Seventeenth to Mid-Eighteenth Century
From the early days of the Baptist Movement the "pastoral ministry" developed from the theological premise of the "priesthood of all believers". From the days of Smyth, as a small group of believers, their theology of praxis was far from developed. This doctrine of every believer being a priest was coupled with their initial rejection of the Roman Catholic priesthood as they knew it. From the time of 1640 to 1660 they "put into practice the priesthood of all believers and had no paid ministry released from the discipline of ordinary life". In these early days, then, the preaching and teaching side of the pastoral ministry was left up to laymen in the church who were usually untrained theologically. Preaching from at least 1650 did have certain guidelines, though, as to who could preach. The members of the church were primarily responsible for the evangelism or visitation and it was not left up to any single individual. The worship service was to be participated by all and interestingly enough, women were utilised in the preaching and teaching roles during this period. This pastoral role, although enjoined by an every member ministry, had by 1679, delineated functions for the "called" pastor as a "servant of Christ" ;
1. Attending the ministry of the Word and prayer (Acts 6.4),
2. The oversight of the church (Heb. 13.17),
3. Not to be entangled in the affairs of the world (2 Tim. 2.4) , and
4. Exercise hospitality (1 Tim. 3.2),
Pastoral ministry was still shared out among each believer in each church. These ideas remained normative in practise through to the middle of the eighteenth century. Isaac Bachus made Middleborough the leading Baptist centre in New England. He repudiated the idea that the minister was in any way superior to the brethren, he wrote that each saint should improve the gifts he had to preach or to pray in public.
Mid-Eighteenth Centrury to Nineteenth Century
The move from the pastoral ministry being predominantly lay-led to professional minister-led happened in Southern America from the mid eighteenth century onwards under the influence of the "Landmark Movement". Its successionism and high concept of the ministry effectively denied the traditional understanding of the priesthood of all Christians in favour of a more professional role of the pastoral ministry.
Students were sent from churches to be trained in theological colleges which sprang up prolifically in the nineteenth century. As these students trained and came back into the churches there seemed a clear demarcation between the "skilled and learned" and the "unskilled and unlearned" laymen. This caused a great shift in the churches leaving the preaching and teaching to those who were trained, making the laymen feel incompetent or second class as this professionalism came into the ministry.
High profile preachers such as Spurgeon, Robert Hall, Robert Robinson, Keach, Dr. Gill, Dr. Rippon and Maclaren did much to raise the standards of the Baptist denomination as far as its solid teaching base and professionalism of the pastor is concerned. They were often in the media limelight and not very far away from controversies.
The Twentieth Century
As recently as World War I only 20% of Southern Baptist Pastors served full time, with 80% working bivocationally serving mostly in rural areas. This was soon to change after the depression and World War Two.
In the post World War II era an acute problem arose in American Christianity, which was also reflected in England, that the laity tended to leave the pastoral care to the highly gifted pastor and the unpaid staff.
With the growth of the number of churches being above 2000 members, meta-church models have needed to be drawn up to cater for more diversified ministries. The Pastor's job has become more specialised and narrower, as increased work loads and diversification processes occur in the churches. As these churches grow they often appoint additional pastors, creating a pastoral team to keep up with these growing needs of the church. Each person on the pastoral team would then oversee a specific area of ministry, such as children's work, men's minitries, etc. The team leader is often referred to as the Senior Pastor and the other pastors as Associate Pastors. Usually the smaller churches would see the pastor as more diversified or the church may in fact be led by laymen, which is often the case in rural churches.
II The Scriptural Principles that are the Foundations and the Guidelines of the Baptist Principle
The Baptist Church has sought in her history to be governed by the Scriptures. The problems arise when a definitive, detailed structure for a system of pastoral ministry for all churches is attempted to be drawn up. You cannot do it. Instead pastoral ministry in the New Testament needs to be put into its historical, theological and cultural perspective.
