The Failure of the Pastoral Paradigm
Unlocking God’s Design for Every Believer and Why Every Believer’s Role Matters in the Church
What is the “Pastoral Paradigm?”
The “pastoral paradigm” is a continuation of the Catholic tradition of having one person be the central focus and primary participant in the assembly when Christians meet together and the one who chooses and delivers the primary message. This paradigm puts the pastor at the top of a hierarchy of leadership, who far too often has little actual accountability. Some churches will have a board of directors, elders, deacons, and even a business committee, but generally, the pastor has the dominant influence over all church activities.
However, an objective evaluation of the decline of Christianity in this nation strongly suggests that the "pastoral paradigm" has been a failure in the spiritual life of the mainstream church. A strong case can also be made that it is one of the major reasons that heretical movements like Prosperity ministries, Social Justice Theology (based on Critical Race Theory), Progressive Christianity, and New Age teachings are having such success. This is even more obvious today as respected bible ministries are publicly accusing more and more churches, organizations, and pastors of false teaching. The unfortunate result is that a disturbingly large number of professing Christians in this nation have little or no true doctrinal foundation.
The main reason given in 1990 by the 95% of professing Christians the Barna Group surveys determined had never shared their faith was that they didn't feel adequate to convey the gospel. Barna’s current surveys indicate that just one in four Americans is a practicing Christian.
My question to the mainstream church is this: how can you expect to develop evangelical Christians who pray together and have meaningful spiritual contact outside the church when you raise them to be mute spectators in the assembly in complete violation of the scriptural instruction in 1 Corinthians 14:26 and pretending 1 Corinthians 12:22-27 isn't even in the Bible?
The Biblical Model: Multiplicity of Elders
The most likely reason "pastor" is only in the New American Standard Bible (NASB) once and Christ said not to call anyone Rabbi (pastor) in Matthew 23:8-12 is because Christ established that the churches were “shepherded” by a multiplicity of elders who had mutual accountability and who led from behind and allowed the Spirit to dictate the direction!
Example:
While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. (3) Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.” (Acts 13:2-3)
1 Corinthians 14:26 makes it clear that God intended each person to be prepared to give a testimony in the assembly of what God was doing in their lives and to be able to share any insights they were receiving in their Christian walk.
What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. (1 Corinthians 14:26)
Then the Spirit could anoint those He wanted to bring a message in season "according to the need of the moment." (See Ephesians 4:29).
Moreover, the elders would be there to keep everything on a correct doctrinal basis by nurturing encouragement and not harsh correction, then by participation the whole congregation would develop an expression of Christ and of His Gospel and feel like co-participants in the body of Christ.
It was not God's purpose to have a paid speaker choose a message from his archive of sermons he's written over the years or from a book of sermon outlines. The "pastoral paradigm" invalidates the word of God for the sake of Protestant tradition (See Matthew 15:3-6). Actually, the tradition started with Catholicism and was just not rectified during the Reformation.
Biblical Discipleship and Strengthening of the Body
This concept of each member co-participating in the functioning of the body is expanded upon in 1 Corinthians 12:22-27:
On the contrary, it is much truer that the members of the body which seem to be weaker are necessary; (23) and those members of the body which we deem less honorable, on these we bestow more abundant honor, and our less presentable members become much more presentable, (24) whereas our more presentable members have no need of it. But God has so composed the body, giving more abundant honor to that member which lacked, (25) so that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. (26) And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. (27) Now you are Christ's body, and individually members of it. (1 Corinthians 12:22-27)
Clearly, this passage works in conjunction with God’s instruction for activity in the assembly and talks about working with, encouraging, disciplining, and preparing the less presentable members to become effective witnesses for Christ. As every management manual indicates, giving people gradually more and more responsibility as a member of a team and building them up when they fall short is the most effective management style to build an effective, knowledgeable, and cohesive staff.
It appears obvious from the very poor results that we have attained in the mainstream church in this nation through the pastoral paradigm that we need a change in tactics and what other alternative would be more logical than to go back to God’s original design?
Pastoral Gift: Equip the Body to Minister, not Be The Minister
The Apostle Paul’s instruction in Ephesians 4:11-14 would seem to make God’s strategy very clear:
And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, (12) for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; (13) until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. (14) As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming; (Ephesians 4:11-14)
The giftings or offices enumerated in verse 11 were to equip the saints to do the “work of service”. This verse alone eliminates the entire concept of clergy and laity that places the congregation in a secondary role in the activity of the body. This point is further emphasized in the rest of this passage in Ephesians 4:11-16. , which declares that the body of Christ is built up and held together by each believer in the body doing their part in the work of the church after they have been trained by the Spirit and the elders:
But speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in all aspects into Him who is the head, even Christ, (16) from whom the whole body, being fitted and held together by what every joint (every believer) supplies, according to the proper working of each individual part, causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15-16)
It is the unified effort of all believers working in concert with one another each emphasizing their individual gifting which “causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love”. God knows this is something sorely lacking in much of the body of Christ today.
