Without question, the role, and expectation, of being a pastor in America has changed in the past 100 years. Read along as Gordon MacDonald recalls this conversation with his father.
My father had been a successful pastor in his younger years, a hero to more than a few in his time. So in the first years of my pastoral life, I measured myself against him. I’d think, When my father was my age, he was preaching to seven hundred people. I’m preaching to only one hundred. What’s wrong with me?
Later on, I found myself in a congregation several times the size of his largest, and I remember having an empty feeling. I’d exceeded his numbers. Why didn’t I feel better about it? And why was I now measuring myself against someone else (always with bigger numbers)?
One day my dad and I were comparing notes about the contrasts between his ministry and mine.
“You guys have to worry about so many programs today,” he said. “You are all glorified CEO’s. There’s not a one of you in these large churches who can honestly call himself a pastor. Pastors care for people; you run programs and build institutions.”
“You didn’t worry about programs?” I asked.
“Oh, there were a few,” he said.
“How many?”
“Basically three,” he answered.
“Three?” I was leading a church that had 137 programs (we counted them one time), and he had only three?
“Yeah, three,” he said. “I was responsible for Sunday services, calling on people during the week, and leading the prayer service on Wednesday night. I spent my time with the sick, the unsaved, and the men who were trying to build strong families.”
“What about Christian education?” I wondered.
“Some of the women took care of that.”
“Didn’t they bring you their recruitment problems, their circular debates, all their—“
“No, none of that was considered a pastor’s responsibility. I told you; I led people to Christ, called on the sick, and every once in a while, had to go out to the local bar and bring a drunk home to his wife and help him sober up.”
Maybe my dad was right. The new CEO pastor is a marketer, a manager, a publicist, a systems analyzer, a small-groups mobilizer.
Then again, the pastor is expected to communicate like Campolo, lead like Criswell, think like Packer, and theologize like Stott, be prophetic like Colson, and evangelize like Graham.
Perhaps we’ve made a dangerous move by sizing up ourselves on the basis of our ability to grow large, impressive organizations. We hear less and less about the quality of a leader’s spirit. The conferences—for the most part—are all about the “market,” the institution, the program.
Perhaps this is not all bad, except when it is compared with the amount of time on the subject of soul and its capacity to be prophetic, perceptive, and powerful.
Maxie D. Dunnam, Gordon MacDonald and Donald W. McCullough, Mastering Personal Growth, 172 (Sisters, Or.: Multnomah; Christianity Today, 1992).
Look at church-growth literature and check for such chapters as “Portrait of the Effective Pastor.” In one such best-seller, theology and theological references are kept to a minimum—little more than a cursory reference to the pastor’s “personal calling” and to “God’s vision for the church.” The bulk of the chapter is taken up with such themes as delegating, confidence, interaction, decision making, visibility, practicality, accountability, and discernment—the profile of the thoroughly modern pastor as CEO.
Os Guinness, Dining with the Devil: The Megachurch Movement Flirts with Modernity (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993), 52–53.
Now before we react against this observation and think the problem is one of size, we must think again. Large or small, Mega or Mini; the unhealthy demands placed on today’s pastor come in all shapes and sizes. The pressures placed on Elders have grown, in part, because churches of every size have adopted structures that resemble the modern American Corporation where the pastor presides as the CEO. There are two unique models that really fall under this rubric of “CEO Structure.”
Another form of this CEO structure is found among congregational churches and is defined by Wayne Grudem.
[Some congregational models are] patterned after the example of a modern corporation, where the board of directors hires an executive officer who then has authority to run the business as he sees fit. This form of government could also be called the “you-work-for-us” structure.
In favor of this structure it might be argued that this system in fact works well in contemporary businesses. However, there is no New Testament precedent or support for such a form of church government. It is simply the result of trying to run the church like a modern business, and it sees the pastor not as a spiritual leader, but merely as a paid employee.Grudem, W. A. (1994). Systematic theology : An introduction to biblical doctrine. Leicester, England; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Inter-Varsity Press; Zondervan Pub. House, pg 935.
As I stated in a previous post on guidelines, there is no set biblical structure for doing church. I believe there are many viable environments, different culturally conditioned methods, and a variety of structures through which biblical Elders can lead a church. However, this does not mean all structures are equally helpful in growing a strong Family. So before I offer my critique, let me be clear where I part company with some contemporary Christian writers.
- Churches who use these CEO models are not evil.
- Pastors who minister within this model are not the enemy of the church.
- We should not vilify any pastor who does church with this model nor should we blame them for all the shortcomings of the American church.
- Ones personal dislike of this model is not a reason to leave a church or reject fellowship with people who worship Jesus in these churches.
- The Gospel can, and is, preached without compromise in churches that exist using this structure of ministry.
That being said, I do think that the “Pastor as CEO” model is a cultural adaptation that has, over time, demonstrated some serious weakeners that we, the church, must take seriously and that we must work together to correct. Based on my personal experience, here are a few of the drawbacks I have observed, first hand, in churches that use this structure of church leadership.
- The structure looks less like a Family and more like a company and therefore tends to put the interests of the institution above the interests of the individual.
- The Pastor as CEO model tends to focus on the man at the top instead of the mission for the people.
- This model puts enormous responsibility on one man (typically called the Senior Pastor but the title is of secondary importance) who more often then not gets burned out or burned over.
- This model can isolate and hurt the Senior Pastor who does not have the proper support or accountability from his peers (i.e. brothers in Christ).
From the back cover: “Escape from Church, Inc. calls pastor-leaders away from the business executive model of doing church and back to the model of a caring shepherd who tends his sheep.
Wagner offers a practical and biblically sound view of how pastors can become all God intended them to be and guides them into new vision, new values, and a new way of pastoring that begins not with doing, but with seeing and being. “
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Joe,
This is one point that I think we agree with one another completely. Church leaders should be known as servants. When we begin to manage more than we serve, then something is wrong.
-Alan