The pastorate is a unique calling. While there are similarities to other callings or jobs, there are qualifications for the position that other callings don’t have. To become and remain a pastor, your wife and children (in your household) must be in proper order. If your wife is rebellious, you are unqualified. If the children in our household reject the faith, you are unqualified (1 Tim 3:1-7; Ti 1:5-9). What other “job” has these qualifications? If you are in IT or on the line at the factory, if you perform well on the job, it matters not what your home life is like. Your family can be a mess, but that doesn’t affect your job qualifications. You can have several baby mamas and be the wealthiest man in the world, running multi-billion dollar companies. You can have been married three times and been a philanderer even apart from marriage and still become president of the USA. However, according to Scripture, these lifestyles would disqualify you from being a pastor.
God puts high standards on men who hold the office of pastor. They are called to be examples of what mature Christian men ought to be so that congregations can look to them as examples. Because of their office, they bear a heavier weight as Christ’s representative. That is why they must be above reproach.
I have been in the community of pastors since I was ten years of age when my mother married a Baptist pastor. I was ordained as a Baptist pastor at twenty-one (not advised). I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. I have seen pastors build ministries on lies about their lives. They fabricate a fake “testimony” that shoots them to ecclesiastical stardom. I have known pastors to commit adultery with members of their congregation. Some of these pastors were properly defrocked. Others have continued in the ministry, acting as if nothing had ever happened. They say, “I’m forgiven,” and continue on as if their sin has no consequence on their qualifications. I don’t question God’s forgiveness. I do question their qualification to remain a pastor without a hiatus from ministry and time to rebuild their character and reputation so they can be trustworthy.
Many Christians in the pew are glad to extend this type of forgiveness to pastors because it makes it easier on them. They know pastors are examples. If the pastor can sin without any consequence, they should also be able to do so. The result is that churches don’t take sin seriously and, in many cases, become a den of iniquity.
The problems continue to this day. There is a rash of men who seem to believe they can sin grievously and maintain the pastorate like any corporate job. These men either don’t understand the pastoral ministry (and, therefore, shouldn’t be a pastor) or don’t have integrity (and, therefore, shouldn’t be a pastor). Because these men have possibly invested time to train for the ministry (and it takes time), and this is their only source of income, they believe they are somehow “owed” this office. They are not. We are not.
We wonder why the world doesn’t respect the pastoral ministry anymore. Trust in the pastoral office has precipitously declined over the last fifty years. Christians don’t respect the office. Pastors don’t respect the office. In the evangelical world, we tend to think that if a man feels he should be a pastor, his feelings practically qualify him. Other branches of the church aren’t much better. Men don’t need to have a good knowledge of the Scriptures, and they certainly don’t need to bother learning the fundamentals of the biblical languages. If you can speak well and with conviction or know the liturgy (in the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox, and Anglo-Catholics), then you are pretty much qualified.
While the pastoral ministry is unique in many ways, there are overlapping principles with other vocations. It stuns me to see how people demand that men be qualified with strenuous standards in other vocations but are so lax about the pastoral ministry. A medical doctor must go through years of school and apprenticeship. To maintain his license, he must have continuing education. To be a certified electrician, you must attend school and be an apprentice. This can take years. This is the same with plumbing and many other vocations. However, a man who cares for your eternal soul only needs to have a feeling, speak well, and gain a large following on social media. He doesn’t need training, and his character can be iffy. This is like your medical doctor watching a few YouTube videos without any other training and walking in to perform surgery inebriated. If a plumber makes a mistake, it can cause a temporary mess that can be cleaned up. If an electrician messes up, he may cause serious damage but not soul-damning. Even if your doctor makes a mistake and you die under his care, his work doesn’t affect your eternal destiny. What the pastor does has eternal consequences.
None of this will change unless there is genuine accountability with high standards. Men who seek the office must be men of integrity who are prepared to shepherd the flock of God. They must be prepared intellectually, having a good grasp on the Scriptures and able to teach them. They must be men of character or integrity, men above reproach so as not to bring shame to the name of Christ through their moral deficiencies, men who have had time to build a blameless reputation with no recent or uncovered scandals. Men of integrity would rather die than bring reproach to Christ’s name through their pastoral actions and would if the occasion called for it, step down from the ministry if it happened.
Pastors also need accountability. Pop-up pastors who build their reputations online and plant independent churches with no equals (pastors) watching over them are in a dangerous position. Pastors need to be answerable to others who hold the same office. Other pastors must also be willing to hold one another to account and keep the moral and intellectual standards high. This isn’t a good ‘ol boys’ club. This is Christ’s church we’re guarding. Pastors need accountability with a stick. That is, if a pastor ever disqualifies himself, he needs people in authority to remove him from office.
James warns us, “My brothers, let not many of you become teachers, knowing that we shall receive a stricter judgment” (Jms 3:1). The pastorate has high standards and great responsibility, which comes with more severe judgment. Don’t take the pastoral ministry lightly. God won’t.
