CLERGY, Who are they? This is mostly the work of Christian Smith
Dare the question be asked....Is the clergy a highly overrated institution? Indeed, reports on the value and necessity of clergy have been greatly exaggerated. Many Christians assume, for example, that the most important thing in choosing a church is its minister, that a church cannot function effectively without the office priest or pastor being filled, that the first thing one must do in starting a church is to hire a minister to lead it, that Sunday morning should be judged by its sermon, and that the preeminent way to serve God is to go to seminary to be trained for Christian service.
But could it be that, clergy are neither necessary, biblical nor, in the long run, good for church?
Certainly, for many we may as well ask whether we should shoot ourselves in the head. But upon closer inspection this perspective is not as lunatic as it first seems. The fact is, although our clergy-system is one of the dominant features of the church today, it has almost nothing to do with the New Testament, is fundamentally counter-productive, and is an inherent obstruction to healthy, biblical church life..
PLEASE NOTICE, FIRST of all, that when I talk about clergy I am most definitely not talking about the actual people who are clergy. The specific men and women who are priests, ministers, and pastors are, on the whole, wonderful people. They love God, want to serve God, and want to serve the people of God. They typically are sincere, compassionate, intelligent, self-giving, and long-suffering. Let it be clear, then, that the problem with clergy is not the people who are clergy but the profession that those people are a part of.
Furthermore, let it be clear that, despite serious problems of their profession, clergy do actually accomplish some good in the church. It's not that clergy don't help people significantly. They most certainly do-which is one reason why they are such a dominant feature of church life. But the good the people of the clergy are able to accomplish is despite their profession rather than because of it.
Without a doubt, the clergy is a profession and members of the clergy are professionals. Just as lawyers protect and interpret the law and doctors protect and administrate medicine, clergy protect, interpret, and administrate the truth of God. This profession, like any profession, dictates standards of conduct for how its members should dress, speak, and act, both on-duty and off-duty. And, like other professions, it dictates standards of education, preparation, admittance to the profession, procedures for job searches and applications, and retirement. Clearly, Catholic priests and Protestant ministers alike are expected-by their parishioners, friends, hierarchies, denominational authorities, and themselves-to have a distinct kind of training, be certain kinds of people, and perform certain kinds of duties.
Traditionally, the profession has demanded that clergy be male and, in some denominations, preferably married and, if so, happily married. The profession demands that its members possess a seminary degree and official ordination. The profession (unrealistically) requires that clergy be extraordinarily gifted: natural leaders, skilled orators, capable administrators, compassionate counselors, wise decision-makers, dispassionate conflict-resolvers, and astute theologians. Naturally, professional standards insist that clergy be morally upright and exemplary in every way. And, as an outward sign, clergy must dress respectably and speak with authority and conviction.
Clergy function essentially as professional church managers. Clergy are responsible for preparing teachings, homilies, and sermons, visiting the sick, conducting funerals and marriages, properly administering the sacraments, overseeing church social events, Sunday School, and catechism programs, preparing engaged couples for marriage, counseling those with problems, preparing denominational reports, attending denominational meetings, managing missionary and evangelistic programs, assembling and overseeing staff (such as assistant ministers, youth group leaders, administrative staffs, and evangelism teams), organizing fund-raising drives, attending to community relations, facilities use, and building maintenance, encouraging, disciplining, and edifying parishioners, and establishing the vision and direction of the church.
There exists, then, a definite set of tasks which everyone (even the non-Christian) knows is the rightful duty of a member of the clergy. Everyone knows it because it is an institutionalized profession, created and maintained by denominations, hierarchies, theological seminaries, the laity, and, finally, the clergy themselves.
THE FIRST PROBLEM with the clergy is that God doesn't intend such a profession to exist. There is simply and unequivocally no biblical mandate or justification for the profession of clergy as we know it. In fact, the New Testament points to a very different way of doing church and pastoral ministry.
Nevertheless, human societies throughout history have consistently created spiritual castes of people-shamans, priests, soothsayers, witch-doctors, wise-men, prophets, gurus-and the Christian church has been no exception. It didn't take long for the church to construct, based on a handful of ambiguous scripture verses ("upon this rock I will build my church," "you shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing"), a massive, institutional, hierarchical superstructure. This, in effect, created a two-class, authoritarian system within the church in which clergy were considered more spiritual than laity.
Protestants broke with the Catholic church, of course. But Protestants are just as "catholic" as Roman Catholics when it comes to clergy. Though the Bible replaced the Sacraments as the center of God's revelation for Protestants, the profession they set up to protect and distribute this revelation is functionally identical to the Catholic priesthood. As the priest correctly administers the wafer, the minister correctly interprets the Word of God.