To begin with, in the church there were apostles sent out to preach the Good News of Christ. It was not until a lot of growth, a number of years later and problems in the church that they found their needs for specialization of the various ministries, so that the pastoral work could be shared and the apostles kept their focus. Then as the churches expanded into neighbouring cities and lands the organisation level needed to be expanded to three levels, namely, Bishop, elder and deacon. All of these positions including that of the role of the Apostles, overlap. Stephen (Acts 6, 7) clearly has a wider role than just to serve tables and the elders at Ephesus also had a widened role of overseeing the church which the Bishop also had as well (Acts 21.17-38).
When the area of pastoral ministry is studied by looking closely at the Greek words episkopo (elder) or poimen (pastor), we find that the former is used five times. Once they occur together when Jesus is described as the episkopo and the poimen of our souls. (1 Peter 2.25). This suggests why pastor, poimen, never appeared as a term of leadership or title in the early church. episkopoi, is used in reference to church leaders and is quite clearly the product of a settled community. 0
When Peter described the work of the bishop and that of the elder, the terms are interchangeable, Peter uses "tending the sheep, shepherding or pastoring (c.f. 1 Peter 2.25; 5.2)", suggesting that they are elders in status... bishops in responsibility".
References to bishops (pastors) in 1 Tim 3.1ff. and Titus 1.5ff leave little doubt about the official nature of the bishops role. The hard thing to distinguish is how it worked out in practice. We have the job's role to a smaller extent and the character referral check list but Paul gives no detailed job description. The elders at Philippi were basically "pastoral staff" at Phillippi charged with providing stable and continuous leadership in the absence of the apostle.
Baptists have strived to maintain the biblical definitions from the above passages (i.e. Acts 6, 1 Tim. 3.1ff, Titus 1.5ff., etc.) in the drawing up of their confessions of faith as well as in their faith and practice throughout the last four hundred years. Things have had to be modified with the introduction of many meta-churches. The Scriptures on these issues have become guidelines and principles which we are to use. They, however can not describe the pastoral ministry intricacies for a modern day, complex and multi-cultured world.
Conclusion
As in Luther's time, there are subtle tendencies to clericalism within the Baptist denomination, which separates status and functions of the pastors from the laymen in a misleading way. The phrase "full-time service" in specialized church vocations fosters the impression that full-time service means that you are engaged in some activity of the institutional church. This does not necessarily have to be the case. With the increasing incidence of burn-out in the pastorate linked with an increasingly more dysfunctional humanity the Baptist pastor needs to look at the importance of letting go some of their "ministerial" activities in the church, so that others may be more involved with doing the work of a pastor. Pastors need to be aware of inner tendencies and temptations that can lead to the "Messiah Complex", when pastors "feel they can do everything best and set out to do it [and] setting themselves up for personal failure and possible burn-out in the pastoral ministry.
The outworking of the pastoral ministry needs to be tailored to each individual church. Obviously there are differences in ministries to a church of 10 people and a church of 1 million people such as Yonggi Cho's church in Seoul, Korea. Pastoral ministry also needs to adapt and reflect their respective cultures (or multi-culturism). As the church grows, structures and models need to change and grow with it. It is important to recognise that the early church needed to change to meet the growing needs of the widows in Acts 6. Change was part and parcel of a growing church. We need to see that the New Testament becomes our guideline for ministry and that it is important to be led in that growth by the Holy Spirit.
Endnotes
i W.T. Whitley, A History of British Baptists (Cambridge: University Press, 1915, 2 Vols, Vol. 1),737 c.f. J. Hoad, The Baptist; An Historical and Theological Study of the Baptist Identity (America, Grace Publications, 1986), 288:
ii W.H. Brackney, The Baptists (Conneticut: Praeger, 1994), 5, 51.
iii W.L. Pitts, The Priesthood of all Christians in the Baptist Heritage, Southwestern Journal of Theology Vol. XXX, Spring, No. 2, 1988, 36; c.f. R. Bailey, "Multiple Ministries & Ordination", Review & Expositor LXXVIII:4 Fall, 1981, 532-533
iv Brackney, 52; H.L. McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Tennessee:Broadman Press, 1987), 77.
