TheDeSocios.com

Mark Driscoll recently traveled to England to speak about the importance of church planting. The lectures can be found here.

At one point Mark, a brother whom I greatly respect, talked about when a “number one” Pastor should step down. His argument, there are some guys who are really, as he puts it, “number two” guys who are in number one positions. He argues that these guys need to step down. According to Mark, pastors who struggle with sermons, who shrug off vision and “architecting”, and whose churches are stagnant are probably number two guys in the number one slot.
Mark advises that they need to step down, and let a real number one step up. It seems like he is arguing that Preaching and vision are things that a number one does, while shepherding and counseling are for the number two.

Let me share what I disagree with, before I move on to what I agree with.
First, Mark often speaks about the problem of simply pulling your church’s structure for culture. In fact he has gone to great pains to show how he is a two office guy, Elders and Deacons. These statements hurt that part of his witness. This idea seems to come more from the corporate world than the New Testament. Putting a value judgment on guys as being primary or secondary is wrong. Its wrong when Presbyterians devalue ruling elders, and its wrong when Mark devalues these number two guys, and it divides the office of elder.

In addition I think its unhealthy to score different aspects of the ministry of an elder. Here is the problem and this might sound mean. Mark has forgotten where these guys are coming from. He points out in Confessions of a Reformission Rev. that most churches are less than 200, which means that most churches only have one guy on staff. Which means that the specialization that Mark is talking about is entirely unknown to most of the guys he is talking to at church planting conferences. Regardless of if these small churches are healthy or not, I think that Doug Swagerty is right when he says that a church is not a fault for being small. In a larger church, with multiple full-time elders (ie. Pastors) it is understandable that different men need to specialize. I think Mark might be setting up for church planters the idea that 2000 plus people should be the norm for a church, when factually this is not the case.

I understand that he was not trying to devalue these specialized pastors who don’t preach, but I think he explained his idea in the wrong way. I also understand that this is a blog, one that very few people read. My critique is probably not going to change the way that Mark talks about this stuff, though it would be nice if it did. I think Mark has to realize that many Pastors are going to be both ones and twos, most of my seminary professors showed the ability to cast vision, to teach, to prophetically call people to follow Christ. At the same time these men, can along side of their students, they encouraged and counseled them. It is not as easy as saying your a one and your a two. I would argue that the majority of good pastors are going to be a mix of both.

Instead of simply speaking of number one preachers and number two counselors, I think Mark should have gone to Scripture to argue for the diversity of gifts on a pastoral team, something that I agree with. As I was listening to his lecture, I immediately went to Acts 11. In Acts 11, Barnabas, is working in the church Antioch, he is preaching, teach, and shepherding this new church. The Spirit is using Barnabas and the result is an explosion in the growth of the church. Barnabas, though he is a gifted speaker, realizes that Paul’s teaching would build up the church so he seeks out Paul, and asks him to join the ministry in Antioch. It seems fair to say that Paul and Barnabas, though sharing many skills, each brought their own talents to the table. From what we gather later in Acts, Paul seems to headline much of the speaking, while even Barnabas’s name reveals his counseling gifts.

I think Mark could, and should say, that if you are a Barnabas, and you see that you need someone else to come and minister with you, you need to find that Paul. Even if it means that visibly your place in the church will decrease.

I don’t think that Mark should presuppose that all churches will reach a point where all their staff can specialize, but I do think that in in the western church, there has been a culture of solo. Even the Presbyterian system, which is still being refined by God’s word, has for too long seen the Teaching Elder as alone in his ministry. In the New Testament, men ministering alone was the exception not the rule. In part, I think what Mark was getting at is the importance of realizing the need to be connected to other men in ministry. This commitment to connection must be valued even if it means that, like Barnabas, one pastor’s role might become less visible.

The challenge is to not setup success as our functional savior. A pastor’s desire must be to see people come to love Jesus, and each other, and not to be know for seeing people come to love Jesus and each other.

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