The Pastor-Centered Church: What does it look like?
When I'm using the term "Pastor-Centered" church, I'm thinking about a congregation that has it's activities and decision-making process centered around one person: the pastor (or senior pastor, for churches that have more than one). If the pastor doesn't visit someone in the hospital, one might hear the complaint: "The church has not visited [someone]." When a major decision is being made, all eyes turn to the pastor to hear his/her opinion, the rest of the discussion responds (positively or negatively) to that opinion. The pastor sets the agenda for the discussion just by being there.In a pastor-centered church, the major portion of the ministry and all the important and critical ministry is done by or with the direct participation of the pastor. If the church were a country, the pastor would be the president, and in some countries the king or queen.
A pastor, in a pastor-centered church, is either fighting that tendency to make him/her the center of all activity, or fueling that tendency. Fighting it is not easy. I know. Pastors who are paid by their congregations are expected to perform in certain ways; this includes 'running the show.' "That's what pastors are paid for," some would say, or think, or assume.
For some pastors, this is a relationship they embrace, endorse and promote by what they say and what they do. They are everywhere, know everyone's issues, attend all the events of all the families, and fully embrace the status they enjoy as the one everyone looks to for advice, whether spiritual or not. If they are not liked, they are loved--at least that's their expectation of themselves. If someone doesn't like them, or leaves the congregation, they take it very personally. Such pastors often take on this role self-sacrificially, as an act of servanthood (at least that is the conscious thought process in the pastor's mind).
Psychologists and sociologists call this relationship co-dependence.
When church members minister vicariously through a pastor with a need to be needed, we have a pastor and a pastor-centered church that are sick, but don't know it. This is certainly not the arrangement envisioned for the church in the New Testament.
The Christ-Centered Church
(I hope this doesn't look like a cheap shot: calling one model 'pastor-centered' and the other 'Christ-centered. I just didn't know how else to describe a non-pastor-centered church. What or Who is at the center of such a church, if not Christ? I'm open to suggestions for a more neutral sounding way of describing the alternative.)The Christ-Centered church is one in which the leaders (including the pastor) understand that their task is not to do all the ministry, but to see to it that the church does all the ministry. They take their cue from Ephesians 4:12, understanding that the task assigned to them by Christ is to equip God's people for works of service... The Greek word translated "service" is diakonia, which is also means "ministry." That section ends with the assurance that when this is done, many good things happen ...as each part does its work (Eph 4:16). God's design then is for everyone to have a part, and also for everyone to do their part.
When a church leader takes on ministry that belongs to others, he is usurping both their role as ministers and Christ's role as the one who assigns ministry! This is not servanthood, regardless of the thought process in the pastor's mind. It may be self-sacrifice, but if it is, it's a sacrifice to the wrong god.
In the Christ-centered church the pastor is mostly interested in empowering the ministries of others in the congregation. Such pastors equip others by helping them identify their gifts, by calling out the "gold" in them, by believing in them when they don't believe in themselves, by encouraging them, by lifting them when they make a mistake, and a host of other things. I have found that helping people discover their gifts is not enough. Most people need to be 'pastored' in their gifts: nurtured, corrected (gracefully, of course), encouraged and provided opportunities to risk using them.
(While were here, let me suggest that there are often many, many pastors in a congregation, not just the one with a title. For much of the history of the church the one with the role we call 'pastor' was not usually called that. They've been called minister, parson, reverend, and a number of other things. Only recently has 'pastor' been the primary term. My official title in my denomination (Christian Reformed Church) is "Minister of the Word." I wish we could choose a different term than 'pastor,' but that may not happen in my lifetime, so I'll continue to use the title, even though it's imprecise.)
In Acts 6:4, the apostles decided that some ministry was a distraction to their primary task, which they understood to be prayer and the ministry of the word. In the pastor-centered church, often the pastor gets to those things last, or does them along the way. They are not often the main focus of the pastor's life. The pastor who understands the central importance of prayer and the ministry of the word, is more likely to try to work toward the Christ-centered church model we find in Ephesians 4:11-16 (and elsewhere). It's the only way to do it!
Closing Thoughts
I don't really have much more to say on this, and I'm not sure if I've just created a straw-dog to knock down, or addressed a real issue in a helpful way. As I said, these thoughts are still coming together in my mind, and I'm not sure I have it all sorted out.On the other hand, I do see some relationships between pastor and church that are unhealthy, not in merely specific circumstances, but systemically. There is something about keeping the pastor on a spiritual pedestal and assigning him the Lion's share of responsibility for all the ministry in the church that is just plain wrong, if not blatantly immoral. Maybe I'll write about this more as my thoughts on this form into a more coherent presentation.
Thanks for reading. I'm open to your comments.
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