…and concluding that my day may indeed be past.
Clergy temp staffing agencies. The idea that the person who fills the pulpit or who leads worship of Almighty God, or who teaches students or other church staff can be interchangeable, that is, it doesn’t really matter who the person is, is foreign to me. Filling the pulpit in the pastor’s absence, interim ministry positions, temporary worship leaders all are a serious business. The church and/or pastor prays, talks, seeks, checks and arrives at a person who is called by God to the task needed, for the church needed. How do we legitimately turn this responsibility over to a temp agency? A pastor calls a temp agency that specializes in clergy and asks for a worship leader for Sunday. The temp sends a generic guy over. Everybody gets paid a certain amount?
Appalling.
Until recently, I didn’t know there were such things. I understand associational and state people recommend interim ministers, supply preachers and the like but never on a “just send whomever is available over” basis.
Coaching, not mentoring. So, experienced pastors don’t mentor anymore? They don’t feel a responsibility to take a younger person under their care and instruction to help them gain experience? Now, you contract for a coach? You pay someone for an hour or two a month at a fixed rate. Maybe we could all be coaches and let the chumps do the actual hard work of ministry.
Appalling.
The Cooperative Program as a cafeteria plan. Not much more needs to be said about this. Churches never need to justify their giving plans. State conventions do. The SBC sets the CP allocation. States don’t get to change it. Shocking that at least one intends to do just that.
Appalling.
Twitter as a substitute for dialogue and communication. Irascible old white dude here. I don’t get the idea of trying to communicate ideas, concepts, sometimes complicated matters in a string of short tweets to an audience that is self-limited. Hey, I get that the day of blogs, those one to three thousand word pieces, is past. The results haven’t been good.
Appalling.
Fishing as an ‘I can take it or leave it’ proposition. (OK, so fishing for fish is Biblical but not exactly an ecclesiological matter. Literary license here.) I can’t explain it. I can’t justify it. But I could fish every day if I wanted. There’s nothing to hold me back…but, my attitude is incredibly relaxed about it. Who cares? Maybe tomorrow? Too hot. Too cold. Too sunny. Too windy. Cat needs to be shampooed.
Appalling.
______________
There are more. Some are serious.
Have a great weekend and Lord’s Day. Eschew current politics. Try this weird trick for your church: Preach Scripture. See what happens.
