Staff at a large church vs. at a small church.

Bill,
First of all, thank you for your service to the Lord and His church. Without people like you, no church - whether large or small - would be able to continue its ministry. Forget the big church pastors, you all are the heroes.

You are exactly right. No one needs to be ordained to serve the Lord in a ministry position. I believe ordination is, for lack of a better word, a stamp of approval for men who are going to be vocational pastors. I don't use the word professional, because pastors ought to be professional in terms of how we carry ourselves, but we are primarily ministers/servants to God's people.

The problem is that when a church grows very large, the staff people end up being administrators while the people in the church get the fun stuff of actually doing the work of the ministry.

 

BBB -

In Ozark Mountain vernacular - you work with what you've got. And it sounds to me like the Lord has provided well for your church. I am a licensed and ordained man, and serve as our church's worship and youth pastor. I do not have a Bible degree, but I do read and study alot in addition to my daily quiet time to be in front of the kids weekly with two Bible studies, as well as leading worship. God equips those He calls, He doesn't necessarily always call the equipped. Keep plugging! Let's reach as many for Christ as we can in the time we have!

 

Mr. Spurgeon, the great Baptist preacher, creator of a marvellous pastor's college, and leader of over ten thousand, was never ordained. He reportedly said, "Why lay empty hands on empty heads?"

Ordination is not either the beginning or the end of ministry. In my day, one had to prove a sound knowledge of scripture, evidence of a calling to ministry, and a sound personal witness to a life in Christ. The local church did the ordaining, assisted by the association of fellow churches. For legal purposes, the organization issued a writ of ordination.

In my mind, the local church IS the gathering of the twice-born and baptized souls, and the leadership ought to be the same, whether large or small. Once the local church starts to engage paid staff to do what faithful people of Christ had done all through the years, is the day I move on as the pastor. I did not receive a salary, I received a love offering, to equip me to fulltime commitment to the work as pastor. If I wanted a salary, I would seek a secular position somewhere, and serve ministry as an aside.

God bless the faithful in each church. Each one has a place in my mind, and I always valued their presence. The largest church I pastored had 400 plus members, and I was the only one who received monies. What a blessing it was to have people so dedicated to the Lord that they would take precious time to serve Him.

Cheers, and God bless the servers, from a grateful pastor of many years of service,

Jim