A friend messaged asking for my “take” on all the different pastors in the church these days. Senior pastor, student pastor, worship, adminstrative, children’s, and executive pastor–the list is endless.

He said, “Why don’t we have just one pastor?”

The quick answer, of course, is that pastor means shepherd, and these various ministers are shepherding a part of the flock. The larger the flock, the more shepherds are needed.  It’s a noble concept and has the full support of scripture.  Whether one could blame the Bible for the “senior” business or “executive pastor” thing is another question. (But if a church wants to label its ministers that way, personally I’m good with it.)

I do think it’s almost funny how the pastor of some tiny flock somewhere will list himself as “senior pastor.”  But we laugh only to ourselves.  It’s his business and not ours.

An angry commenter–responding to something someone wrote about the “administrative assistant” in their church–took off on the unscriptural nature of that position.  “Show me an administrative assistant in the church,” he said, with the complete confidence they couldn’t do it.

He didn’t ask me, but I could have.

My response to the gentleman would have been, “Did you ever read Romans 16?  Most of those people listed there are administrative assistants.” (Bearing in mind that the term simply means someone who is alongside you to assist in your work for the Lord.)

–Phoebe is a servant of the church in verse 1.  “She has been a helper of many and of myself also” (vs. 2).

–Priscilla and Aquila have a church meeting in their house (vs. 3-5).  Paul does not call the pastors or elders. Ask anyone who has ever hosted a church meeting in their home. The work of setting up, providing, hosting, and then taking it all down is unending.

–In verse 6, “Mary labored much for us.”  In verse 9, Urbanus is “my fellow worker in Christ.”

–Shall we go on?  Others are said to have labored in the Lord, labored “much” in the Lord, and are called “my fellow workers.”  Gaius is “my host and the host of the whole church” (v.23).

Janitor is not mentioned in the New Testament.  Does anyone find that position to be unbiblical and recommend scrapping it? How about electrician, plumber, and roofer?  And yet, every church employs the services of these skilled workers from time to time.

Christian people can be such pains.  Some live by the weird philosophy that the Bible absolutely must justify and specify everything, otherwise we need to toss it out. Then, they turn right around and not require it in other situations  A friend who was Primitive Baptist would not have a Sunday School in his church because there was none in the Bible, but did not hesitate to install an air-conditioner in the church window.

I have numerous friends who belong to the denomination called The Church of Christ–although they would insist theirs is not a denomination but was formed in opposition to the very idea of all those numerous denominations.  A mantra they sometimes use is “Speaking where the Bible speaks and silent where the Bible is silent.”  It’s a nice theory, but they don’t abide by it.  They hold a ton of positions that are not found in Scripture and do a thousand things that are not hinted at in the Word.  And so do the rest of us.

I’m good with that, although I wonder if they are.

The Holy Scriptures were never given as a strait jacket to bind us, to weight us down, to shut us in.  It was given to free us, to lift and lighten us, and to enrich our lives.

I love God’s Word and assume you do, also. But we would do well to allow it to be what God intended and not try to make it something different.