Who is Qualified to Pastor

Recently I was at a major IFB college to present our training institute ministry to the ministerial department.  Although I did not talk to each and every ministry student, I was a bit disheartened to hear that many of the pastoral students I spoke to had never considering being bi-vocational but were only planning on being a “full time” staff member of an established church, even though the needs of church planting and small church ministry are great.  To add to this disappointment, I recently spoke to a young “pastor” who had just taken, less than a year ago, a church in a very rural town here in New York state and had done so with the understanding that he would have to be bi-vocational.  However, the reason I was involved with him was because he had quit his full time job and is preparing to resign from the small struggling church because in his words, “I am called to be a full time pastor, and that cannot happened here.”

When did we lose our way?

You see in 1 Timothy 3 we find the qualifications of a pastor and for some reason we have focused on a few of the things listed there but have not gotten the others covered effectively in our thinking.  For instance, we debate and preach hard about whether a pastor can be divorced or not due to the phrase “husband of one wife” in 1 Timothy 3:2, yet we say nothing when a pastor makes his home a fortress that no one is allowed to visit unannounced which goes against the qualification of “given to hospitality” in the same verse.  We write articles and even books about the fact that a pastor MUST NEVER drink alcohol because 1 Timothy 3:3 admonishes “not given to wine,” yet, in the same verse we find that money should NEVER drive our decisions on where to pastor, “greedy of filthy lucre.”

Why are we “cherry picking” our qualifications?

Now I am not going to select a single qualification from this 1 Timothy 3 list, but want to ask this simple question based upon the entire list - who is qualified to pastor?  If a pastor or pastoral candidate has never divorced but has struggles with being patient with people, which one of those disqualifies him more quickly? 

Now mind you some of the qualifications are easier to see, such as the divorce issue or whether or not his children are brats or not.  I get that, but why do we seemingly ignore certain things for the more obvious?  Are we that desperate to fill pulpits or are we that naive to think that a preacher’s age is NOT as important as his character? 

Let’s make this discussion practical shall we?  How about this possible situation - a larger established IFB church is looking for a sound Bible preaching pastor but also wants to grow the church with young families.   They have narrowed their search down to two men.  The first is a young man who has his masters degree in Bible exposition from a famous Bible college, and is working on his doctoral degree in the same, but, he has never pastored or served in any church as leadership, just gone to college.  Now mind you, his personality is stellar and his family is young and very gifted in many areas as well.  Then second man that the church is looking at is a seventy year old widower who has never graduated from Bible college but has been in ministry over forty years and is now having some health issues.  The older man is biblically sound and is a tremendous preacher of the Word due to years of personal study.  But he is alone, “old,” and unhealthy.  Is the first more qualified to pastor their church than the second just because of age and health, even though those qualities are not listed in 1 Timothy 3?  Should a church pick a pastor solely because of greater education and youth over experience?  Is the younger man even qualified to pastor because of being a “novice?”

I am not implying that the younger is somehow immoral or unfit, but is he qualified ahead of the older man?  Churches often want younger families and it is usually assumed that a younger man will draw younger families and thus an older man is often overlooked for this reason, even though the older seasoned man is infinitely more qualified.

Then on top of this discussion we must also ask this question, when was the last time a church asked the unsaved world for a recommendation for their pastor?  Yet, the very last qualification in 1 Timothy 3:7 is that an elder/pastor should “have a good report of them which are without….”  Even Jesus said to “make friends of the mammon of this world” (Luke 16:9), yet I have seldom heard of a church calling a candidate’s bank to see if they pay my bills or asking to talk to the unsaved neighbors to see if the possible pastor is good to unsaved.

Please understand that I am not trying to pick a fight or call out certain men, but to get us to actually look at the qualifications of our pastors.  Are we being consistent with ALL that 1 Timothy 3 says or are we “cherry picking” our personal favorites? 

Also, if we are pastors ourselves are we searching our lives to see if we need improvement?

We are in need of sound leadership in our churches today and that begins by actually following ALL the qualifications found in 1 Timothy 3.  This begins when churches begin to expect their pastors to be living the qualifications of 1 Timothy 3 BEFORE they become pastors not just because they are pastors.  Plus it would help our churches if EVERY CHRISTIAN would see that the 1 Timothy 3 qualifications maybe be required for their pastor, but they should be the goal of every believer too.

Just a thought to ponder.