Revocation of ordination

1. I have never heard of pastors being "re-ordained" unless they change to a church of a different faith and order. Otherwise, the ordination "transfers" from one Baptist church to another.
2. It would seem that if a church revokes an ordination, that the church where the pastor is presently a member might take one of two choices: (1) Recognize the act of the ordaining church and either depose the minister or "re-ordain" him, or (2) Refuse to recognize the act of the ordaining church and carry on with business as usual.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by rsr:
1. Doesn't ordination usually carry from one church to another? Pastors are not re-ordained if they move to a new church; at least that has been my experience. What is the IFB experience? I suspect my PB friends might have a different take.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>That would depend on the local churches denominational/convention/fellowship affiliation. My church is unaffiliated and ordination is a local church matter. We don't believe we have the authority to ordain a man for any ministry other than our own. It is up to the local church the man is serving with to ordain him to that office. <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>2. If the original ordaining church, for whatever reason, decides that a former minister in another church should have his ordination revoked, how does that affect his status at the new church?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>In our church, believing in the autonomy of the local assembly, we believe the ordination to any office in the local church expires when that persons membership in that local church expires.

 

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by Dr. Bob Griffin:
So Thomas, were you ordained at your present church in San Diego? And if you left to go to another church, would you sit for ordination again?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Yes. I was ordained here to the office of Pastor 17 years ago. If I ever leave this church I will again expect to be examined and ordained by any new church the Lord calls me to. However, it is more likely the pastorate of this church will fall on another, younger, man, and I will spend the rest of my life teaching, either here in the Seminary, or on the foreign field. If that happens, this church would ordain me as a teacher, or the church on the foreign field, whichever place I end up.

I think you have put your finger on the problem with the "universal church" type ordination - all too often the ordaining church no longer has contect with the man they ordained and have no idea what he is preaching/teaching, or, in some cases, the ordaining church no longer exists, and we have "ordained" baptist preachers running around with little or no accountablilty to their ordaining church. Being strickly local church in the matter of ordination would solved a many such problems.

 

That's one of the reasons I value my chaplaincy endorsement since it provides a level of accountability to my peers on a national level. I think that the one of the results of the fallout of the fundamentalist takeover/resurgence in the SBC is that a younger generation of moderate & liberal baptist clergy are more interested in finding ways for baptist ministers to be accountable to a larger, more diverse, better trained body.

Joshua

 

quote rsr: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>If ordination is, as Baptists believe, solely the responsibility of the local church, why would ordination "transfer" from one church to another? Or is this simply recognition that a church would not accept or call a pastor whose ordination could in any way be questioned?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>It is not unusual for one church to recognize the official acts of another. The performance of baptism is also solely the responsiblity of the local church, but a person is not baptized every time he changes membership. Sometimes people are rebaptized because the first baptism is not considered valid. To me, reordaining is saying the first ordination was not valid.

quote Thomas Cassidy: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>My church is unaffiliated and ordination is a local church matter...In our church, believing in the autonomy of the local assembly, we believe the ordination to any office in the local church expires when that persons membership in that local church expires. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE>My church is also unaffiliated and we believe ordination is by local church authority, but it is not that we are only ordaining for service in that local church. If another autonomous local church calls you to help in a meeting, revival, Bible conference, etc., does your ordination extend to the ability to function in that capacity? I understand this idea to be simply logic driven, with no Biblical example that ministers of, for example, the Jerusalem church were not recognized by the church at Antioch. I note a first ordaining or laying on hands on several occasions but not that it was redone. Paul spoke to Timothy about the laying on of hands of the presbytery as if it were a one time event; yet we know Timothy travelled and ministered in various places. I find this concept intriguing, if not extreme, and think that at times our dearly beloved brother, Elder J. R. Graves, ran a few theories down to an ultimate logical conclusion without properly modifying them by scriptural examples of how the first churches handled them. If I ran my theory of baptism to an ultimate logical conclusion from the starting point of my views of local church authority, without factoring in a few other things, I would require that every new member of my church be baptized by my church. I'd be interested further in your views on this.

I am inserting baptism in place of ordination in your comments on post two to show how I think this would look: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>I think you have put your finger on the problem with the "universal church" type baptism- all too often the baptizing church no longer has contact with the man they baptized and have no idea what he is doing, or, in some cases, the baptizing church no longer exists, and we have baptized baptist members running around with little or no accountablilty to their baptizing church. Being strictly local church in the matter of baptism would solve a many such problems.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

 

quote Joshua: <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>...a younger generation of moderate & liberal baptist clergy are more interested in finding ways for baptist ministers to be accountable to a larger, more diverse, better trained body.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>Joshua, it seems that your example goes to the extreme in the other direction. I always cringe when I hear of some "body" organized by men spoken of in such more glowing terms than the "body" organized by Jesus. Don't misunderstand, I don't think our churches are what they could be or should be. But I do think we have sold them short. If we were to put the energies into building the churches that we put into building parachurch organizations, they might be that which they should be. As far as accountability, though I don't go as far as Thomas - for a minister to be accountable to a larger body than the church goes beyond Baptist doctrine. There is a sense in which ministers are accountable to Christians in general, the family of God, but there is no Baptist body or institution "larger" than the local church.

 

Hope this isn't too far off topic. How does what Joshua state affect the autonomy of the local church? If the pastor is accountable to any organization other than the local congregation then the congregation is in some respects under the authority of that same organization.

 

rlvaughn, the difference being, of course, that baptism is an ordinance of the church and ordination is not. And, when I preach at another church I preach as "Pastor of First Baptist Church of Spring Valley." The church I am preaching at recognizes that I am an officer of FBC. My ordination is to an office of the local church.

 

Thomas, the Lord's supper is also an ordinance of the church. I am not sure how you practice it, but I believe that you practice it as open only to members of your local church. I know some Baptists do practice intercommunion, but I think I have read you endorse the practice of local church only communion. If so, how does the argument that it "is an ordinance" apply only to baptism and not to the Lord's supper?

I'm curious - does your church practice ordination by the laying on of hands of a presbytery, or simply by vote of the church?

 

Only members of our local church partake of the Lord's Supper with us, and only members of our local church are baptized by us. We do not baptize people into the membership of your church, only into ours. We then tranfer that membership to your church, upon receipt of a request for letter.

And when a person leaves our membership, we don't force them to regurgitate the elements and leave them behind.

 

If you baptize them into your membership, do you unbaptize them out? We do not baptize members into the church membership of yours or ours. They are baptized, then fellowshipped into membership.

But what I am saying is this. You said that the difference between ordination and baptism is that baptism is an ordinance. Since baptism is an ordinance it may be recognized by another church. What I am thinking about is that you are allowing baptism an extension beyond the local church in which it is performed based on the fact that it is an ordinance. The Lord's supper is also an ordinance - why can it not, based on that logic, extend beyond the local church? It would seem that such an argument would favor intercommunion of Baptists.

I'm still curious about the method of ordination used by FBC-Spring Valley, if you care to address it. A number of people in this area have advocated ordination by the vote of church, without any laying on of hands of the presbytery. So far it is only in theory, none have actually practiced it. That's one reason I thought this might be your practice (also considering many churches cannot field much of a presbytery on their own).