Pastors: CEO or Discipler-in-Chief?

Current events have caused me to be thinking about the way the role of pastor is structured in American Evangelical churches these days. One event was the announcement by a local megachurch pastor that he is stepping down to make way for a new and younger pastor after 37 years at the church. Another event was the recent announcement from Josh Harris, author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye back in the 90’s and former pastor of a megachurch in Virginia, that he is both divorcing his wife and abandoning Christianity.

When the local pastor announced his plan to step down he provided input to the church that he views his role as the senior pastor of a megachurch (4000+ members) with this kind of approximate work division: 70% CEO of a large organization, 30% preaching.  This is not to say that the organizational work has no ministry component to it, since that organization exists in order to do ministry. Yet I found this description somewhat troubling and I still do.  For a long time I have been concerned about the failure to make disciples in local churches (see this prior blog:  https://dad-isms.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-failure-to-make-disciples.html ). As I have pondered this division of work in the daily role of a megachurch pastor, it seems to me that we may be structuring churches in a way that essentially guarantees that pastors are not disciple-makers.   The megachurch model may very well demand an effective organizational manager who also preaches but it seems to leave little time for personally making disciples. It seems more aligned to a commission to ‘go to all the world and do church’ rather than to the Great Commission of ‘go to all the world and make disciples’. It seems to me that senior pastors should first of all be ‘discipler in chief’ more than CEO.

The Josh Harris apostasy reminded me of this and also brought into focus the celebrity dimension of pastoral temptation. It is true that significant leadership of many kinds involves at least some amount of celebrity/notoriety and the temptations that come with that.  Harris was vaulted into a celebrity position early in life with his book at age 21, and then he became a megachurch pastor soon after, and that without having had theological education.  It seems clear in retrospect that he was unprepared for either the celebrity or the pastoral role, but more fundamentally it seems he never became a disciple himself let alone a disciple-maker of others. Yet he appeared to ‘succeed’ as a megachurch CEO and pastor until he voluntarily stepped down to go get an education (which then led to other problems apparently though it is not clear how all this unfolded: see this Al Mohler podcast https://albertmohler.com/2019/08/01/briefing-8-1-19 ).  This makes me question if the entire megachurch structure is part of the problem. Other recent issues with megachurch celebrity pastors have also contributed to this concern (see this blog regarding Mark Driscoll, James MacDonald and others: https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2019/07/kissing-christianity-goodbye ).  Recent concerns about Andy Stanley’s sermons advising the church to ‘unhitch from the Old Testament’ come to mind as well regarding megachurch leaders who seem theologically unprepared as Harris also was. Though Stanley did go to seminary, the depth of his theology is questionable.

I continue to be troubled by the CEO model of the pastoral role. In my 40+ years of work in corporate America I had the opportunity to have some acquaintance and work contact with some CEO’s and those one level down who were competing to be the next CEO for a large Fortune 500 company. I cannot say I would want to be like them nor would I want my children to be like them. They may feel the same about me, but this experience alone troubles me about making the CEO a model for the church. As I consider these recent events, I am becoming more convinced that the CEO model in churches is guaranteeing the end of discipleship as a primary role for pastors.

Learning How to Learn

In my early years at Kimberly-Clark Corporation we had an excellent statistics expert on staff by the name of Jim Gander. Jim had taught a number of years at the Institute of Paper Chemistry before coming to K-C and had a much better approach for helping students understand the idea of statistical concepts than many statistics classes that simply focus on how to do the calculations with a very minimal effort on the concept. Jim taught both a 'think version' and a 'do version', where the 'think version' was about the concept and the 'do version' focused on the calculation. The 'think version' struck me as key to learning how to learn.

