07/27/2010
Author: Pastor John
As I was applying Genesis 49 in a recent sermon, I mentioned that I would enjoy helping people learn how to bless others. By pointing out key character qualities and calling on God to cause His grace to flow through them, we encourage and empower them. I went on to say that Pastor Gordon and Pastor Matt would be glad to help them learn to bless (and exhort) too.
This was the first time I had included Matt Olson in the list of pastors of 1st. Evangelical Free Church. And as I was praying and considering what to focus on in this newsletter article it became obvious that this is the perfect time to expand on the short explanations I’ve given.
Which is it? Matt is a pastor. Matt will be a pastor. Both! On the one hand when we voted in April 2010 to call him as Youth Pastor to work with youth and on the worship ministry team, he became a pastor. He is recognized as “in the process of credentialing” by the EFCA-West District which supervises the licensing process Matt is committed to completing. This means our fellow churches and the IRS treat him as a pastor.
Matt will be a Pastor. Until he completes the process for the 3 year license he is not yet a credentialed pastor. He will also need to complete another step to receive a permanent Christian Ministry credential for Youth Ministry at the end of the three years.
As I discussed this with one of our elected officers, it became clear that the issue in most people’s minds is authority. Even with the downgrade that all leaders in our society have received over the last few decades, people see pastors as having some kind of spiritual authority. That implies that some kind of accountability is expected of people.
Earlier in my ministry here (I was 29 for the first seven months of ministry at FEFC) it became clear that I had to earn the role of spiritual authority in the lives of those I was to lead. It wasn’t automatic. Matt will have to do the same. In this sense he is not yet a pastor in the minds of some. And some who wiped his nose in the nursery may never call him Pastor Matt!
Matt is responsible (as Pastor Gordon turns day to day operation over to him) for the Mid High and High School ministries. He has been given authority over those who work with him in these ministries. (He also has opportunity for some input in college ministry.) So he has pastoral authority in these areas. In this sense he is already a pastor.
Should parents call him Pastor Matt, then? To help their children respond well to his leadership it would certainly be wise to do so. His authority in these lives (and those who work in youth ministry) is different and more focused than mine, but it is still pastoral. His role is not a replacement for my role in their family (or Pastor Gordon’s) it is different.
Well, now you see why I haven’t described these details before! And why I needed a whole newsletter article to just begin. And that’s what it’s all about…beginning. Helping young leaders enter leadership in as many ways as we can, including pastoral leadership.
