Wanted: More Competent Undershepherds
Ideally, as the number of members in a congregation grows, the number of qualified men who can share the load of shepherding also goes up proportionately. The basic principle is that the more members you have in the local church that are sinners, the more sin, pain, and suffering there will be that would require pastoral attention and oversight.
The problem is that qualified men who have the potential to serve are not as easy to come by as we would hope.
To my mind, the reality of qualification for gospel ministry requires the confluence of two things in the man of God.
First, there’s the man’s own ASPIRATION.
In 1 Timothy 3:1, Paul writes that,
‘if anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task.’
The first requirement is that the potential office-bearer should have a genuine aspiration for the kind of servant leadership that willingly bends down to wash the dirty feet of the people he is serving. He must freely and willingly want to be used of God to care for and to feed his flock.
Nevetheless, mere aspiration is insufficient. There are men who may feel very passionate about the idea of holding office in the church who have not truly and seriously considered the cost of following Jesus in this way. The idea appeals to them and they think that they have what it takes to be a pastor or an elder, although they have never tested this, or been tested themselves.
Regardless of how genuinely aspirational these men might be, they must not be put in any leadership or prominent position in the church until they are first proved as to the other facet of qualification for ministry.
The second thing to look for is ABILITY.
Under ability are comprehended two inseparable musts in the man: competence and character.
The man must be the best man that the church can produce in terms of competencies. He must be a lifelong learner who has a command of the language that he aspires to minister in.
If English, then let him demonstrate mastery of the tongue. If Filipino, then the same also must be clearly observed in his teaching. Clarity and simplicity in communicating the truths of the Scriptures is the bare minimum here.
As well, he must possess the skills of teaching and preaching the deep things of God ably. This is something that he must tirelessly be committed to developing, God helping him. The man must be able to take complex Biblical and theological concepts and to explain them well to two individuals who are representative of the church, one of the age of seven years, and the other of seven decades.
However, competence without Christ-like character, counts for absolutely nothing in Christian ministry. The man must be a true follower of Jesus. After all, he is — should he pass examination and be ordained — to be known as a man of God. Not a man of other men. Not a man for others. Not a man who wants to be god. No, a man of God. A man wholly God’s and fully loyal to him.
‘Above reproach’ is the language that the Scriptures use to desrcibe this kind of man. The man must be well regarded both inside and outside the church. He must demonstrably manage his household well. He must not be known to be ‘like one of us’ to the world. As an ambassador of Christ, he must not be subject to scandal and accusations that might compromise his office and his Lord. His manner of life and his speech must exude the fragrance of Christ. He must be humble and willing to serve in whatever manner his Lord requires. No earthly possession, or comfort, or relationship is to him too precious to offer to the Christ’s service.
This last one — Christlike character — is the hardest to come by. A church that rightly avoids laying hands too quickly is responsible for confirming a man’s ABILITY to serve in ministry.
ASPIRATION and ABILITY must both be present and observable in a man who may potentially be called to the highest calling under Christ, that of shepherding his flock. The first is subjective to the man while the second is the domain of his church. In this way, we do not simply send to seminary — or worse, ordain! — just any gungho or charismatic young man who is willing to get on a horse, to ride into the darkness, with whatever borrowed light he purports to possess.
As church membership grows, we must also be seeking to beef up our local congregations’ elderships with God-given ministers and shepherds who would competently meet the demands of pastoral ministry. The tricky part here is that we cannot go about this mechanically. We cannot simply go about putting untested men through a training curriculum, and then declaring at the end of their course of study that they are now Biblically qualified men, who must now go forth as faithful undershepherds of Christ. The need for formal Biblical and theological training notwithstanding, the one who ultimately raises up and prepares men for pastoral ministry is the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, what we must not omit in all of this is prayer. We must beseech the Lord who gives good gifts to his Church, to empower his Church to identify, train, test, and ordain Christ-like men of aspiration and ability to service and to leadership in his Church.