But when we go back to the Word of God and read it afresh, we see that the clergy profession is the result of our human culture and history and not of God's will for the church. It is simply impossible to construct a defensible biblical justification for the institution of clergy as we know it.
THE SECOND PROBLEM with the clergy profession is that it crushes "body life." We can see in the New Testament that God doesn't intend church to be a formal association to which a rank-and-file membership belongs by virtue of paying dues and attending meetings, an association which is organized, guided, and governed by a professional leader (and, in larger organizations, by an administrative bureaucracy). Yet that is exactly what most churches are.
By contrast, God intends church to be a community of believers in which each member contributes their special gift, talent, or ability to the whole, so that, through the active participation and contribution of all, the needs of the community are met. In other words, what we ought to see in buildings we call churches is "the ministry of the people," not "the ministry of the professional." In this way, the church is to act like a body, with each unique, necessary part working for the good of the whole body. And, Paul argues clearly that each member's gift is indispensable, that the body needs each part to contribute or else it will be lame (1Cor. 12:20-25).
The problem is that, regardless of what our theologies tell us about the purpose of clergy, the actual effect of the clergy profession is to make the body of Christ lame. This happens not because clergy intend it (they usually intend the opposite) but because the objective nature of the profession inevitably turns the laity into passive receivers.
The role of clergy is essentially the centralization and professionalization of the gifts of the whole body into one person. In this way, the clergy represents Christianity's capitulation to modern society's tendency toward specialization; clergy are spiritual specialists, church specialists. Everyone else in the church are merely "ordinary" believers who hold "secular" jobs where they specialize in "non-spiritual" activities such as plumbing, teaching, or marketing. So, in effect, what ought to be accomplished in an ordinary, decentralized, non-professional manner by all church members together is instead accomplished by a single, full-time professional-The Pastor.
Since the pastor is paid to be the specialist in church operations and management, it is only logical and natural that the laity (I use the term laity in a cultural sense, in actual fact, the laity is not know in the bible) begin to assume a passive role in church. Rather than contributing their part to edify the church, they go to church as passive receivers to be edified. Rather than actively spending the time and energy to exercise their gift for the good of the body, they sit back and let the pastor run the show.
Think about Sunday morning. Parishioners arrive on schedule, sit quietly in pews, and watch and listen to the minister who is up-front, center-stage, whose presence dominates the service. They stand, sit, speak, and sing only when they are directed to by the minister or the program. Yet, in reality, what happens during these two hours on Sunday morning is only a micro-cosmic picture of the whole church reality.
If the people of a congregation began to get a vision that the church is not a formal association but a community, that gifts are distributed-apart from ordination-to each person, that everyone must actively participate and contribute for church to work, that no one's gift is more important than another's, and that everyone's participation will ensure a full, healthy church life-in short, a vision of a biblical view of church life-I suspect many would begin to ask themselves: "Then what are we paying our minister for?" And, that would be a reasonable question to ask.
Full-time, professional clergy are only needed when church members are not doing their part. On the other hand, when each church member is actively participating and contributing their part for the good of the body, a professional minister is unnecessary. That is a fact that is proven every day in tens of thousands of communities and home churches all around the world.
THE THIRD PROBLEM with the clergy profession is that it is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church-a valuable goal. In actuality, however, it accomplishes the opposite by nurturing a permanent dependence of the laity on the clergy. Clergy become to their congregations like parents whose children never grow up, like therapists whose clients never become healed, like teachers whose students never graduate. The existence of a full-time, professional minister makes it too easy for church members not to take responsibility for the on-going life of the church. And why should they? That's the job of the pastor (so the thinking goes). But the result is that the laity remain in a state of passive dependence.
Imagine, however, a church whose pastor resigned and that could not find a replacement. Ideally, eventually, the members of that church would have to get off of their pews, come together, and figure out who would teach, who would counsel, who would settle disputes, who would visit the sick, who would lead worship, and so on. With a bit of insight, they would realize that the Bible calls the body as a whole to do these things together, prompting each to consider what gift they have to contribute, what role they could play to build up the body. And with a bit of courage, that church might actually take the painful steps in the direction of long-term change. Some might leave for other churches that have full-time ministers. But those who remained to participate in the work of building body life would mature faster and further than they ever would have with a pastor to do it all for them.
THE FOURTH PROBLEM with the clergy profession is what it does to the people in that profession. Being a member of the clergy as we know it is difficult. Doing it very well is almost impossible. Yet good-hearted men and women, convinced that they are serving God in this way, admirably pour their lives into this task. What they encounter as professional clergy, however, is stress, frustration, and burn-out.
It's no wonder, of course, since clergy are trying to do the work of a whole congregation all by themselves! How can a single person be a natural leader, a skilled orator, a visionary, a capable administrator, a compassionate counselor, a wise decision-maker, a dispassionate conflict-resolver, and an astute theologian all at once? Why do we make one person be all things to all parishioners?
