NAD Summit Seeks Educational Pathway for Pastoral Ministry
by Jeff Boyd
From News Release, September 11, 2014
A summit entitled “Pathways to Effective Pastoral Ministry” convened on the campus of Andrews University September 6-8, reports the North American Division of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. The summit's goal was to create a clearly defined educational path to the ministry for pastoral candidates.
The primary motivation for convening the summit was demographic data that shows that more than 450 Adventist pastors across North America are currently eligible for retirement. With hundreds more joining their ranks every year, a shortage of qualified pastors looms ahead.
The diverse group of thought leaders from across the North American Division gathered to discuss the need for a comprehensive plan for the recruitment and development of effective pastors across the territory.
A recent study by the Adventist World Church Headquarters revealed that while two-thirds of North American Adventist pastors have graduate degrees, 7 percent of pastors have not yet completed a college undergraduate degree. Many pastors have attended unaccredited Bible training schools that provide lay training, with an emphasis on traditional evangelism, typically lasting less than half a year. Additionally, the study showed that three in five pastors expressed a need for ongoing in-service training.
Summit attendees included administrators, ministerial leaders, pastors and educators, who made recommendations that will be presented at the North American Division Year-end Meetings.
Some recommendations include:
- Forming a pastoral council to address pastoral development
- Establishing a council of educators and ministerial leaders to coordinate learning outcomes of ministerial students
- Starting a task force to develop a strategy for pastoral recruitment
The recommendations made at the summit have no formal authority, but will be passed on to the appropriate bodies which can take action.
This is another example of tradition being esteemed above scripture. Nowhere in the Bible do we have a job description for a "pastor." Nowhere in the Bible do we have a clergy class after the end of the temple services. Nowhere in the Bible do we have any basis for the modern concept of preaching as essential to spiritual growth. Instead, we have the Holy Spirit calling individuals to minister the redeeming power of God in a wide variety of ways. We have God empowering individuals to spread the Gospel. So, why such a conference? Why do we still imagine we need pastors to do the work of God so everybody else can be lazy? We don't need a path to create more pastors, we need instead to discover the empowerment of the Holy Spirit in individuals so all can spread the Gospel.
There does seem to be a mixture of abilities set forth in any church or district, favoring some with more eloquent gifts, others with more introverted styles of living. Some are simply "better on their feet" than others, and it has become fashionable to elevate such individuals (all things being equal) to positions that call for such talents. I see great wisdom in recognizing evangelistic gifts among our members and directing those abilities toward positions of evangelistic influence. Unless the congregation recognizes and endorses those gifts and provides some means of financial support for the individuals so recognized, those so gifted will not (unless independently wealthy, or privately sustained financially) have time for reflection and polishing of their gifts that is so helpful in burnishing raw elocutionary and teaching talent. Granted, we have segregated pastors into a separate kind of holy existence that more resembles (at times) a hereditary priesthood than a brotherhood of eloquent lay-people….
Edwin,
Let's keep in mind that evangelism should not be synonymous with or in any way related to preaching at public meetings. A co-worker and I study the Bible at lunchtime. Today we were going over 1 Corinthians 12. Paul makes it plain that God intended for there to be a wide variety of gifts in the church and all of them working together like the parts of a body. In contrast with that, preaching destroys gift-based ministries by creating the illusion that it is superior to all others and thus should be exercised exclusively. I don't find preaching listed by Paul as one of the gifts to be "earnestly desired."
Traditions, such as preaching, are ingrained very deeply in Adventist culture. Whether biblical or not, whether foolish or wise, I seem them as part of the Adventist experience for many years into the future.
Most unfortunately so because preaching has been elevated to the be-all, do-all, everything-in-one "solution" for bringing people into the church. It is failing miserably. We need to be discovering our individual gifts and the ministries God has for us.
Ed and William
The two of you are having a pretty find dialog on the contrast between evangelism a la evangelistic preaching and evangelism as personal, one-on-one gift-based ministries. I hope I understand the general scope here and I welcome clarification.
Now as much as I admire you both, both approaches leave me uncomfortable.
My sense is that William is right, Evangelistic meetings sure seem to be a failure of growing propostions.
Today, evangelists are more than good enough on their feet, as Ed notes. It often only takes 90 days of training and practice with the power-point decks, to cover all of the 28 fundamental bases from the front. That said, the several who have presented series in recent years at a small church where I often attend are so sharply focused on the process of getting people to commit to becoming Seventh-day Adventists, that I cannot imagine inviting any friend to submit to that experience.
