Church members and pastors
Eliza’s class has been teaching about ‘the church’ recently. Eliza would like to know:
- How do church congregations tend to think about their pastor(s), & how do they treat them?
- How do congregations/members see their own role in the church, & how is appropriate involvement encouraged?
Comment by: Helen
1 02/2/07 4:04 PM | Comment Link |These are great questions Eliza.
I’ll have a go at the first one. In my experience, conservative Christian church members who are basically happy with their church have respect and affection for their pastor. They are very loyal to him (it’s generally a ‘him’ in a conservative church). They value his teaching. They believe he is being used by God to help them as individuals get where God wants them to be and also to help the church as a whole get where God wants it to be. They accept him as their leader; they want him to have that role.
Comment by: Jim Henderson
2 02/5/07 8:56 PM | Comment Link |They see the pastor as the leader of the extended family and grant him the respect due someone in that role (even if he doesnt’t always live up to their expectations)
People are all over the map regarding their involvement. A few take it very seirously and many give it lip service. A lot of people want to be more involved but simply cannot find or make the time to do so
Comment by: NCxian
3 02/6/07 5:06 AM | Comment Link |Our pastor is something more like an administrator. The closest thing I can come to a comparison is, like, the executive director of a very strong board of directors.
Perhaps CEO is a good analogy all the way around. In some corporations, there is a weaker board and some a stronger board. Where the board is not very active or opinionated, the ceo is very powerful. The board follows his/her lead. Where the board is active and opinionated (more like my congregation), the ceo leads by making a case that his vision is worth following. Actually, at our church, our pastor usually has to convince us that it was our idea in the first place!
I suspect that theological issues about “calling” play an important role in how a congregation and pastor perceive their relative roles. In our denomination (or at least our version of it), the pastor’s calling is not a magical thing–it is the job he is called to do, just like we are all called to our particular positions in life.
Comment by: benjamin ady
4 02/6/07 11:57 PM | Comment Link |I think church congregations tend to see their pastor as the person who kind of “does the god thing” for them at some level. I fear that may come across as exorbitantly negative, which I don’t intend. When I was doing the 12 steps, a speaker once drew a distinction between the 12 step model and the church model which I found interesting, informative, and generally accurate. He said that in the church model, you have a sort of organization chart (implicity, at least), which goes “God, pastor, perhaps other leaders, the people”, whereas in the 12 step model you have an implicit organization chart which goes “God, everybody else”. In general I found (and continue to find, I guess) the 12 step implicit organization chart much more helpful and doable.
Comment by: Jim Henderson
5 02/8/07 9:23 PM | Comment Link |in general so do I
Comment by: David
6 02/21/07 6:08 AM | Comment Link |I have no attended many churches, but from what I have seen congregants will view a pastor differently depending on their perspective.
At one church where the widow of a previous minister was still attending, it was clear that no succeeding minister could ever do the right thing.
As said above, it also matters who is formulating and leading the vision. If the vision comes from the pastor then a powerful CEO he is. But if the vision is led by the leadership in general then this is not so much the case.