When Fathers Kill their Children (The Pastor as an Abortionist)

I want to start this very ‘controversial’ post by asking very straightforward questions. Why do we have pastors? What is their role in the church? Where are they taken from? What are their spiritual qualifications?

This is because over the years I have been in ministry I have seen strange things. In fact, from my childhood I have also seen strange things as I grew up in church.

Why is it that a person who was red hot with missions before becoming a pastor starts killing missions when he becomes one? Why is it that a person who found fulfillment in discipleship starts fighting it when he becomes a pastor?

What is in the pastoral office that ‘transforms’ these solid characters to start subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, fight what led people to make them pastors in the first place?

I won’t have minded or even posted if this was a scattered observation here and there. But it is sad to notice that it is so common that it actually appears as the norm instead of the exception.

Let me give my first example. In my childhood I read a lot. And there was this magazine my sister used to bring home written by the Regions Beyond Ministry.

Talk of a passion for missions, and especially to the unreached! It is very possible that I picked my passion for missions from that magazine. I knew the champions by heart and of course had even memorized their pictures.

Then those central figures became pastors (and later bishops) and that became the end of all that fire. None of them became missionaries. I have even visited the ministry and it is just another denomination.

How many pastors do you know who were called (by God) from occupations or even studies to minister to students in schools? Then because of the impact of their ministry they were made pastors. Now their only connection to schools is being invited to pray for candidates.

How many were made pastors because of their impact in making disciples who now see discipleship as a bother, especially the kind that elevated them?

There is a friend who was great in empowering missions and missionaries that he could leave home in the dead of the night to receive or send a missions team. Incidentally he would commute to get there. Then he was made a pastor and the missionaries started groaning. The missionaries who loved him before he became a pastor started hoping that God removes him.

There are bishops who are products of deep discipleship movements whose sermons you are unable to even remotely associate with discipleship. There are others who started by ministry to the destitute yet forgot all about them when they got the position. Yet others were noticed as they ministered to the untouchables yet they became even more untouchable to them when they got the position.

A young man is so committed to encouragement that it seems any spare minute is spent either visiting or at least touching base with someone. The church then thinks, ‘if the two or so hours he has he can make such an impact, what would happen when he has 24 hours for the same?’ They therefore ask him to resign and hire him as a pastor. Then they wonder why now he doesn’t take their calls!

Or take this man who was bringing hordes of business people to Christ and to church. He is made a pastor and now the church seems to repel business people.

One is very effective running singing programs in church. Then he is made a pastor and the other singers start disconnecting.

What is the problem? I know many are wondering.

I strongly feel that we have started using sight to run our faith. We have decided to abandon the secret place with God and starteded using flesh.

You see, the title pastor is not a feather to cap one’s achievement. One does not achieve that title after being effective in any other endeavor.

Pastor is a calling with its unique gifting and not a one size fits all.

You kill an evangelist when you make him a pastor however well-intentioned you are. And I know that there are doors that title pastor closes that only the marketplace minister can access. Making him a pastor therefore closes doors that were wide open when he was serving God in the marketplace.

Now suppose the church had asked to partner with him, probably by hiring a hall for him to run programs or hold meetings with those business people where a pastor would be invited to give a word? Those business people would have been seamlessly brought to church instead of being alienated by disqualifying the only person who was qualified to reach them.

Again I will ask a question that offends most, was prayer involved when those people were made pastors? Was God’s order pursued before then?

You see, God follows His word to fulfill it. It would therefore be insane to expect God’s call to make someone a pastor could emasculate the ministry he was so effective in before becoming one.

There are pastors who are very effective as pastors. And it is simply because that is their call. It is not a graduation from something or to something. God called them to a function He had equipped them for.

Those are the pastors who enjoy their ministry without comparing themselves with the misfits who have to justify their ‘pastor’ tag because they were poached from places of their spiritual strength and effectiveness to get a position with emoluments to blind their backsliding.

Jesus talked about the shepherd and the hireling. Incidentally both are pastors, even with requisite titles and training.

But one is walking in his strengths and spiritual equipping while the other is following his fleshy, though apparently ‘spiritual’ qualifications. You see, a degree in Theology is really a fleshy qualification outside a clear call to the particular ministry God has for you. All those papers and training serves no purpose if you are not pursuing God’s clear call for your life.

That is the reason we are seeing such disconnect in ministry. We have people who are adequately trained but outside what God wanted them to be doing. And like Jesus said many are sadly heading to hell as the only qualification for heaven is doing God’s will, not man’s job. Or what do my favorite verses say?

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)

Are you flowing with God’s anointing and leading or are you struggling through the resistance your job attracts? Do you have enemies that must know who you are or are they just difficult partners who need your ministry to thrive in God’s vineyard?

I suspect that if most of the church leadership would withdraw to the secret place for an accurate word from the throne in heaven the first word would be ‘GET OUT’ of that leadership, and they suspect it.

I suspect that most, if not all of these spiritual superstars giving a release for the year would also withdraw to the same secret place where God alone reigns the word would be, ‘STEP ASIDE’ and give me a chance to speak to My church. Sadly, I suspect they know that and therefore make a pretense of withdrawing.

That could be the first step of obedience for them for a very long time. And it could drastically, though positively alter their standing before God because they would know where they started drifting from His Lordship.

Will we go back to that closet?

I know there are some pastors who have made that discovery and decided that being right with God is better than those insane packages they enjoy and stepped aside. But they are still too few to notice.

It is so sad to be giving a word from God knowing that it is repackaged, even exhumed from past words when you had the connection. As if God stopped speaking!

Will we go back to the secret place?