What troubled me most is that almost to a man, they have been young men who have had self-proclaimed and often overly detailed sorded short histories. And they have to a person testified that they have, by God's grace, taken hold of their lives and made something spiritually of themselves. In short, no one listening can possibly identify with their faith journey or, frankly, imagine any personal benefit from sharing the journey, so why with the stories?
Clearly there has to be a better way, is my observation.
My sense with regard to the gifts of the church is this. Gifts are for the upbuilding of the community of faith. They are to be lavished on one-another. Gifts really do not seem to have any evangelistic purpose. And when gifts are conditionally proffered, rather that offered 'disintrestedly' as Ellen White liked to explain, then this isn't evangelism. It is really no different than what we don't like about "public evangelism."
Disinterested giftedness is wonderfully human communion and surely is to be encouraged. We are all on the road to Jericho, it feels like to me. And by 'we' I mean everyone we pass in our cars, navigage through a supermarket with, or meet elsewhere.
What remains then with regard to evangelism?
Just how is this to occur?
Indeed, what is evangelism?
What is the kind of undertaking that will add daily to the community of faith?
There must be some suggestions here from AToday readers, hopefully including Ed and William here, both of whom who appear to have started something good here!
How might our worship service be made to support evangelism?
How might annual sermon series be made to support evangelism?
How might our approach to the listed 28 teachings of the church be made to support evangelism?
How might our individual members be supported in such a way that they can each testify with confidence to people they know who do not participate in their congregation?
I'm hoping for substantive and ultimately practical suggestions for an approach to evangelism that is as universal as the reason God sent Jesus his Son to save the world. And by universal, I not only mean it is suitable for people to receive the same witness without regard to culture or age or gender or education or musical ability, say! I also mean that it is universal in that every member can testify with confidence because the church shares the same testimony in worship service after worship service. And because the testimony permeates one's soul and the souls of all who count themselves in the community of faith in Jesus.
I'm thinking that Ed and William really have started something that can change the world right here.
Bill,
Excellent questions! I shall try to give answers of equal caliber.
You wrote: "Gifts really do not seem to have any evangelistic purpose." This is probably because you have not seen gifts in action on any significant scale. It was the gifts of the Holy Spirit that fueled the explosive growth of the early church and caused it to spread across the known world like wildfire. We have seen nothing like that since. Not even the Protestant Reformation or the missionary expansion of the late 1700s into the 1800s compares. The Holy Spirit empowers believers to minister His redeeming and transforming love in a dying world.
Read 1 Corinthians 12. There are MANY gifts. Unfortunately, when you hear a discussion in the SDA Church about spiritual gifts the focus is typically on the gift given to one, single person who died more than a century ago. There is nothing in the present about God working today. In other words, we are ignoring the power of the Holy Spirit. But that was never God's intent. He wanted us to be empowered and working powerfully. So the first challenge we face in discovering the gifts of the Holy Spirit is realizing that this is personal, that God wants to use me and if I am to be used by God, then I must be willing to be used in the way He chooses instead of some stereotypical concept that requires a single method of presentation of the Gospel.
God says the Holy Spirit is already in all who believe. The question is: Are you a believer? This is not some agreement to a set of fundamental beliefs or having your name on the church books. It is a deep, personal relationship with God where you are willing to let Him do what He has promised to do in you and through you.
One lesson I have learned over the years is that the best way to find your spiritual gifts is to not go looking for them. Instead, ask God to show you the ministry He wants you doing. It is your experience in seeing the power of God at work in your ministry that will show you what gifts He has given you. Neither should you go looking for the fruits of the spirit because they develop over time as a result of your experience with God.
Our greatest challenge with evangelism is that we have so exclusively defined it as preaching in a public crusade that it may be best to avoid using the term entirely. Functionally, what we're talking about is ministering God's love in ways that produce new believers and draws them into a growing relationship with Him where they will produce more new believers. This is a continuous process. When you are empowered by the Holy Spirit it is something that springs naturally from within you. It is not something you must deliberately choose to do. It is a state of being. It is what you are. It is an intimate, every day, every hour, every minute experience with God. It is allowing God to truly live inside you.