His approach to teaching about the standard deviation in statistics is a great example of this. When asked 'what is the standard deviation?', a common mathematical definition of that is the root mean square deviation of a sample of data. That is a definition that describes how it is calculated. This is a useful number that finds application in many areas of engineering, physics, predictive models in such places as economic models, and other things. You might sometimes get a more descriptive answer such as it being a measure of how variable a data set is, or it is a measure of how wide the distribution of a data set is, or how much actual values (the data set) departs from a predicted model (the assumed mean).  Those are all correct but were not as helpful to me as how Jim described it: it is the average distance from the mean. This takes some explaining, as to why you have to take the differences (X-bar minus X), then square them, then divide by n-1 (versus n for a typical average), and then take the square root. But when you walk through all of that, it becomes clear that the underlying concept is an average distance from the mean. I just did some online searches for 'standard deviation' and 'root mean square' and did not find this 'think version', and I have not seen it in text books that I have used on statistics. However, I think it is a good and clear way to think about the concept and understand it. It is a good way to actually learn the concept that is behind the calculation.

Much technical professional work in fields like engineering, medicine and physics is 'rules based'. Many practitioners use calculations like this correctly in their work without necessarily having fully thought through the concept. They can build things that work and make working predictive models or other things by following the rules and doing the calculations correctly. This is one form of learning but seems to be a less than ideal way to learn to me. Some of this kind of work is subject to automation as the rules based decisions are converted into mathematical algorithms to deal with the vast amounts of data being generated in our modern society. But thinking about the outputs still requires understanding the concept and whether it is being applied in a reasonable way.

 This kind of 'do version' approach allows covering more material in classes, as you have to spend less time on the underlying concept. But it does not build a habit of thinking through concepts, or learning how to learn. It focuses on the doing. In that way it is much like 'rote memory'. You learn the formula and do it, but may not really understand it. Rote learning still has its place, especially early in life, as my son pointed out to me. They are not yet ready for abstract reasoning, but still need to learn the alphabet, numbers, words, and many other things before they are ready for abstract reasoning. They also learn these things very readily, soaking it up like a sponge. Even throughout life, some things just have to be learned more or less by rote. At some point, however, especially in regard to  more complex ideas in math and science, having both the 'think' and the 'do' versions becomes very important.

Many of the engineers I have known through the years have been totally focused on the doing; they want to go do something, go build something. They are not always that interested in the conceptual underpinnings. 'Just tell me what you want and I will figure out how to build it' was a common lament. On the other hand, many scientists I have known have been totally focused on the concepts and figuring out what should be built, but they were not that interested in the translation to doing it in a practical, profitable way. One key part of my work in R&D management was pushing the engineers toward understanding the underlying concepts and pushing the scientists toward making it work commercially. Both are really necessary in applied development. This has been a classic area of conflict between engineers and research scientists.

Many people go through all of their educational years using a rote approach to learning. They work to remember by rote the formulas or data they need for the test and then do it. The concept doesn't 'stick', though, and so they lose the knowledge quickly unless they are using it regularly. But I do not think I will forget Jim's teaching of statistics even though I haven't used it very much in years. The concept stuck.

Now it may be clear why this matters for statistics or other mathematical concepts, but does this approach apply to other kinds of learning? As mentioned above, I think there are some things that we may need to learn by rote, at least up to a point. When learning some basic geographical facts like states and their capitals, this may be the obvious place to start. Yet if you can visit states and get a real understanding of the geography that is certainly more memorable. That kind of reverses which of  the 'think' versus 'do' approaches is more memorable compared to the statistics example, where here the 'think' is learning it on a map and 'do' is the more memorable visit, but this combination of both a 'think version' and a 'do version' does seem transferable to me and helps me to learn. This is one reason I enjoy traveling so much: it is a great way to learn.

I think it is transferable to other kinds of learning as well. I am thinking of theology at the moment. Much of what is taught in churches, like catechism classes or creeds, along with many sermons and teaching of doctrines, are essentially 'do versions'.  The Old Testament Law, at least in the way it is often presented, is a 'do version' (though in reality it is more than that). These are largely 'rules based' approaches to morality and life. Yet the actual teachings of Christ in the gospels are much more like
'think versions' where He went about challenging the thinking of the experts in the Law (the Pharisees) and challenging everyone including His disciples to actually know and understand God. The rules based approach can be useful in not having to think everything through in detail in every instance that comes up every day in life, but the 'think version' is necessary to actually be committed to a Christian life and to be able to explain it to our children or to those outside the faith.