Being a minister is, quite simply, unrealistic. It is as unrealistic as a corporation expecting a single employee to successfully fill or oversee all of the corporate roles, from mail-boy to secretary to middle-manager to president, while most of the other employees arrive at work one day a week to simply watch this super-human achievement (and sometimes do a chore they are asked by the super-employee to do). In this way, the clergy profession demands super-Christian, super-human accomplishment. Christians-with our realistic understanding of human limitations and weaknesses-should know better than that. God certainly did, which is why he gave the task of maintaining and building up the church as the shared responsibility of all believers, not the centralized, specialized, professionalized task of one person.
CLERGY ARE THE keepers-of-the-church; but the church really doesn't need to be kept in this way because God keeps it and asks all believers to participate in keeping it. The clergy, as a profession, are assigned to preserve, protect, and dispense Christian truth, correct teachings, the Bible, the sacraments, and authority. Yet the Christian truth does not need a professional class to protect it. Truth is not that fragile.
Christian truth is not some kind of classified or dangerous material which only card-carrying experts can handle. Nor is it like riches which need the protection of safe vaults and armed security guards. It is the Holy Spirit's and not the hierarchy or the denomination's job to preserve Christian truth in history; and the Holy Spirit has seen fit to do so by distributing it to all God's people so they can share it together.
The problem with clergy, we've seen, is not the actual people who are of the clergy-who are typically sincere and committed-but the social role of the profession to which they belong. Ministers often hope to re-shape that role in ways that are more realistic and biblical. But they eventually discover that, for the most part, they can't reshape the role at will because their congregations and denominations expect the standard things from them. Of course, that's the nature of social roles: they shape people more than people shape them.
A problem even more basic and serious than the clergy role, however, is that most Christians have completely redefined what a healthy church looks like in the first place. For most church-goers, a solid, healthy church is one which is growing numerically, has a fabulous pastor, and offers many activities and programs. That may be what a vibrant voluntary association-such as the YMCA-looks like. But if the Bible is our authority, those factors are irrelevant when it comes to church.
What's important in church, according to the Bible, is that each member actively contributes to the good of the whole body through responsible participation and the exercise of their gifts. What's important in church, according to the Bible, is that believers become strong and mature in their faith through the edification of one another. A biblical church is a "people's church" with a decentralized ministry.
Of course, when we speak of "church without clergy," we do not mean the elimination of full-time ministers. Indeed, the church needs more full-time ministers. The relevant question, however, is: what kinds of ministries ought these full-time people to be doing? According to the New Testament, full-time ministers ought to be ministering in and to the world, in such tasks as working with the poor, doing evangelism, and making peace where there is conflict and violence. Biblically speaking, it is the world, and not the church, which needs full-time Christian ministers.
WHAT WE NEED today is church without clergy. Pastors themselves need to be liberated from the demand to be ultra-versatile, multi-talented, super-human performers. And lay people need to be jarred from the pacifying illusion that it is enough to simply attend church on Sunday mornings and tithe ten percent of their income.
Church without clergy is not easy; it demands the full, active participation of everyone. But the rewards of church without clergy-the riches of participation, of solidarity, and of community-make the effort exceedingly worthwhile. And, those who make that effort will be well on their way to transforming church from something they simply go to, to something they, together, are.
There is no such designation as the clergy/laity class system which has become well established in modern Christianity. Whether one takes the title father, pastor or elder, the fact remains that perpetuating a separation between the group called "ministers" and the common congregation is unscriptural and leads to the suffocation of the manifold grace of God as realized through each individual member. Let's begin with some passages from the gospel of Matthew.
But Jesus called them to Himself, and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, Matt. 20:25
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Matt.23:8
And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. Matt. 23:10
Let me be very clear about this; there is no place in the new covenant for recognizing one group of saints as separate from or set above another. Nor is there any place for the use of honorific titles. In fact, the concept of there being a select group of individuals known as the "ministers" is nothing more than a regurgitation of the Old Testament priesthood mingled with paganism. And the common practice within protestant churches of taking a title such as "pastor" or "elder" is no different than the catholic practice of calling Catholic priests "father". All such activity is carnal and in direct violation of the teachings and example of Jesus.
To perpetuate such ideals is to embrace division and the illegitimate recognition of oneself. It is not, as some say, merely a custom of respect for the sake of the "office". For although such respect may be deserved by virtue of one's stature in Christ, it cannot under any circumstance be expected, demanded, enjoyed or utilized to achieve even the most godly of endeavors. If the saints choose to submit to your wisdom and example then so be it, but you have no right to compel or manipulate them into doing so, as in the common misconception that everyone should be under the authority of a "pastor".