So, take the concept of evangelism as you have known it and throw it in the trash. Take the concept of the sermonic year and put it there, too. While you're at it, take all discussion and debate about the 28 FBs and deposit them there as well because they only waste your time by distracting you from doing God's work.
As for worship services, we've got a HUGE conceptual roadblock to overcome. Worship is our expression of adoration and praise to God after having an encounter with Him. Sermons are teaching. By their nature they prevent worship. So the concept of a "worship service" that is centered around a sermon is an oxymoron, a self-contradiction.
To truly understand the method of ministry Jesus used we need to focus on copying how He ministered. The loved first and taught LAST. The first result of every miracle He performed was an improvement in the life of the recipient. Believing followed close behind, but life improvement came first. That life improvement came because of the power of the Holy Spirit demonstrating the love of God. So, what we need to be doing first and most often is seeking to improve the lives of others, NOT preach at them. It has been my experience in doing this that I have been amazed by how many spiritual obstacles disappeared and how quickly belief grew when people first saw a demonstration of God's love for them through the life-improving works of others who loved God. I saw this again on Sunday when two others and I were doing some repairs at the home of a retired man. He was thankful and his girlfriend, a staunch anti-SDA Southern Baptist, was close to tears expressing her appreciation and talking about wanting to be part of a church where people loved each other in the ways she saw us doing.
The real bottom-line questions are these: How willing are you to let God truly and totally live inside you? Are you willing to let Him use you to demonstrate His love in practical ways that improve the lives of others. Let God show you His method of bringing others into His church family.
Thanks especially, William,
My sense is that you sense the giftedness of the members, rather than the pastor or a visiting preacher, as having the highest potential in each congregation for bringing the Gospel to people and in turn experience people bringing themselves to the congregation.
Am I summarizing what you are bringing to our conversation here?
If so, I surely like what your suggest.
I was especially touched by your illustration of the comment by a woman whose home you and a couple of your friends were assisting her family in setting right so that they could live more comfortably. Because she knew your were from a church and that the church had sent you, she talked about wanting to be with a church where people loved each other as you so clearly loved her and her family.
While you clearly were a blessing to this woman and her family by helping set her house right, you were so much more. You were what Paul hoped for you as he explain following his summary of his comments on Gifts.
He said, Now I’m going to show you a better way than Gifts to bless one another. And with the very next sentence he begins, “Though I speak with the tongues of mean and of angels, and have not love, I am become as a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” He goes on writing what is perhaps the most widely known and loved chapter in scripture, ranking right up there with the 23rd Psalm, 1 Corinthians 13.
Am I understanding your sense of the potential for the Gospel in each community of Seventh-day Adventist believers?
And if so, please elaborate … and if not, help me to better understand the primal role you see for members in growing the congregation?
Bill,
When the members are empowered and guided by the Holy Spirit, there will naturally arise leaders among them. There will be "greater" gifts and there will be "lesser" gifts. The church needs all of them to function. In 1 Corinthians 12, Paul uses the metaphor of the body where not all are the head or the eye and a greater part cannot say to a lesser part that they are not needed. All are essential. After all, how well can a person walk if they have no feet? How much can a person move without muscles? They may not be the head, hand or mouth, but they are just as essential.
No church needs a pastor who is appointed by the conference. Every church needs members who understand they are personally accountable to God for allowing Him to work through them and who allow Him to inhabit and empower them.
Let me tell you a little "back story" to what I described before at that house. God's caring for us is often seen in intimate ways that may seem small, yet are very meaningful. When I visited to assess the situation and outline the work, my daughter, who runs our church's food pantry ministry, sent a number of bags of groceries. Something she included was a four-pack of dishcloths. I didn't even know they were in the bags. As we went through the house I saw where a number of things were old and worn. I made no observation about dishcloths. He called me the next day to say thank-you and told me that when he found them, he wondered why they had been included. Then he looked at his old dishcloths and saw how worn they were. To him it was God addressing an intimate need he hadn't realized as a need.
More valuable than any service we may deliver is demonstrating that God loves us. That brings hope to rise above present adversity. It turns hearts to God in ways we may never imagine because we don't know their hearts, but God does and he uses us to touch their hearts. That is why I find the ministry so amazing and why I am devoted to "going on God's errands."
