Trust of the congregation by the ministry in conservative Mennonite Churches

[mike]

Churches where laity men take turns preaching, laity men are put in charge of spiritual things without any ordained folks involved, etc. Churches were ministers are not gone every evening of the week and have a much more normal life as compared with churches where ordained men need to attend nearly everything. In the latter types of churches, no wonder there is so much sniffling by relatives and friends and crying on the part of family when someone is ordained. They know that life will never be the same for this family. Dad will be gone or emotionally not present much of the time.

The strange and somewhat sad thing about churches where ordained men are extremely busy with official tasks is not only that they will be absent from their family much of the time, but also that they often do not seem to have the time to develop normal social relationships in the congregation. The effect of this is that when a person is ordained as a pastor, they often end up knowing and relating to the rest of the congregation less, not more. I feel this is not the way it should be.

Are they simply "unable", or are they made to feel that they should not have or develop close relationships with the 'laity' of the congregation? Or, do they come to this conclusion on their own, to avoid the appearance of favoritism?

I think it is simple inability. I don't think it is intentional, or that anything is meant by it. It is a byproduct of our system. Once there must have actually been a discussion among the ministry about the problem, and they apparently divided the congregation up and assigned a list of families for each minister to visit. I think I learned about it after one of the ministers invited himself over to our house for Sunday evening fellowship, and realized that this must have been the reason for the visit. I had thought they had just wanted to come over for a nice social visit. Not that I have anything against being paid a dutiful pastoral visit, but it's not quite the same as just normal fellowship.

There was a change in pastoral leadership in my home congregation (MB) toward the end of the years I spent in Bible college. The new pastor was very supportive of missionary engagement, and was only a few years older than I. (He was fresh out of the MB seminary.) I thought we would become good friends, but that didn't happen, or at least only to some degree after I had moved away, after we were already living in Brazil as Bible translators. There is a prevalent feeling (a problem, I would say) that a pastor cannot have close relationships within the congregation - he has to look to the community for friendships, generally among the pastors of other congregations. Is this an issue in congregations with lay pastors, or is it more common where the pastorate is a paid position? (Now, as a 70 year old, all of our ministers are younger than I. They all 'feel like friends" to me; one perhaps more than the others, due to more shared interests within the general area of Scripture study.)

I can't imagine the situation is any different with paid pastors, although theoretically they would have all kinds of time to interact with the congregation, since that is likely considered part of their job description. But I don't have experience with it.

A bit of a different line of thought, but some others have mentioned the non-ordained 'bringing a topic'. We used to have a pre-Sunday School gathering, and a non-ordained man would give a short devotional. Topics were sometimes done as well, and a few times we had panel discussions on a Sunday evening. (I was asked to organize one of these, as I recall now. It was now many years ago.) But eventually this pre-SS gathering was discontinued, mostly due, I would suggest, to the continuing shortening of the Sunday School 'hour'. There just isn't time to do that anymore. I do feel that Sunday School classes are extremely important. That is the time when the 'brotherhood' fellowship, "iron sharpening iron', takes place. But the SS time is often cut very short to make more time for other things, or cancelled all together, and it becomes more and more easy for some to just skip it entirely, coming only for "the worship service".

I agree whole-heartedly that Sunday school is a crucially important part of the service. We just had a week of 'revival meetings,' and the speaker said that he typically looks forward all week to the Sunday morning service and Sunday school, where he can finally remain seated and listen to others speak. Ideally, Sunday school is a time of group study of the Bible, where many people have prepared and studied ahead of time and bring their ideas together in a group discussion. I think that the Sunday school period says quite a bit about the health of a congregation.

[JohnH]

It would seem an obvious solution would just to be to ordain a lot more men (effectively ordaining the wives too); in particularly, wi the bishops, there should be no trepidation about ordaining lots and lots of ministers and deacons. Then they could all share in the load. Perhaps one deacon is gifted at teaching. He could preach more services. Another minister and his wife seem skilful at counseling, so they could take on that burden. Another is older and likes to travel, so he’s a good fit for committee assignments and preaching revival services.

If a concern is about bad ministers or deacons, then there should be an effective process to discipline them or put them on the bench. If this is a concern, more ordained couples makes this better, not worse.

For a church of 120 people, maybe 40 families, let’s say 20 of the men are qualified… why not ordain every single one? If someone meets the qualifications, and is a member in good standing, I don’t see why not.

[Ernie]

It would seem an obvious solution would just to be to ordain a lot more men (effectively ordaining the wives too); in particularly, wi the bishops, there should be no trepidation about ordaining lots and lots of ministers and deacons. Then they could all share in the load. Perhaps one deacon is gifted at teaching. He could preach more services. Another minister and his wife seem skilful at counseling, so they could take on that burden. Another is older and likes to travel, so he’s a good fit for committee assignments and preaching revival services.

I've long advocated for this. I don't know where to find the thread where we discussed this at length in the past.

[Ernie]

In my experience and observation, ordained leaders' voices naturally assume more authority than a young, inexperienced man's even though both might share a sermon. This happens in a natural sort of way without the congregation having to be officially informed that one person's teaching and preaching carries more authority than the other. I've heard lay members preaching in churches numerous times and I assume that they are speaking for themselves, and take their thoughts and insights in that light, not assuming that they have some sort of special authority in the church.

I've heard this theory before.
But in real life, it seems rare to me in such situations that anyone in the church is really given authority.
In the W/F conference where I grew up, if an ordained person gave some practical directive for the congregation, the majority went home and began implementing said directive, assuming said directive was within the framework of what the conference supported in general. In contrast, if a Sunday school teacher advocated something, it was not considered important to follow.