Furthermore, many "pastors" clearly overstep their bounds regarding the teaching of submission and authority, imposing a demand for respect of their "office" that is unbiblical. Ironically, the very concept of "ministry offices" was intentionally inserted in the famous 1st Timothy passage by King James in an effort to reassert control by the clergy which was lost during the Reformation. In fact, neither the Greek word, nor any idiomatic connotation for the concept of a "ministry office" can be found in any Greek text. Neither is there any scriptural precedent for utilizing titles and peer-pressuring the saints into doing so. Again I say; there is no legitimacy in recognizing or perpetuating a ministerial class, for Jesus clearly invalidated such distinctions.
A More Proper View of Leadership
Now, does the Lord grace individuals to care for and oversee the needs of the saints? Absolutely! And if you desire to take on this honorable responsibility then do so; as a member of their company, not as one who sits above them. Remember, your work is one of service, not of ruling. For the term "pastor" (also an intentional mistranslation) is meant to be descriptive of the service, not taken as a title, being the same word most commonly translated "shepherds". It is as if some of you have changed your first name to "pastor" seeing as how important it is that people address you as such! Indeed, all such title-taking is carnal: be it pastor, teacher, prophet or apostle.
Brothers, the clergy/laity system is not of the Father but is of the world, and those desiring to be a part of God's purpose must be willing to walk away from it. Let us follow the example of Paul, who did not even consider Peter, James and John as anything special, saying in Galatians 2:6…
But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)
Simply put, if you are showing partiality, or purporting that it be shown to you then you are not in league with the Father, but with the world.
Furthermore, the scriptures teach that a plurality of elders, each functioning with their own individual giftings, shepherd the flock of God as a collective whole, as Peter said in his first epistle, chapter 5:1-3,
The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed:
Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly;nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock;
Notice here that there are elders (plural) shepherding a flock (singular). Indeed, we see here the accurate delineation of the elders' function within the body: elders (prebuteroi) are to shepherd (poimaino), serving as overseers (episkopos) not as lords (katakurieuo, the same word Jesus used in Matt. 25) but as examples (tupos, a word used to describe the process of striking an impression by a hard blow, as in minting a coin). The clear, scriptural teaching is that within the one body there are several individuals functioning as elders who care for and protect the body, preserving both the testimony of Christ and the oneness of the Spirit by living the example of organic unity.
In contrast, today we observe many elders (if they truly are elders) garnering sections of the body under their distinctive ministry, dividing the one flock into many, building fences around their group and serving as the gatekeepers of their respective pastures. If you can ever get them all in the same place they spend more time posturing and discussing church growth strategies than they do striving together for the unity of the gospel. Brothers, this should not be.
What Shall We Do?
As with sectarianism, this is a deeply ingrained problem: for most of the body has functioned under this system for so long, they are accustomed to having a king. Even more problematic is the fact that many "pastors" will have a hard time admitting they have taught such error and simply take the easy way of sticking with tradition. Nevertheless, a true exegesis of the scripture reveals that the tradition of dividing clergy and laity cannot be supported. Not to mention the wealth of both historical and contemporary study that supports this assertion. So then what will you do?
First, let me remind you that the foundation of nearly every significant move of God's Spirit throughout history has been precluded by a recognition that the clergy/laity divide is unscriptural, followed by return to equality amongst the members of the body. This would be a good starting point. We should expose the unbiblical nature of this system and teach the saints the truth: that they have become dependent on a "man of God" instead of the Man of God - Christ Jesus. Second, there should be a clear and forthright rescinding of position and title. If "pastors" would return to being brothers, who serve the body as elders, by way of example not by imposition of authority, we would see great strides toward both oneness and the expression of Christ in our cities. Third, we must cease the practice of overemphasizing the pastoral, or shepherding, gift. Without question this gift is necessary for our maturing, however there is no scriptural precedent to suggest that it be allowed the preeminent position amongst the body. Nor is there any scriptural evidence of this gifting acting as the gatekeeper to the body. This prevailing idealism is a hold over from Catholicism stemming from the erroneous assumption that "pastor" is discretely synonymous with "elder", requiring apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers to pass through the "shepherd" to obtain entrance to the body. But the scripture does not support this position. Rather, the Lord's revealed intent is that among the college of elders there be representation of all the giftings mentioned in Eph. 4 and 1 Cor. 12, and that these individuals function with one spirit and mind for the care and maturing of the body. To overemphasize any grace-gift is detrimental and self-serving, leading to distorted teaching and spiritual malnourishment.
Friends, there is much to overcome in this area, and this brief exhortation is only the beginning. I only hope that the sensitive nature of the content does not preclude you from hearing the heart of the Spirit. It is not my intention to invalidate anyone's service to the body but to expose the divisive and unbiblical class system that hinders the spiritual maturity of the saints. He that has an ear to hear, let him hear.
