This is a spin off of another tread, on Children's Church.
I had said in several post that I think there is this problem in the US with wanting to outsource ministry to the professionals.
So I guess the questions is who are the professionals and are they really professionals?
And also is it a problem to expect Pastors and Youth Pastors and Children's Directors to do X Y or Z.
Professional Christians
Discussion in 'General Baptist Discussions' started by blessedwife318, Aug 1, 2015.
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blessedwife318 Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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BW, are you intentionally misspelling professionals to make a point? You spelled it the same way three times in your OP, and once in the title "Professional Christians."
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blessedwife318 Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
No i'm just a bad speller and didn't catch that. I guess I should have put this in word first and run spell check but I just didn't think about it. Apologies for that.
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padredurand Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
How do you define professional? As an adjective it could mean someone who engages in an activity as a source of income, livelihood or gain. As a noun a professional could be an individual considered to be a expert in their field.
What comes to mind is a little bit of both: an individual or group that claim to be experts in the field of Christian education and expect to derive an income from that activity. These para-church organizations are a dime a dozen along with a plethora of publishing companies, book vendors, etc.
I am of the mind that God knows how to equip the local church with the gifts and grace to facilitate quality Christian education in house.
1 Corinthians 12:28 NAS77
28 And God has appointed in the church, first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, various kinds of tongues.
Ephesians 4:11-12 NAS77
11 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers,
12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ;
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BW, are you intentionally misspelling professionals to make a point? You spelled it the same way three times in your OP, and once in the title "Professional Christians." -Rippon.
I really, really want to make a comment about OCD... -
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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padredurand Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
A para-church organization is not a church but, rather, an organization that comes along side a church to support her in ministry. For example AWANA, World Vision, Promise Keepers, The Gideons, Campus Crusade, Focus on the Family. It can also include media outlets, publishers and bookstores. -
Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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By the way, "it's" is a contraction.
You need to place an apostrophe after the t. -
Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
....oye yoy yoy:thumbs: -
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Earth Wind and Fire Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Now, now...living in a cave is different than living under a bridge. :)
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blessedwife318 Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
Ok for the sake of this thread, in another tread I defined professional as any one in full time vocational ministry.
Now this is not a knock on Pastors and anyone else in full time vocational ministry, I hold them in high regards. But I think there is a problem within the US, to expect the Pastor or other professional if you will to do everything. Witnessing is reduced to bringing them to church for the Pastor to preach to, or we expect Pastors to be out reaching the lost people in the community for example. I think this is a problem because there is work that all Christians are expected to do, including witnessing to others.
This came up in the thread on Children's church, which full disclosure I'm not a fan of. But I have heard first hand from parents their expectations that the Children's director, or later on the Youth Pastor would teach their children about the Christian Faith, because they are paid to do that, instead of realizing that the responsibility of raising their children in the Faith rest on them, or more specifically the father.
It has been my experience that churches with lots of programs feed into this idea, albeit unwittingly, of letting the professionals handle it.
(hopefully everything is spelled right this time):) -
Some things as it relates to your op:
I've read that the average tenure for an SBC pastor is around 3 to 4 years. I wonder what the turnover is for children's directors, worship leaders, youth ministers, and other paid staff. How can a church have any stability when there is a constant coming and going of staff. Why do they come and go? possibly pride if personalities are clashing with other staff members, grass is greener on the other side, no attachment to the particular congregation, not willing to change for the greater good of the church, or other reasons.
I think a big reason why some, not all, but some churches have to go out and hire a lot of paid staff is that no younger people within the church are being groomed to serve in these capacities. At least that's been my experience.
We have such a fast paced service oriented society that it has carried over to the church. Do fathers still teach their sons how to change the oil in the car, or do we take the car down to Jiffy Lube? Are mothers still teaching their daughters to cook, or are we running through Mickey D's three or four times a week, so we can be on time for soccer practice, etc.
Point being, in the church, is the current generation grooming the generation behind them for when they won't be around. Or are we, like you said, too busy being caught up in the next big program, event, etc.? And when things don't work out like we hoped as a church we fire a staff member and go find a new one with bigger ideas for new programs. -
blessedwife318 Well-Known MemberSite Supporter
In my Bible school we talked about the reason for this turnover of Youth pastors and 2 reasons were presented: 1 they were using it as a stepping stone to a head pastorship. 2 is that they had some kind of conflict with the Senior pastor.
I will say this I think there is a change coming as Millennials start taking over church leadership. It would seem based on surveys and my own personal interaction with people in my generation that we are looking for a bit more from church then just showing up on Sundays and being entertained. I think that is one reason why there has been a resurgence of Calvinism, because it is so different from the baby boomer style of church. Of course on the flip side this has also lead to the "emergent church" which is just full of problems, which I think reflects a lack of doctrinal depth. But if I keep going that will just spin this tread off into a whole other direction.
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