Archive for August, 2007

I am a Preacher… Evangelist… Minister… Pastor.

I was confronted with this dilemma over the past few days. Reporters from two different newspapers came out to interview me about our new building. They both (along with the photographer from one paper) referred to me as Pastor. The first reporter did specifically ask about my title, and I said it is Preaching Minister. But I suspect that both papers will refer to me as Pastor when the articles come out. And that’s fine with me.

If you know anything about the Churches of Christ, you know that we don’t call our preachers ‘Pastor’. We believe that the title of Pastor belongs to those who serve as elders (sometimes preachers also serve as elders, but not very often). In most other churches, the preacher is the Pastor — which explains why everyone outside of our church refers to me by that title.

Why do we make a big deal out of this? Some will say it is because we need to call Bible things by Bible names. That’s fine, but we don’t do that in a lot of other areas. Every week I hear people talk about “going to church.” You can’t go to church — the church is the people! We don’t seem to get too bent out of shape about that inaccurate statement. We call the Sunday assembly the “worship service.” You’ll never find it called that in Scripture. Why don’t we get upset about that? What about Sunday School? I’m sure you can think of more.

Here’s the point: I don’t think it’s unbiblical to refer to our preachers as “Pastors”. Most preachers/ministers I know certainly do a lot of pastoring. Rather than an official title, “Pastor” is a descriptive term — like “Preacher” or “Minister.” Thus, whether you call me a Pastor, a Minister, a Preacher, a Preaching Minister, or a Teaching Pastor — you are correct! However, I don’t think it would be correct (Biblically) to refer to me as an “Evangelist.” It seems to me that refers to someone who goes from place to place preaching and establishing churches rather than someone who settles in and works with one church exclusively.

Lest you think I’m hung up on titles, whenever someone asks “Should I call you Minister or Pastor or Reverend or…..?” I always respond by saying, “Just call me Jeff.”