But could it be that, clergy are neither necessary, biblical nor, in the long run, good for church?
Certainly, for many we may as well ask whether we should shoot ourselves in the head. But upon closer inspection this perspective is not as lunatic as it first seems. The fact is, although our clergy-system is one of the dominant features of the church today, it has almost nothing to do with the New Testament, is fundamentally counter-productive, and is an inherent obstruction to healthy, biblical church life..
PLEASE NOTICE, FIRST of all, that when I talk about clergy I am most definitely not talking about the actual people who are clergy. The specific men and women who are priests, ministers, and pastors are, on the whole, wonderful people. They love God, want to serve God, and want to serve the people of God. They typically are sincere, compassionate, intelligent, self-giving, and long-suffering. Let it be clear, then, that the problem with clergy is not the people who are clergy but the profession that those people are a part of.
Furthermore, let it be clear that, despite serious problems of their profession, clergy do actually accomplish some good in the church. It's not that clergy don't help people significantly. They most certainly do-which is one reason why they are such a dominant feature of church life. But the good the people of the clergy are able to accomplish is despite their profession rather than because of it.
Without a doubt, the clergy is a profession and members of the clergy are professionals. Just as lawyers protect and interpret the law and doctors protect and administrate medicine, clergy protect, interpret, and administrate the truth of God. This profession, like any profession, dictates standards of conduct for how its members should dress, speak, and act, both on-duty and off-duty. And, like other professions, it dictates standards of education, preparation, admittance to the profession, procedures for job searches and applications, and retirement. Clearly, Catholic priests and Protestant ministers alike are expected-by their parishioners, friends, hierarchies, denominational authorities, and themselves-to have a distinct kind of training, be certain kinds of people, and perform certain kinds of duties.
Traditionally, the profession has demanded that clergy be male and, in some denominations, preferably married and, if so, happily married. The profession demands that its members possess a seminary degree and official ordination. The profession (unrealistically) requires that clergy be extraordinarily gifted: natural leaders, skilled orators, capable administrators, compassionate counselors, wise decision-makers, dispassionate conflict-resolvers, and astute theologians. Naturally, professional standards insist that clergy be morally upright and exemplary in every way. And, as an outward sign, clergy must dress respectably and speak with authority and conviction.
Clergy function essentially as professional church managers. Clergy are responsible for preparing teachings, homilies, and sermons, visiting the sick, conducting funerals and marriages, properly administering the sacraments, overseeing church social events, Sunday School, and catechism programs, preparing engaged couples for marriage, counseling those with problems, preparing denominational reports, attending denominational meetings, managing missionary and evangelistic programs, assembling and overseeing staff (such as assistant ministers, youth group leaders, administrative staffs, and evangelism teams), organizing fund-raising drives, attending to community relations, facilities use, and building maintenance, encouraging, disciplining, and edifying parishioners, and establishing the vision and direction of the church.
There exists, then, a definite set of tasks which everyone (even the non-Christian) knows is the rightful duty of a member of the clergy. Everyone knows it because it is an institutionalized profession, created and maintained by denominations, hierarchies, theological seminaries, the laity, and, finally, the clergy themselves.
THE FIRST PROBLEM with the clergy is that God doesn't intend such a profession to exist. There is simply and unequivocally no biblical mandate or justification for the profession of clergy as we know it. In fact, the New Testament points to a very different way of doing church and pastoral ministry.
Nevertheless, human societies throughout history have consistently created spiritual castes of people-shamans, priests, soothsayers, witch-doctors, wise-men, prophets, gurus-and the Christian church has been no exception. It didn't take long for the church to construct, based on a handful of ambiguous scripture verses ("upon this rock I will build my church," "you shall not muzzle an ox while it is threshing"), a massive, institutional, hierarchical superstructure. This, in effect, created a two-class, authoritarian system within the church in which clergy were considered more spiritual than laity.
Protestants broke with the Catholic church, of course. But Protestants are just as "catholic" as Roman Catholics when it comes to clergy. Though the Bible replaced the Sacraments as the center of God's revelation for Protestants, the profession they set up to protect and distribute this revelation is functionally identical to the Catholic priesthood. As the priest correctly administers the wafer, the minister correctly interprets the Word of God.
But when we go back to the Word of God and read it afresh, we see that the clergy profession is the result of our human culture and history and not of God's will for the church. It is simply impossible to construct a defensible biblical justification for the institution of clergy as we know it.
THE SECOND PROBLEM with the clergy profession is that it crushes "body life." We can see in the New Testament that God doesn't intend church to be a formal association to which a rank-and-file membership belongs by virtue of paying dues and attending meetings, an association which is organized, guided, and governed by a professional leader (and, in larger organizations, by an administrative bureaucracy). Yet that is exactly what most churches are.
