When The Church Was Very Young by Graham Wood is a short work, 70 pages, and compares practices of the early ekklesia with what we see today. It covers the major themes and has multiple quotes from other notable authors. The short excerpt below talks about the challenges of the institutional church pastor. Published in 2025, you can get a copy from Amazon and contact the author at grahamwood32@yahoo.co.uk.
Finally a word needs to be said about the pastor himself. There is no question that most enter their ministerial role with high motivation and desire to serve the Lord and his people. Like their fellow Christians some are gifted in just one way but not in others-perhaps an ability to reach people with the gospel but perhaps not other gifts of shepherding or of communicating. But the point is they enter a system, one which is demanding and inexorable in long-established expectations by their congregations of what a pastor should be for them. For many that points to something of an omnicompetent role.
This system admits of no escape, and as many others have pointed out, this carries with it burdens and responsibilities which are too much for one man to fulfil or to bear. In such cases it is rare for the system itself to be questioned as a contributing factor as it should be, and the tensions which the pastor experiences, such as the demands made by the mandatory weekly sermon, and the spiritual battle he may be waging alone must inevitably play a part which are largely hidden from the people, and very often only known by a wife or immediate family. Thus the oft repeated and sad result ending in clergy ‘burn-out’ and departure. It is also the system itself which in practice denies the pastor the benefits and encouragements provided by the mutual ministries of the many ‘one anothers’ which the NT describes. The loneliness of those within such situations is itself tragic and unnecessary.
For all of these reasons the tradition should be dismantled, so providing the wider ministry of the body of Christ opportunity to function as the norm for ministry.
There are many other problems associated with the single pastor role and the clergy/laity divide which cannot be touched on here, such as the place of ordination, of hierarchy, of professionalism, and not least the anomalies presented by a state church system, all of which emphasise the decided shift from a multi-faceted body ministry to ‘officer-centred’ ministry.
John Howard Yoder summarises the contrasting position well:
“The conclusion is inescapable that the multiplicity of ministries is not a mere adiaphoron, (Indifferent or unimportant), a happenstance of only superficial significance, but a specific work of grace, and a standard for the church” (Article: “The Fulness of Christ’ – Searching Together).
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One reply on “No Escape”
I visited Turkey and went on the tour guide in former Laodicean church. She called “Christian society” which met at homes before Constantine. After Constantine, the temple of Apollo was changed into a “church” building for services. So yes, modern evangelical services have more incoming with Pagan Rome that with biblical Christianity.