This is a matter of life-long learning, just as in our professional lives we continue to learn throughout life. But learning how to learn is critical to actually understanding what we are doing. I have found that considering both a 'think version' and a 'do version' has been a big help in learning how to learn across many areas of learning.

Adam's Rib

As Memorial Day 2019 approaches I have been hearing comments about plans to barbecue ribs for the holiday celebration. One man commented, 'I will be making my famous ribs!' for the family cookout. I have recently been thinking about ribs but not the barbecued kind; I have been thinking about the most famous rib, Adam's rib in Genesis 2.

As I consider the sexual revolution in our culture and its various dysfunctions, one of the major concerns is the idolatry of the autonomous individual. Our culture has made an idol of the idea that the meaning of freedom is unhindered autonomy for the individual. The individual should be free to create their own world regardless of the realities of their body for example. The view is that the autonomous individual is the basic unit of society. What we see in Genesis is quite different.

At the end of Genesis 1 we are told that God created man in His own image as male and female. The language used is that God made 'him' (singular) as 'male and female' (plural). As Francis Schaeffer pointed out in his book Genesis in Space and Time, one 'man' consists of male and female. (See my prior blog for more on this:  https://dad-isms.blogspot.com/2015/11/the-image-of-god-in-marriage.html)

Genesis 2 then shows us how God demonstrated to the man, prior to the creation of the woman, that there was more to be done before the creation of 'man' was complete. The text says that God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him." (NASB) This has often been understood to mean that the basic problem was that the man was lonely, that  loneliness was the thing that was 'not good'. I think that ignores what was already stated in Genesis 1, that God's completed creation was one 'man' consisting of male and female to bear His image. As I point out in the prior blog referenced above, the image of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is borne by the union of man and woman in 'one flesh' that cannot be borne by one individual alone. The bearing of God's image in 'man' requires both male and female united as one and bearing the image of the communion within the Trinity. So the key issue that was 'not good' was not mere loneliness; it was incompleteness. God was not yet done with His creation of man, so of course it was not yet good.

So God takes His time to show Adam that something was missing, and Genesis 2:19-20 relates how God taught the man that nothing else in creation would fill the bill. There was much to do in this new world and there was the personal God there to keep him company, so mere loneliness is not the whole story. The man is missing something fundamental. To treat this text as if the man's loneliness is the main issue is to treat the creation of woman as an instrument to solve the problem of the man's loneliness. This makes the woman merely instrumental, which is not the message we got in Genesis 1 about bearing God's image. Man alone cannot bear the complete image of God, and God has taken pains in chapter 2 to make the man understand that before He makes the woman.

He had made the man from the dust of the ground, but He did not do that for the woman. He used Adam's rib. If all He wanted to do was make another autonomous individual, the dust of the ground would have been just fine for making the woman too. If mere loneliness were the main issue, another person from the dust of the ground would have been just fine. But to have 'one flesh', for the woman to be part of the man and truly 'one flesh' with him, God used Adam's rib instead.

When he sees the woman, Adam's response is, "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." Many sermons have made light of this by creating their own version of Adam's response, trying to make the text say something like 'Woo-Hoo! Wow!' in excitement over the woman, While this usually gets a laugh, it completely misses the point. The point is not that the man was excited about the woman, though he may well have been. The point is that the man recognizes that she is indeed 'one flesh' with him, the completion of him. She is in fact the rest of him, made from his rib. Now it is good, not because his loneliness has been fixed, but because the creation of God's image is complete.

The bearing of God's image in this world is not complete in autonomous individuals. That task requires the unity of male and female, which makes the family the basic unit of society rather than the individual.  So if you are cooking ribs this weekend, it may be a good time to contemplate that most famous rib.