By contrast, God intends church to be a community of believers in which each member contributes their special gift, talent, or ability to the whole, so that, through the active participation and contribution of all, the needs of the community are met. In other words, what we ought to see in buildings we call churches is "the ministry of the people," not "the ministry of the professional." In this way, the church is to act like a body, with each unique, necessary part working for the good of the whole body. And, Paul argues clearly that each member's gift is indispensable, that the body needs each part to contribute or else it will be lame (1Cor. 12:20-25).
The problem is that, regardless of what our theologies tell us about the purpose of clergy, the actual effect of the clergy profession is to make the body of Christ lame. This happens not because clergy intend it (they usually intend the opposite) but because the objective nature of the profession inevitably turns the laity into passive receivers.
The role of clergy is essentially the centralization and professionalization of the gifts of the whole body into one person. In this way, the clergy represents Christianity's capitulation to modern society's tendency toward specialization; clergy are spiritual specialists, church specialists. Everyone else in the church are merely "ordinary" believers who hold "secular" jobs where they specialize in "non-spiritual" activities such as plumbing, teaching, or marketing. So, in effect, what ought to be accomplished in an ordinary, decentralized, non-professional manner by all church members together is instead accomplished by a single, full-time professional-The Pastor.
Since the pastor is paid to be the specialist in church operations and management, it is only logical and natural that the laity (I use the term laity in a cultural sense, in actual fact, the laity is not know in the bible) begin to assume a passive role in church. Rather than contributing their part to edify the church, they go to church as passive receivers to be edified. Rather than actively spending the time and energy to exercise their gift for the good of the body, they sit back and let the pastor run the show.
Think about Sunday morning. Parishioners arrive on schedule, sit quietly in pews, and watch and listen to the minister who is up-front, center-stage, whose presence dominates the service. They stand, sit, speak, and sing only when they are directed to by the minister or the program. Yet, in reality, what happens during these two hours on Sunday morning is only a micro-cosmic picture of the whole church reality.
If the people of a congregation began to get a vision that the church is not a formal association but a community, that gifts are distributed-apart from ordination-to each person, that everyone must actively participate and contribute for church to work, that no one's gift is more important than another's, and that everyone's participation will ensure a full, healthy church life-in short, a vision of a biblical view of church life-I suspect many would begin to ask themselves: "Then what are we paying our minister for?" And, that would be a reasonable question to ask.
Full-time, professional clergy are only needed when church members are not doing their part. On the other hand, when each church member is actively participating and contributing their part for the good of the body, a professional minister is unnecessary. That is a fact that is proven every day in tens of thousands of communities and home churches all around the world.
THE THIRD PROBLEM with the clergy profession is that it is fundamentally self-defeating. Its stated purpose is to nurture spiritual maturity in the church-a valuable goal. In actuality, however, it accomplishes the opposite by nurturing a permanent dependence of the laity on the clergy. Clergy become to their congregations like parents whose children never grow up, like therapists whose clients never become healed, like teachers whose students never graduate. The existence of a full-time, professional minister makes it too easy for church members not to take responsibility for the on-going life of the church. And why should they? That's the job of the pastor (so the thinking goes). But the result is that the laity remain in a state of passive dependence.
Imagine, however, a church whose pastor resigned and that could not find a replacement. Ideally, eventually, the members of that church would have to get off of their pews, come together, and figure out who would teach, who would counsel, who would settle disputes, who would visit the sick, who would lead worship, and so on. With a bit of insight, they would realize that the Bible calls the body as a whole to do these things together, prompting each to consider what gift they have to contribute, what role they could play to build up the body. And with a bit of courage, that church might actually take the painful steps in the direction of long-term change. Some might leave for other churches that have full-time ministers. But those who remained to participate in the work of building body life would mature faster and further than they ever would have with a pastor to do it all for them.
THE FOURTH PROBLEM with the clergy profession is what it does to the people in that profession. Being a member of the clergy as we know it is difficult. Doing it very well is almost impossible. Yet good-hearted men and women, convinced that they are serving God in this way, admirably pour their lives into this task. What they encounter as professional clergy, however, is stress, frustration, and burn-out.
It's no wonder, of course, since clergy are trying to do the work of a whole congregation all by themselves! How can a single person be a natural leader, a skilled orator, a visionary, a capable administrator, a compassionate counselor, a wise decision-maker, a dispassionate conflict-resolver, and an astute theologian all at once? Why do we make one person be all things to all parishioners?
Being a minister is, quite simply, unrealistic. It is as unrealistic as a corporation expecting a single employee to successfully fill or oversee all of the corporate roles, from mail-boy to secretary to middle-manager to president, while most of the other employees arrive at work one day a week to simply watch this super-human achievement (and sometimes do a chore they are asked by the super-employee to do). In this way, the clergy profession demands super-Christian, super-human accomplishment. Christians-with our realistic understanding of human limitations and weaknesses-should know better than that. God certainly did, which is why he gave the task of maintaining and building up the church as the shared responsibility of all believers, not the centralized, specialized, professionalized task of one person.
