Evaluate Your Pastorlings and Usurp Their Authority!

iStock-Unfinished-Business-8Do you find the Table of Duties and AC V inadequate when it comes to defining the responsibilities of a pastor? Wouldn’t it be great to have something a little more practical? Shouldn’t pastors be more concerned about meeting your subjective expectations rather than biblical faithfulness?

Why bother with all that 4th Commandment stuff (Exodus 20:12) and let the spiritual father (1 Corinthians 4:15) manage the household of faith when the children (1 John 2:1) have their own ideas about how to run the church? Wouldn’t it be great if we ditched this archaic notion of “calling”, entered into the 21st century, and started evaluating how well our pastorlings are doing the jobs we have employed them to do?

Now you can, and the LCMS Mid-South District is here to help! Click here for their Compensation & Evaluation page, where you can find four job performance evaluation worksheets that encourage you to determine his strengths, weaknesses, and set goals for him according your own, self-chosen standards with no biblical guidance whatsoever! [1]

But that’s not all: these forms also let you rate your pastor on a scale from 1–10 (on such essential duties as how well he “assimilates new members”), suggest changes to your pastor’s job description, and comment on how well he “reads the signs of the times, develops vision, [and] sets direction.” Just in case that doesn’t cover it, there’s plenty of room for you to say whatever you want, really (see the “additional comments” section). And don’t forget, since growing the church is the most important thing a pastor can do, be sure to make a direct correlation between the size of his salary and your congregation (see the compensation guidelines).  Remember, it’s like the Church Growth Translation says:

Evaluate your pastorlings and usurp their authority!
(Hebrews 13:17, CGT)

 

 

[1] It’s great when elders or members want to provide helpful feedback to their pastor; sometimes it’s even necessary to call him to account for unfaithfulness (e.g., not doing visitation, laziness, etc.). However, that’s different from sitting down and giving him a formal “job performance review.” Given it’s secular origins and purpose, such a practice cannot help but perpetuate a hireling or employee view of the pastoral office (making the practice contrary to Scripture and our Confessions), along with the (false) notion that the elders are the pastor’s “boss.” Any good father will be sensitive to the needs of his wife & children; the same goes for a pastor and his congregation. But for the children to give a formal review to their father does violence to the order of creation (again, cf. 1 John 2:1; 1 Corinthians 4:15). Pastors should catechize their congregations in the 4th Commandment, 5th Article of the Augsburg Confession, the Table of Duties, ordination liturgy, etc., so congregations will know what pastors owe their hearers and what hearers owe their pastors. Then they will be able to give him appropriate feedback, and even call him to repentance when necessary.

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