Disclaimer: About This Blog

THIS BLOG IS: my personal journey of how I am rethinking some of my spiritual beliefs.
THIS BLOG IS NOT: intended to point fingers at people who I think are wrong.
I do not believe the final judgement will be based on how many correct answers we get on a theology exam. I believe many people throughout history have had genuine relationships with God, despite holding questionable beliefs and practices. I make no claim to having it all figured out or being your judge. If we end up disagreeing over these topics I pray we can find a way to demonstrate grace.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Dan Kimball Is Not Your Pastor

It is likely that Dan Kimball does care for and shepherd some people, but he doesn't encourage people to call him 'pastor' or 'lead pastor' anymore.  I came across this quote of his today:
"It happened little by little. It actually stemmed from about when I was actually leading Graceland, a young adult ministry – 1,000 college age young adults. I was at a street corner, I'm getting into my car and a car honked. These college-aged girls were looking over and waving. I'm looking up and I'm like "I don't know who they are." Then the light turns green and they yell in unison "you're our pastor!" as they're driving away. I'm just like, "I'm their pastor? I don't even know who they are." A pastor who shepherds knows their sheep, knows if one is missing. Then I started looking into what is theologically a pastor. It's only written once in the New Testament, the book of Ephesians. It wasn't even a title or an office. It was a spiritual gift of shepherding. And I'm just like "you know, I don't want to mislead people in our church to have them feel like I'm their pastor simply because they come and listen to me teach on a Sunday." There's people in this church that are really pastoring, according to what the Bible says what pastoring is. It's got to be relational, if one sheep is missing, [see] how they're doing. So I just stopped using that term; I don't know if there's anyone on our staff that uses it anymore. It's not that we don't shepherd [or] pastor but we just stopped using the title as to try to really function what I believe is more biblically without that title and to allow people who have pastoring gifts to be exercising those and feel just as valid and important as the person who gets up."
Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/news/dan-kimball-talks-churchland-judgmentalism-restoring-hope-in-the-church-79309/#r2mqF11xYQvm2HVk.99


I'm glad to see others are questioning the use of this term as an office title.

I'm also glad to see Dan Kimball encourages regular people to pastor and care for others in their community.  By sharing this role with all believers, and validating what each member contributes, more believers can mature in their faith.

What do you think?  Is there scriptural support for using the term 'Pastor' or 'Lead Pastor' as a title for a few hired staff?  

If we just read the Bible, would we have come to this practice, or did we get where we are by a different route?


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1 comment:

Norma Hill - aka penandpapermama said...

hear, hear! Good questions... and challenge. Thanks.