]? I know this isn’t fair, I know, because you could argue that each graduated seminary with the same potential to fulfill that role but experience shaped them differently. But I still wonder.”

That is a huge question, and the answer is both yes and no. Seminaries that sharpen, inform, resource, provide depth of understanding for the church’s teaching-shepherds can be most useful, … but if the seminaries themselves are a culture of ecclesiastical ‘ghetto-ism’ then they can be a liability. This becomes somewhat delicate when one finds that many of the superb academicians teaching there have, themselves, never been fruitful teaching-shepherds. Add to that the fact that men and women attend seminaries for many different reasons, and with many different backgrounds—some out of strong missional churches, and some out of sterile custodial churches. Some attend seminary in hopes of finding themselves, and proving their worth to God, alas!

A half-century ago, James F. Hopewell, then the director of the Theological Education Fund, humorously commented that our theological education system was like “an ecclesiastical puberty-rite” where we give all the instruction before the participants have had any experience (as pastors). I spent a decade as director of seminary ministries for a denominational renewal organization and visited, and spent time with, students and faculty on about fifteen campuses—this after my own forty year career as a working pastor in some colorful and fruitful locations. My experience in those ten years reinforces the questions raised above.

The late missiologist Ralph Winter told an assembly of seminary leaders (to their chagrin) that in the majority world that church growth was often exponential until the church established seminaries, and then it flattened out. He commented that if a person planted a church and fruitfully pastored it for ten years, that the larger church would only then consider ordination. This procedure filtered out those who were not gifted.

Back to the point, it is that strong church leadership must be deeply immersed in the world in which his/her charges live and work, their challenges, temptations, relationships, cultural realities. And then he/she is competent to equip and form God’s people to be light in their daily encounter with the darkness—otherwise their ministry could be accused of being Docetic, i.e., no true humanity (or from Xorba the Greek: “No blood, no excrement, no sperm.”) just ‘religious Christianity.’ … But church traditions die hard!

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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