Tag: pastors

How do you support a church without a pastor?

This was a question raised by Tim Wilson, pastor of Wheelock Heath Baptist church on Twitter. For context, Tim is involved with the Rural Project which is about supporting churches, plants and revitalisations in rural contexts, so similar to the kind of work I’m involved with in urban contexts.  Here are my thoughts.  I’m assuming… Continue reading How do you support a church without a pastor?

The pastor’s role and the Christian Sabbath

I’ve been handling a couple of recurring themes over the past few weeks. First there has been the question of the Christian Sabbath and then there has been the question of whether or not pastors have jobs, whether they work or whether their role is leisure. The two issues dovetail neatly into another question that… Continue reading The pastor’s role and the Christian Sabbath

How should we talk about the pastor’s role?

I’ve written a couple of articles disagreeing with a particular description of pastoral ministry.  First, in response to Tim Suffield, I said “Yes and no” to the statement that as a pastor you don’t have a job.  I said both “yes and no” because I agree that there can be particularly unhelpful connotations if we… Continue reading How should we talk about the pastor’s role?

How we talk about the pastor’s role matters

Last week, I engaged with Tim Suffield on whether pastors have jobs or not.  Someone who engaged more supportively with Tim was John Barach.  He tweeted: My response was that this is all sounds very pleasant but isn’t how Scripture describes the call to pastoral ministry.  He responded by saying: In our conversation he developed… Continue reading How we talk about the pastor’s role matters

Perhaps pastors are modelling what work was meant to be like

I’ve engaged recently with a suggestion that pastors do not really have jobs. I’m going to engage further this week with another person who has argued that pastors are paid to enjoy leisure time. However something struck me which I want to focus on first. A lot of the argument seems to assume that pastors… Continue reading Perhaps pastors are modelling what work was meant to be like

Yes your pastor does have a job … and it matters

Tim Suffield has written this provocative piece about pastors not really having jobs.  There’s much I would agree with here but I think there are a couple of things to push back against. So, first of all here’s why I agree with Tim.  Yes, it is true that the pastor doesn’t have a job. Our… Continue reading Yes your pastor does have a job … and it matters

Pastoral and unpastoral pastors?

The Southern Baptist Convention has recently made waves by deciding to add to its rules that associating churches must not include women pastors on their staff. This links in part to the decision by Saddleback Church to appoint female pastors and Rick Warren’s change of mind on complementarianism.  However, the decision has caused consternation not… Continue reading Pastoral and unpastoral pastors?

The danger with listening critically to sermons

The other day, I wrote some advice on giving feedback to preachers.  I want to add one further piece of advice.  Ration your feedback, give it sparingly.  What I mean by this is that whilst everyone should be getting regular feedback, you don’t want to be giving it every time you listen to other preachers.… Continue reading The danger with listening critically to sermons

If you know, then you know

The other day, I commented on this tweet about those training for ministry and the benefits of reading the Brontes, Austen and other literary classics. It’s probably worth me clarifying to avoid any doubt that my article wasn’t intended as a direct response to the specific argument the original tweet was making. Indeed, as I’ll… Continue reading If you know, then you know