If I may suggest, ask God to show you what ministry He wants you to be doing. Then watch and see what need he puts in your path and how He provides what you need to meet that need. Do what God is calling you to do. Don't let the apparent lack of resources stop you because God is first asking if you are willing to move and do for him what He is asking. Remember that you must be like Moses and get your feet wet before God parts the sea ahead of you.
William,
How true … “More valuable than any service we may deliver is demonstrating that God loves us.”
This surely feels like the core of the Gospel and of life itself for the Christian. God’s love for us as the natural core of a Christian’s encounters of life everywhere is, it seems not only our hope, but God’s hope for us.
I sense we are pretty much in parallel agreement in these observations. And do help me better understand this if my summary has drifted from your focus.
What I am sensing is your wonderful preference for action. And I am reminded of scriptural illustrations of powerful blessings God brings to people of action through people who never appear to have stepped foot outside their daily responsibilities of life. The widow whose oil never ran out while God’s man of action shared her home at his own invitation is a story that comes to mind.
The study of populations of people reveals that the majority are not given to action, to engagement, to social initiation. My sense is that for every Mary there is a Martha. Such differences are not measures of character, or of personal deficiency, but rather reflect the different notes of the music of the World that God creates continually.
Again, I sense we are largely in agreement here.
Assuming so, I’m wondering about the bulk of members of the community of faith who are not going to knock on a door or take a loaf of bread to a family in need (which is specifically how I came to be a Seventh-day Adventist) or engage in any such activity, and truly are not expected to. What is the weekly worship experience that sustains and enriches the faith of everyone, including the stay-at-home members, if that is the term?
My sense is that if we figure this out, the results will be more than our deepest hopes for the church today.
We are very much looking in the same direction.
The bulk of the community of Adventists lack effective leadership and inspiration because they've heard a lot of talk about doing for God where the results didn't match the hype. Real faith that works requires purpose that produces results. As I see it, the Number One reason why the church is in such deep trouble today is because members don't have ministry opportunities that produce real results. Fortunately, when even a few people step-out and start ministering in God's power they become the trail-blazers who lead change. God's power is infectious. When people see it, they want to experience it. In the more than eight years I've been doing my Angel Team ministry I've seen several people who came out for a project and realized it wasn't what they wanted to do, but they still got inspired and now they're doing other ministries.
I'd like to know more about Angel Team … It sounds like a blessing to many in the church and beyond … Inspiring!
William
Oh, and this question for you–and for any reader here–came to mind while I was reading about Peter Thiel, "Thiel, who co-founded PayPal and was the first outside investor inFacebook, is probably the most successful – and certainly the most interesting – venture capitalist in Silicon Valley." and author of a newly released book, from Zero to One.
"Thiel, whose net worth is reported to be $2.2 billion, is Silicon Valley royalty, and a singular figure even in that rarefied world. He is a gay practising Christian, a libertarian who has thrown money and support behind the political campaigns of the Republican John McCain and the Libertarian Ron Paul, and who sits on the steering committee of the Bilderberg Group – the elite band of the rich and powerful from politics, industry and business that convenes each year to discuss nobody-outside-the-inner-circle-quite-knows-what. Above all, he is a man with a utopian belief in the power of technology to change the world." http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/11098971/Peter-Thiel-the-billionaire-tech-entrepreneur-on-a-mission-to-cheat-death.html
So what came to mind is this, What is a 'practising Seventh-day Adventist"? And would it be any different than a 'practising Christian"?
Oh, and is there a difference between a Christian and a "practising Christian"?
I'm wondering is answering this question, in all of its iterations, might be a path forward for members of the Seventh-day Adventist church and participants here at AToday.
Does anyone else imagine that it would be helpful, inspiring, or instructive to be able to read the responses to several hundreds of Seventh-day Adventist members from around the world who have fill in the rest of this sentence: A practicing Seventh-day Adventist is … ?
When asked what the "fundamental principle of the Adventist Church" happens to be, I often respond, "The Adventist Church is dedicated to a better world, one in which we are not solely dependent on our own inner resources or intelligence for answers and insight, but one that can look to guidance from a universal Intelligence which we believe is involved even today in that process and is known by various names, including the word 'God.'" I mention the billions of galaxies we know exist and ask the question, "In all that matter, in all those galaxies, it seems to take more faith to disbelieve in a cosmic intelligence involved in our lives than to declare that it is impossible that such a Presence exists."
