Full-time and part-time licensed local pastors under appointment are clergy members of the annual conference in which they are appointed. Those who are licensed for pastoral ministry and appointed to the local church shall preach, conduct divine worship and perform the duties of a pastor. —2004 Book of Discipline, ¶¶ 602, 315What do you think of the system of local licensed pastors? How could the denomination improve it?
4 comments:
Wow. You don't ask small questions, do you?
So much to say, so little time. It is a legacy of the itineracy system. There is a beauty to it. I've been to licensing school and will say IMHO, the role of the Local Pastor is grossly underrated. They do much of the "grunt work" of the denomination. Without the Local Pastor, there would be multitudes of small rural or inner-city churches, who are not flush with cash, who would not have a pastor. Some of the most dedicated pastors I know are Local pastors. There are some conferences whose pastorate consist of 74 percent Local Pastors. In my conference they are pretty scarce. There are only a handful in my district because I'm Atlanta Emory (Candler causes my district to be flush with seminary trained pastors.)
Now the however. However, the system needs to be regulated. The license is given sometimes indiscriminately. The protocol needs to be followed. There are some Local Pastors that I know of who have NOT finished course of study. That is disgraceful. After Course of Study and a break of a couple of years, the Local Pastor should go through Advanced Course of Study and obtain a BGTS. They should be encouraged to take continuing education strongly.
We fail our local pastors when we don't insist on keeping within the polity, insisting on finishing course of study and continuing ed.
It has been my experience that the office of the local pastor is an after-thought, incidental only when other options are not available. I've heard plenty of lip service directed at the local pastorate, but I take these words with a grain of salt.
Having said this, however, it is as I suggested in a post on my blog. There are some very fine, very dedicated local pastors. They have to be to have full-time secular jobs, "full-time" pastorates, families, school, etc. I say full-time pastorate only in the sense that if a parishioner has a need, the local pastor will necessarily wade through much deeper water to accomodate.
Our DCoM just convened. We had a big "group hug" and were all confirmed to continue another year. Rev Mommy says the license is given indiscriminately. I'm not so sure about that, but I do feel like the local pastor should be much more accountable to the DCoM for not only education but also to be asked some of the "tough" questions (are there any??) to determine what they may be preaching "out yonder". I am almost insulted that my continuance is nothing more than an annual rubber stamp and a waste of my time. I have never had an assigned mentor visit my churches. What do they know of what I do? And no one seems to care one way or the other.
So is the ministry important or not? I had to resign to get someone's attention although this is not why I resigned. But the frustrations I expressed earlier all come down to lack of concern from the hierarchy. Like I said, the ministry of the local pastor is incidental and will continue to be so until the District and/or Conference take it more seriously.
John,
Having gotten my start in ministry as a part-time local pastor and confirmed my own calling to full-time ministry while serving in that appointment, I have nothing but great fondness for the general idea of local pastors. I was able to serve, preach, administer sacraments, and do what church administration needed to be done without going to seminary, and just love the people and be loved by them. What a fabulous experience!
My "however" has to do with the educational and DCoM part of the process. I was not a PTLP long enough to feel like I just got rubber stamped through the process each year, but serving on a DCoM now, I can see how easily that could happen. So far I am convinced that the vast majority of them are serving their hearts out for our churches that need their leadership, but I am not convinced that the DCoM really is holding them accountable doctrinally or helping them to grow in their leadership skills and gifts.
Secondly, while I don't think a lack of formal education should necessarily deny someone from being a local pastor, we need to be sure that local pastors have more than just a call to ministry, but that they are equipped to teach and preach God's Word.
In my local pastor appointment, I followed a pastor who loved the people immensely, had no formal training that I know of, and from what the parishoners told me, basically preached "Smile, Jesus loves you" sermons all the time. I know that the pastor who followed me will preach only from the lectionary gospel texts - he told me so himself. An unwillingness to use the whole canon of scripture for preaching, even from the lectionary, shows to me a lack of training and understanding of responsiblity - surely he cannot be allowed to avoid teaching and preaching from the Old Testament and the Epistles and get away with it!! That really bothers me alot.
When I was a PTLP I had just finished an undergraduate degree in New Testament, with a reading knowledge of Greek and some Hebrew and even without seminary training could teach the Sciptures reasonably comforatably. I can't hold local pastors to that level of training, but there needs to be a better system for making sure that they are competent in more areas than pastoral care.
Sorry for the long response.
LLP are probably closer to the NT image of the clergy than we elders. Paul continued in his profession as a tentmaker throughout his missionary journeys. On more than one occasion, he spoke of how he could have expected the churches to financially support him, but chose instead to earn his own living lest he be a burden or accused of doing it for the money.
I spent 1 year as a LLP while I was a student in seminary. Something that bugged me then, and still does is that LLP have so little voice & vote at Annual Conference. This discriminates against small congregations who don't have anyone representing them on many important matters, ie clergy delegates to Gen. Conference. I think this needs to be changed in some way. LLP probably shouldn't have all the rights & responsibilities as the ordained clergy, but they should have more than what they presently do.
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