v 1-4 from 1677 Confession of Faith, Article X and 1679 London Protestant Confession of Faith, Article XXXI; v W. Lumpkin, Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1959), 287-289. The South Wales Association Meeting in 1654 had a more comprehensive guide to the pastoral office which included both joint offices of the pastor and elder as well as a more clearly defined list of the pastor's office; H.L. McBeth, A SourceBook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990), 61-62.
vi Which did not seem to work in practice until later in some of the bigger churches.
vii Although in theory, according to the 1677 Confession of Faith, there were some guidelines allowing ministers to be full-time and paid; 1677 Confession of Faith Articles X & XI. Although the churches acknowledged this in practice, many of the pastors received little or no income from their church work. This forced many of the early pastors to become bivocational pastors and mostly long pastorates; McBeth, Heritage, 76.
viii Pitts, 36.
ix Brackney, 16; McBeth, Heritage, 440-447.
x Pitts, for a good overview of the problems of divisions between Baptist laymen and pastors with relevant critical discussion of recent American Baptist writers, 41-45.
xi R.G. Torbet, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1950), 136-141.
xii Brackney, 19
xiii In 1980, nearly 15% of the co-operating churches of the Southern Baptist Convention reported a membership of 2 000 or more; Baily, 531.
xiv N.E. Weston, ed. D.Parker, Baptists in Queensland (Brisbane, Baptist Historical Society of Qld, 1994), 4,5,7.
xv W.M.S West, Baptist Principles (London: B.U. of England, 1986), 20.
xvi W.R. Herzog II, "The Origins of Ministry in the New Testament", American Baptist Quarterly Vol. III, No.2, June 1984, 125.
xvii Lightfoot as reviewed by W.R. Herzog II, 118-119.
xviii For a great review of the pastoral ministry in the light of the minister as an overseer; c.f. W.C.Jackson, "The Minister as Overseer" Review & Expositor Vol. LXXXIII, No. 4, 1986, 559-571.
xix c.f. W.R. Herzog II, 121-123.
xx D.G. Congo, "What Causes Burnout?, Theology, News & Notes March 1984, 7.
____________________________________________________Bibliography
Bailey, R., "Multiple Ministries & Ordination", Review & Expositor LXXVIII:4 Fall, 1981, 532-533.
Brackney, W.H., The Baptists (Conneticut: Praeger, 1994).
Congo, D.G., "What Causes Burnout?, Theology, News & Notes March 1984.
Herzog II, W.R., "The Origins of Ministry in the New Testament", American Baptist Quarterly Vol. III, No.2, June 1984.
Hoad, J., The Baptist; An Historical and Theological Study of the Baptist Identity (America, Grace Publications, 1986).
Jackson, W.C., "The Minister as Overseer" Review & Expositor Vol. LXXXIII, No. 4, 1986, 559-571.
Lumpkin, W., Baptist Confessions of Faith (Valley Forge: Judson Press, 1959).
McBeth, H.L., The Baptist Heritage (Tennessee:Broadman Press, 1987).
McBeth, H.L., A SourceBook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990).
Pitts, W.L., The Priesthood of all Christians in the Baptist Heritage, Southwestern Journal of Theology Vol. XXX, Spring, No. 2, 1988, 36.
Torbet, R.G, A History of the Baptists (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1950)
West, W.M.S, Baptist Principles (London: B.U. of England, 1986).
Weston, N.E., ed. D.Parker, Baptists in Queensland (Brisbane, Baptist Historical Society of Qld, 1994).
Whitley, W.T. , A History of British Baptists (Cambridge: University Press, 2 Vols, Vol. 1, 1915)
W.T. Whitley, A History of British Baptists (Cambridge: University Press, 1915, 2 Vols, Vol. 1),737 c.f. J. Hoad, The Baptist; An Historical and Theological Study of the Baptist Identity (America, Grace Publications, 1986), 288:
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