In congregations where ordained people have little more authority than the non-ordained, they can preach and teach all they want but no one feels an obligation to follow their directives unless the church agrees that a directive should be made. Many churches find it difficult to make any directives that the large majority of the congregation support. In the churches where I circulate, it needs to be near unanimous agreement, or else the directive is never made. The ordained folks may wish to see a directive ratified that goes counter to the flesh, but they can't get it ratified. So the churches continue to drift.

[ohio jones]

It would seem an obvious solution would just to be to ordain a lot more men (effectively ordaining the wives too); in particularly, wi the bishops, there should be no trepidation about ordaining lots and lots of ministers and deacons. Then they could all share in the load. Perhaps one deacon is gifted at teaching. He could preach more services. Another minister and his wife seem skilful at counseling, so they could take on that burden. Another is older and likes to travel, so he’s a good fit for committee assignments and preaching revival services.

I've long advocated for this. I don't know where to find the thread where we discussed this at length in the past.

Here's one: https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?p=250323

[Ernie]

It would seem an obvious solution would just to be to ordain a lot more men (effectively ordaining the wives too); in particularly, wi the bishops, there should be no trepidation about ordaining lots and lots of ministers and deacons. Then they could all share in the load. Perhaps one deacon is gifted at teaching. He could preach more services. Another minister and his wife seem skilful at counseling, so they could take on that burden. Another is older and likes to travel, so he’s a good fit for committee assignments and preaching revival services.

I've long advocated for this. I don't know where to find the thread where we discussed this at length in the past.

Here's one: https://forum.mennonet.com/viewtopic.php?p=250323

Thanks, this is the one I was looking for.

[Ernie]

It seems to me that there are options between no lay members preaching and all lay members and ordained men preaching with no one's voice meaning more than another, or being heard more than another.

I agree that there are options in between, but it seems that churches gravitate toward one or the other rather than being able to hold the two in good tension.

[mike]

It would seem an obvious solution would just to be to ordain a lot more men (effectively ordaining the wives too); in particularly, wi the bishops, there should be no trepidation about ordaining lots and lots of ministers and deacons. Then they could all share in the load. Perhaps one deacon is gifted at teaching. He could preach more services. Another minister and his wife seem skilful at counseling, so they could take on that burden. Another is older and likes to travel, so he’s a good fit for committee assignments and preaching revival services.

I've long advocated for this. I don't know where to find the thread where we discussed this at length in the past.

That could work, but in our current system, it is likely to just make for more busy men. This was a critique that was offered a year or two ago when our ministry suggested adding a minister or deacon. We have since ordained two more men, for a total of five in a congregation of about 140-150, and I would say that this is probably what has happened. Yes, we have more men that can preach and more men to sit on oversight boards. It might free up some time for the ordained men individually. But they are all still quite busy, and we now have yet more more men who have less time available than they used to for normal social relationships in the church.

What would be needed in a lot of cases is not just more ordained men, but a new way of seeing the office and of structuring responsibilities and also relationships with other churches, which consumes quite a bit of leaders' energy in the conference structure.

[JohnH]

It would seem an obvious solution would just to be to ordain a lot more men (effectively ordaining the wives too); in particularly, wi the bishops, there should be no trepidation about ordaining lots and lots of ministers and deacons. Then they could all share in the load. Perhaps one deacon is gifted at teaching. He could preach more services. Another minister and his wife seem skilful at counseling, so they could take on that burden. Another is older and likes to travel, so he’s a good fit for committee assignments and preaching revival services.

I've long advocated for this. I don't know where to find the thread where we discussed this at length in the past.

That could work, but in our current system, it is likely to just make for more busy men. This was a critique that was offered a year or two ago when our ministry suggested adding a minister or deacon. We have since ordained two more men, for a total of five in a congregation of about 140-150, and I would say that this is probably what has happened. Yes, we have more men that can preach and more men to sit on oversight boards. It might free up some time for the ordained men individually. But they are all still quite busy, and we now have yet more more men who have less time available than they used to for normal social relationships in the church.

What would be needed in a lot of cases is not just more ordained men, but a new way of seeing the office and of structuring responsibilities and also relationships with other churches, which consumes quite a bit of leaders' energy in the conference structure.

I’m proposing basically ordaining everyone who is qualified.

[Neto]

I once heard a woman who was part of a group who had taken a survey to clarify what spiritual gifts they might be inclined to develop say, "Why would God give me the gift of prophecy if I can't use it." Aside from a little suspicion I have over such surveys, I thought it was tragic church work had become so small and stratified she couldn't imagine a place for her contribution. This seems counter to the biblical teaching of all members having important gifts and roles.

We have tried to push back on this in small ways like using the same formal mechanism for choosing song leaders as for the person who prepared the snack and the coffee, organizes fellowship meals or homeless food ministry.

I have also observed women claim God gave them gifts of leadership, and therefore they should be able to exercise them.

Some of those surveys are pretty much nonsense. (Like one I took as part of a college class, that 'awarded' me with the gift of martyrdom. My classmates were scandalized that I laughed about it, saying that "It's the only one you can use only once.")

But as regarding "women with leadership gifts", I think that there are many ways that a sister can use a genuine leadership gifting w/o it meaning being a preacher. I suspect that part of the reason for the issue that can arise in a situation like this is the prestige and special recognition given to the ordained ministry. In my own background, I knew (paid) pastors who cleaned toilets, devised a drainage system in our church house basement (one that involved chopping a hole in the cement floor to put in a sump pump), helped clean up a flood due to a frozen pipe, etc. I say this to reference the humility I have witnessed in the lives of paid pastors, as examples of the humility that we should ALL have, no matter what place we have within the congregation.