CLERGY ARE THE keepers-of-the-church; but the church really doesn't need to be kept in this way because God keeps it and asks all believers to participate in keeping it. The clergy, as a profession, are assigned to preserve, protect, and dispense Christian truth, correct teachings, the Bible, the sacraments, and authority. Yet the Christian truth does not need a professional class to protect it. Truth is not that fragile.
Christian truth is not some kind of classified or dangerous material which only card-carrying experts can handle. Nor is it like riches which need the protection of safe vaults and armed security guards. It is the Holy Spirit's and not the hierarchy or the denomination's job to preserve Christian truth in history; and the Holy Spirit has seen fit to do so by distributing it to all God's people so they can share it together.
The problem with clergy, we've seen, is not the actual people who are of the clergy-who are typically sincere and committed-but the social role of the profession to which they belong. Ministers often hope to re-shape that role in ways that are more realistic and biblical. But they eventually discover that, for the most part, they can't reshape the role at will because their congregations and denominations expect the standard things from them. Of course, that's the nature of social roles: they shape people more than people shape them.
A problem even more basic and serious than the clergy role, however, is that most Christians have completely redefined what a healthy church looks like in the first place. For most church-goers, a solid, healthy church is one which is growing numerically, has a fabulous pastor, and offers many activities and programs. That may be what a vibrant voluntary association-such as the YMCA-looks like. But if the Bible is our authority, those factors are irrelevant when it comes to church.
What's important in church, according to the Bible, is that each member actively contributes to the good of the whole body through responsible participation and the exercise of their gifts. What's important in church, according to the Bible, is that believers become strong and mature in their faith through the edification of one another. A biblical church is a "people's church" with a decentralized ministry.
Of course, when we speak of "church without clergy," we do not mean the elimination of full-time ministers. Indeed, the church needs more full-time ministers. The relevant question, however, is: what kinds of ministries ought these full-time people to be doing? According to the New Testament, full-time ministers ought to be ministering in and to the world, in such tasks as working with the poor, doing evangelism, and making peace where there is conflict and violence. Biblically speaking, it is the world, and not the church, which needs full-time Christian ministers.
WHAT WE NEED today is church without clergy. Pastors themselves need to be liberated from the demand to be ultra-versatile, multi-talented, super-human performers. And lay people need to be jarred from the pacifying illusion that it is enough to simply attend church on Sunday mornings and tithe ten percent of their income.
Church without clergy is not easy; it demands the full, active participation of everyone. But the rewards of church without clergy-the riches of participation, of solidarity, and of community-make the effort exceedingly worthwhile. And, those who make that effort will be well on their way to transforming church from something they simply go to, to something they, together, are.
There is no such designation as the clergy/laity class system which has become well established in modern Christianity. Whether one takes the title father, pastor or elder, the fact remains that perpetuating a separation between the group called "ministers" and the common congregation is unscriptural and leads to the suffocation of the manifold grace of God as realized through each individual member. Let's begin with some passages from the gospel of Matthew.
But Jesus called them to Himself, and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great men exercise authority over them. It is not so among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant, Matt. 20:25
But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. Matt.23:8
And do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. Matt. 23:10
Let me be very clear about this; there is no place in the new covenant for recognizing one group of saints as separate from or set above another. Nor is there any place for the use of honorific titles. In fact, the concept of there being a select group of individuals known as the "ministers" is nothing more than a regurgitation of the Old Testament priesthood mingled with paganism. And the common practice within protestant churches of taking a title such as "pastor" or "elder" is no different than the catholic practice of calling Catholic priests "father". All such activity is carnal and in direct violation of the teachings and example of Jesus.
To perpetuate such ideals is to embrace division and the illegitimate recognition of oneself. It is not, as some say, merely a custom of respect for the sake of the "office". For although such respect may be deserved by virtue of one's stature in Christ, it cannot under any circumstance be expected, demanded, enjoyed or utilized to achieve even the most godly of endeavors. If the saints choose to submit to your wisdom and example then so be it, but you have no right to compel or manipulate them into doing so, as in the common misconception that everyone should be under the authority of a "pastor".
Furthermore, many "pastors" clearly overstep their bounds regarding the teaching of submission and authority, imposing a demand for respect of their "office" that is unbiblical. Ironically, the very concept of "ministry offices" was intentionally inserted in the famous 1st Timothy passage by King James in an effort to reassert control by the clergy which was lost during the Reformation. In fact, neither the Greek word, nor any idiomatic connotation for the concept of a "ministry office" can be found in any Greek text. Neither is there any scriptural precedent for utilizing titles and peer-pressuring the saints into doing so. Again I say; there is no legitimacy in recognizing or perpetuating a ministerial class, for Jesus clearly invalidated such distinctions.