Each Believer is a Priest to God
Moreover, 1 Peter 2:9 declares that the entire body of Christ is “a royal priesthood”:
But you are A CHOSEN RACE, A royal PRIESTHOOD, A HOLY NATION, A PEOPLE FOR God's OWN POSSESSION, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; (1 Peter 2:9)
The priesthood of every believer defines our responsibilities and relationship to God. This would include our prayer life, our lifestyle of obedience, and our time spent individually reading and meditating on the word of God in the holy scriptures under the anointing and guidance of the Spirit while we are in fellowship (having no unconfessed sins).
I have more insight than all my teachers, For Your testimonies are my meditation. (Psalms 119:99)
Each Believer is an Ambassador to the Lost
The body of Christ’s shared responsibility to the unsaved is described in 2 Corinthians 5:18-20:
Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, (19) namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (20) Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were making an appeal through us; we beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. (2 Corinthians 5:18-20)
Again, Paul in the Spirit is telling us that everyone in the body shares equally in the responsibility to reach the lost and to be Christ’s ambassadors to a lost and dying world. This is no more a suggestion than the Ten Commandments are the ten suggestions.
There is a tendency among believers today to think that evangelism is the duty of the ministerial staff and fail to recognize that if we fail to share the gospel with an unbeliever when we have the opportunity it is a sin of omission that takes us out of fellowship1 with God.
“Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin” (James 4:17).
It is important that believers understand that evangelism is their responsibility because to be effective at it requires that we develop our expression of Christ, which requires study and preparation. It is also proven that those who carry tracts and bibles in anticipation of ministering to the lost are much more likely to respond to those opportunities in obedience.
Every Believer is a Minister to the Body
Our third area of responsibility and function in Christ is to Build Up and Edify the Body of Christ, which is every believer’s duty not just that of the person standing behind the pulpit. This is covered in detail in the second reference under Additional Resources at the end of this article. However, perhaps Ephesians 4:29-32 suggests the general scope of this function:
Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear. (30) Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. (31) Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. (32) Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you. (Ephesians 4:29-32)
This conveys the duty of every Christian to be focused on things above rather than on worldly entanglements (Colossians 3, 2 Timothy 2:4) and to be led in the moment by the Spirit.
Unfortunately, the word “grace” in verse 29 has become somewhat of a cliché.
Grace in the spiritual sense means to have supernatural power released that can transform individuals and circumstances.
Verse 30 instructs us not to grieve or quench (1 Thessalonians 5:19) the Holy Spirit by being out of fellowship due to having active or unconfessed sins. God is righteous and cannot fellowship with sin. 1 John 1:9-10 gives us clear instructions for getting an active sin under the blood of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice and having it forgiven.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (10) If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us. (1 John 1:9-10)
The phrase “to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” is God’s grace to include any sins we have forgotten or are unaware of as long as we are not trying to hide any sin.
Further, as our sins are confessed and come under the blood (Christ’s payment) God removes them as far as the east is from the west and remembers them no longer (Psalm 103:12; Isaiah 43:25; Micah 7:19). Not that God has a bad memory; He simply has a perfect "forgetter."
"I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins." (Isaiah 43:25)
So unlike worldly fathers who have a habit of constantly reminding us of past sins, God removes even His memory of the sin once it is confessed and under the blood. Therefore, if we let the memory of the sin immobilize us or delay us from returning into full kingdom participation, then we are playing into the enemy’s hands, because that is exactly what the powers and principalities of darkness want us to do!
And the powers of darkness will keep reminding you of your sin to bring you under a condemnation that God never intended. It is unbelief and lack of faith to hold yourself to a more severe judgment than God does, and not to accept His forgiveness as full and sufficient since it represents the blood payment of Christ.
Verses 31-32 may seem challenging for new believers, however, the Spirit will give us victory in these areas if we are sincerely seeking Christ in our hearts through his word as a lifestyle. This is the process of sanctification and it is always a work in process.
Christ Forbids the Hierarchical Leadership Model in His Church
Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 23:8-12 that we are all equal in the body and no one is to be called pastor or leader to avoid possible division and any semblance of a hierarchy in the body of Christ:
"But do not be called Rabbi (pastor); for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers. (9) "Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. (10) "Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ. (11) "But the greatest among you shall be your servant. (12) "Whoever exalts himself shall be humbled; and whoever humbles himself shall be exalted. (Matthew 23:8-12)
So the bottom line is that even though our operation within the body will logically be greatly influenced by the giftings we receive from the Spirit, it is still our duty to respond in obedience in every opportunity we have to operate in our Priesthood, our Ministry of Reconciliation, and our Ministry to Build Up and Edify the Body of Christ as these are our three primary areas of responsibility2.
Additional resources:
1https://www.aliveinjesuschrist.com/p/doctrine-of-fellowship
2https://www.aliveinjesuschrist.com/p/three-functions-of-believers
In Christ,
Paul
We are all equal. Amen.