The 21st Century Church--Haven or Horror?

My experience with church as a little boy was both uplifting and terrifying. I remember a lot of warm smiles, people who were excited about the Bible, and even a tent revival meeting that occured near my parents' church. I also remember infighting, feeling like people at the church would kill each other if murder were legal, and feeling, as a little boy with one eye and (to my mind) weird parents, that I was an easy target for the "cool" kids to pick on. Most people, I think, can say the same about the churches they attended when they were little, and there really isn't anything to these experiences that a child could not associate with other parts of growing up (for example, school).

However, there is something that, as an adult, I have never liked about church--either as a closet pagan or as a born again Christian. It's the pastor. It's not that I have something against leaders--for crying out loud, I'm a new believer, and I crave all of the advice and wisdom from my older brothers in Christ that I can get--but if you look in the Bible, do you ever see an apostle taking a professional salary? Moreover, as I look at the New Testament, it looks like none of the apostles had any formal training--either in the Bible or in theology--with the exception of Paul, whose education as a Pharisee certainly did not prepare him to be a follower of Jesus. So . . . where'd we get the idea that a pastor had to be a seminary-trained professional?

We got it from the same place where we seem to be getting most of our ideas as a church these days--from the world, the flesh, and the devil. Think about it. The only reason why businesses require people to have certain degrees before applying for profeesional jobs is that those businesses are afraid that people will have a means of suing them if something goes wrong. Hence, there is more and more of a drive to make sure that people have at least a bachelor's degree (or some sort of degree) before operating as a teacher, nurse, or any other kind of professional, simply because schools and hospitals and other institutions want to make sure that their employees have at least the level of skill that will allow them to avoid litigation.

So why are we pursuing this same model in the church when it comes to hiring our pastors? When was the last time you heard of someone filing a lawsuit against someone for saying things from the pulpit that were Biblically unsound or simply disagreeable?

Why does this issue bother me? Well, for one thing, it's kind of difficult to see the power of God in a church that trains, hires, and pays its pastors the same way that any other major corporate institution would, and also, isn't the pastor supposed to be the SERVANT of the church? Did Paul, Peter, and the other apostles take money from the brethren for themselves? Doesn't that kind of rankle you every time you sit in church and listen to a sermon on Sunday?

I just don't see why we should give the brethren (especially new Christians) any reason to stumble--and the pastor's current role is nothing but an excuse to stumble. I'm not saying we shouldn't help people who want to dedicate their lives to the spreading of the Gospel, but . . . didn't Paul (the great preacher to the Gentiles) have a trade? Whatever happened to the "elder brothers" of the church getting jobs and supporting their families, just like the rest of us? These are questions that increasingly bother me as I think about my own rather extensive experiences with church, and I think that, for believers, these are questions that should be cause for prayer and deep soul-searching.