If your pastor hasn’t told you that you need to faithfully attend worship services so you can be blessed by receiving the ordinary means of grace (Word, sacrament, prayer: Shorter Catechism #88), then you don’t go to a confessionally reformed Church. Participating in corporate worship, and especially sitting under faithful preaching, are necessary to grow in grace.
So when does the average OPC pastor sit under faithful preaching? Especially when he has to preach twice a Sunday, is he ever able to listen to a sermon which is not an audio file? Is he ever able to listen to a sermon without a critical ear which seeks out weaknesses or tips for improving his own preaching?
Perhaps I’m obtuse, but I can’t think of a passage of Scripture which tells us only pastors don’t need to regularly participate in (as opposed to lead) worship services. (In fact, Jesus draws a sharp distinction between what worship leaders and worshipers do, identifying the former as “work” in Matthew 12:5.) If Church members suffer when they don’t attend on the ordinary means of grace, then pastors suffer as well. I can’t say what difference this makes in the life of any given pastor, but I’m sure it does. Your pastor may be wonderful; imagine how much more spiritually mature he would be if he didn’t have to work both services on the Christian Sabbath. Imagine, in turn, how much more spiritually mature your entire congregation might then be.
There’s actually a very simple way to help pastors attain greater spiritual health: every congregation could hire two or three ministers so that the preaching burden can be shared between them and each can hear at least one sermon every Sunday. (Also imagine how much more careful a minister would have to be when preaching or during session meetings if another man with the same level of training were in the room.) The objection to this simple proposal is equally simple: small congregations, such as are common in the OPC, can barely afford one pastor, let alone a pastoral staff.
This suggests that the standard OPC congregational model, despite our best intentions, may foster poor spiritual health.
2 comments:
I couldn't agree more, Matthew! But how to practically address the matter? I think you have taken the most important first step of identifying it: ministers tend to spiritually atrophy when working alone. But if we recognize the problem, do we have the courage and humility to take action? We as Presbyterians say we value mutual submission out of biblical fidelity. But can we really be serious when it is confined to semi-annual business meetings? On the other hand, submitting to each other and letting the spirit of prophets be subject to prophets is its own kind of scary business. What if we are mistreated by our own? Though we are eager to preach the gospel of Jesus, we are too slow to share his cross. Pray for me, brother, and I will pray for you!
Prayer is a practical way to address the matter, if it's prayer we will discern how to take practical steps. You're right that we need to have both courage and humility, and doubly right to point out the risks involved.
IMHO, if you don't have courage and humility, then get out of the pastorate. The practical steps to take, and how to tackle the risks, are issues I hope to addres later on in this series.
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