A More Proper View of Leadership
Now, does the Lord grace individuals to care for and oversee the needs of the saints? Absolutely! And if you desire to take on this honorable responsibility then do so; as a member of their company, not as one who sits above them. Remember, your work is one of service, not of ruling. For the term "pastor" (also an intentional mistranslation) is meant to be descriptive of the service, not taken as a title, being the same word most commonly translated "shepherds". It is as if some of you have changed your first name to "pastor" seeing as how important it is that people address you as such! Indeed, all such title-taking is carnal: be it pastor, teacher, prophet or apostle.
Brothers, the clergy/laity system is not of the Father but is of the world, and those desiring to be a part of God's purpose must be willing to walk away from it. Let us follow the example of Paul, who did not even consider Peter, James and John as anything special, saying in Galatians 2:6…
But from those who were of high reputation (what they were makes no difference to me; God shows no partiality)
Simply put, if you are showing partiality, or purporting that it be shown to you then you are not in league with the Father, but with the world.
Furthermore, the scriptures teach that a plurality of elders, each functioning with their own individual giftings, shepherd the flock of God as a collective whole, as Peter said in his first epistle, chapter 5:1-3,
The elders who are among you I exhort, I who am a fellow elder and a witness of the sufferings of Christ, and also a partaker of the glory that will be revealed:
Shepherd the flock of God which is among you, serving as overseers, not by compulsion but willingly, not for dishonest gain but eagerly;nor as being lords over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock;
Notice here that there are elders (plural) shepherding a flock (singular). Indeed, we see here the accurate delineation of the elders' function within the body: elders (prebuteroi) are to shepherd (poimaino), serving as overseers (episkopos) not as lords (katakurieuo, the same word Jesus used in Matt. 25) but as examples (tupos, a word used to describe the process of striking an impression by a hard blow, as in minting a coin). The clear, scriptural teaching is that within the one body there are several individuals functioning as elders who care for and protect the body, preserving both the testimony of Christ and the oneness of the Spirit by living the example of organic unity.
In contrast, today we observe many elders (if they truly are elders) garnering sections of the body under their distinctive ministry, dividing the one flock into many, building fences around their group and serving as the gatekeepers of their respective pastures. If you can ever get them all in the same place they spend more time posturing and discussing church growth strategies than they do striving together for the unity of the gospel. Brothers, this should not be.
What Shall We Do?
As with sectarianism, this is a deeply ingrained problem: for most of the body has functioned under this system for so long, they are accustomed to having a king. Even more problematic is the fact that many "pastors" will have a hard time admitting they have taught such error and simply take the easy way of sticking with tradition. Nevertheless, a true exegesis of the scripture reveals that the tradition of dividing clergy and laity cannot be supported. Not to mention the wealth of both historical and contemporary study that supports this assertion. So then what will you do?
First, let me remind you that the foundation of nearly every significant move of God's Spirit throughout history has been precluded by a recognition that the clergy/laity divide is unscriptural, followed by return to equality amongst the members of the body. This would be a good starting point. We should expose the unbiblical nature of this system and teach the saints the truth: that they have become dependent on a "man of God" instead of the Man of God - Christ Jesus. Second, there should be a clear and forthright rescinding of position and title. If "pastors" would return to being brothers, who serve the body as elders, by way of example not by imposition of authority, we would see great strides toward both oneness and the expression of Christ in our cities. Third, we must cease the practice of overemphasizing the pastoral, or shepherding, gift. Without question this gift is necessary for our maturing, however there is no scriptural precedent to suggest that it be allowed the preeminent position amongst the body. Nor is there any scriptural evidence of this gifting acting as the gatekeeper to the body. This prevailing idealism is a hold over from Catholicism stemming from the erroneous assumption that "pastor" is discretely synonymous with "elder", requiring apostles, prophets, evangelists and teachers to pass through the "shepherd" to obtain entrance to the body. But the scripture does not support this position. Rather, the Lord's revealed intent is that among the college of elders there be representation of all the giftings mentioned in Eph. 4 and 1 Cor. 12, and that these individuals function with one spirit and mind for the care and maturing of the body. To overemphasize any grace-gift is detrimental and self-serving, leading to distorted teaching and spiritual malnourishment.
Friends, there is much to overcome in this area, and this brief exhortation is only the beginning. I only hope that the sensitive nature of the content does not preclude you from hearing the heart of the Spirit. It is not my intention to invalidate anyone's service to the body but to expose the divisive and unbiblical class system that hinders the spiritual maturity of the saints. He that has an ear to hear, let him hear.
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