I would suggest that to some extent this is the "essential position" of an Adventist at its zygote stage and could be the seeds for a more philosophical definition of what it means to be an Adventist, rather than a set of 28 beliefs, each of which must be affirmed. Adventism right now resides in a very big tent, and to make that tent of belief much smaller and disinvite those who are deemed to be too far removed from the historic beginnings of Adventism is not a road we want to take….
Edwin,
I'll give you a one-word answer to your question about the "fundamental principle of the Adventist Church": JESUS.
At least, it should be. Unfortunately, our pursuit of factual correctness about God has taken us quite a bit off-track.
I absolutely agree, though an increasing number of people today have no emotional connection with the Lord Jesus. One must begin one's journey of dialogue at a common point of mental intersection, as did the apostle Paul on Mars Hill. While it may not have been a total success for the apostle, it did contribute to getting him an audience among people who had never heard of Jesus, and it gave him a chance to build up the narrative, to a point of presenting Jesus to them. In that sense it was a achievement, though he did not baptize any that day.
Consider what spiritual impact Paul's encounter with the skeptics at Mars Hill had: none on them but plenty on him. They wanted him to come back and debate more with them. Their intent was not to learn about God from him but only to continue debating (like some of the frequent commentors on this site). That experience appears to be why he makes the bold statement in 2 Corinthians 2 that he has determined to know nothing but Jesus and Him crucified. Other than learning a lesson about the utter worthlessness of debate for the sake of debate, the encounter was a waste of Paul's time.
Edwin, i like your concept of sharing known knowledge of our galaxy, the Milky Way, and beyond, to the never ending inflation of our universe and connection to other universes that have ever been forming for eternity. It's a reality we can observe with our own eyes, with the actual photographs that are produced by the HUBBLE Telescopic cameras, stationed in outer space in a holding pattern, probing billions of light years away. This is a reality, the largest mass of evidence that "man" can behold, that something intelligent caused it all to be, something greater than man, caused it to be. these suns, stars, planets, galaxies, endless in all directions to infinity. It boggles the mind, but it should not cause us to ignore its presence, because we are unable to quantify the eternity of it. An eternal presence has to be in it, of it, it's origin. Some say it has no intelligent cause of being, something from nothing. All through Earth's history the great majority of Earthlings have intelligently believed the Cosmos was the result of what they call "GOD", or "GODS", or something with "ALMIGHTY power". Do we ignore its existence, dismiss it as illusion, doesn't exist? Impossible, look up, look out, its reality, real, real, real. Man has actually visited the moon. We saw the actual launching of the space craft, through tellimetering we saw the moon landing. We have witnessed photos of the lifeless topography of Mars, a distant planet that our spacecraft take 10 months to reach. We have signals and photos of space probes that have been in outer space for years and still operating. We know of their spatial location and can mathematically plot their actual position down to milliseconds. One of the oldest books in existence, called the "Bible", tells the story that God, Jesus Christ, called this Earth, we live in, into existence, and placed mankind in it. That we today, billions of souls, are the descendents of those first mankind. That the God who created this priviledged "Earth", and its atmosphere, also is the Creator of all the COSMOS, of "all that there is". This God is referred to as "THE ALMIGHTY". That He loves us, His Special Earthly Creation.
While many billions of created non-human forms of life, animals, and plants, are now extinct, mankind has thrived, where today there are approximately 7 billion souls alive. WE are a reality!! The Bible relates the
history of mankind on Earth, both positive, and negative, inspired, and anecdotally, by scribes that wrote first person, and of knowledge passed down verbally person to person before the written language was invented by man. Some who believe these Bible stories and other themes of life, are "myths", and fantasy, the great majority of mankind on Earth today believe mankind was created by GOD, or Gods. The Bible relates that GOD will return to Earth very soon, and transport mankind to somewhere in the outer reaches of space, into His presence, that Earthly human souls will be transformed into "Spiritual bodies", as God Himself has. The Bible teaches that The GODHEAD, The Ancient of Days the Father, Jesus Christ our Creator, and the Holy Spirit, are "ONE", ONE GOD, Who share the GODHEAD. The prime basic theme that forms the reality of the Godhead is "LOVE". LOVE for the GODHEAD, and LOVE of mankind for each other. Perfect LOVE that is given by the GODHEAD to mankind. a LOVE, that a man would sacrifice his life for his friends.