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It has always been my opinion that the best jobs are the ones where you are hired because you have a friend or family member already working in the company.  In this scenario, you are already a known quantity.  This friend or family member knows you on a personal level, and in their mind, they think of you as someone they want to work with.  Then, because you know someone on the inside already, you have a greater feel for what the company culture is really like.  You know them, and they know you.   The alternative is that you attend 1-3 job interviews where both you and the company put on your best self.  The company then calls 1-3 of your references (which are probably the three people you know who would say the best things about you) to get positive affirmation that you are a good candidate.  Which scenario sounds better to you?

Too often, the “calling” of a pastor is treated too much like the process of finding a job.  A church needs a pastor, so they look through dozens of resumes.  Perhaps the church listens to a few sermons, and then they reach out to schedule the phone interview/Zoom call, and if that goes well, they have the man come and preach on a Sunday morning.  If this goes well, the process continues with more preaching and more interviews (typically called Q&A’s to make them sound more sanctified). After this goes on for a period of time the church congregation votes on whether to extend a call for the man to be their pastor.  Ultimately, the pastor is not known well by the church and the pastor does not know the church he is coming to pastor. Surely there must be a better way!

In Pastor Danny’s sermon this past Sunday, it was suggested there is a better way.  “Pastors should normally be known men who can be affirmed with a measure of confidence, and even typically developed and recognized from within a church.” This model makes sense for two reasons.  The first is that there is no better way for a congregation to determine the character qualifications (1 Timothy 3:2-7) of a pastor than to have that man be someone who is already a part of that local church.  The second reason is that it seems to be the model laid out within the New Testament.  There were no Bible Colleges or Seminaries to get a list of men to sift through to find a pastor in the early church.  In the early church and most of church history, pastors were men already in that local church and community.  These men who became pastors were known by their local church, and they knew their local church on a deep level. 

To train pastors within a local church requires a culture of discipleship not only with the pastor(s) but throughout the entire congregation.  The pastor(s) may lead the charge in training and equipping future pastors, but it is the congregation’s role to pray for, encourage and affirm these men.  There are several men at Anchor Baptist Church that aspire to the office of pastor.  Let us pray for these men and encourage them in their aspiration as they seek to be men who live up to the qualifications of pastor.  These men may very well one day serve as a pastor in our church or a like-minded sister church in the area.