I’ve finished reading Pagan Christianity. I’ve also read Frank Viola’s latest book, Reimagining Church, which gave me a lot to think about. Presently I’m re-reading Pagan Christianity with my daughter.

Chapters 4 & 5 are about, respectively, the sermon and the preacher. Viola traces the history of the sermon back to Greek orators. He makes the point that sermons aren’t mentioned as a regular component of early church assemblies, but rather as an occasional device, used mostly by itinerant church planters such as Paul and the other apostles. These sporadic orations were not planned nor practiced, but extemporaneous and open to questions and interruptions, in the tradition of the teaching given in Jewish synagogues. Most of the time, Viola says, meetings were more on the line of 1 Corinthians 14:26-33 where every member of the body participated and contributed–not silently, but openly. Our modern day polished orations, however entertaining and fun to listen to they may be, are in fact a relic of the Greek Sophists who made a famous living by presenting flowery and dramatic monologues. The Romans later took up the tradition, however they preferred a less florid style.

Maybe you, like I, have experienced inspiring and enlightening sermons that have changed your life, or at least given you a boost along the way in your journey toward Christlikeness. I and my family are indebted to numerous pastors, preachers and teachers and we are grateful to God for them. Could it be, though, that there is a more excellent way? I don’t mean an additional way, but a way that is necessarily crowded out by the weekly monologue. Viola’s point that the pastor/teacher’s exercising of his ministry gift should not come at the expense of other members of the body exercising their own gifts for the building up of the body of Christ.

We are expected to exercise our spiritual gifts outside of the weekly meeting, but where would that be? In the Sunday school class, which is usually a mini-sermon with questions possibly thrown in? Do people prophesy in your Sunday school class? Do they introduce a song or share a poem the Lord has given them in the course of the week? In most cases, the answer will be, “No.” Do you even know what gifts God has given you? Most of you will hesitate at this question. Most of you have been followers of Christ for many years. Why don’t you know? Why are you struggling to graduate from toddlerhood or from those awkward teenage years, or even to climb out of the cradle? Could it be that you’ve never had the opportunity to exercise your gifts? How would you know you were a great hitter if you never got your hands on a baseball bat and had a go at a pitch? And does one great hitter make a baseball team, or do you need a great outfielder or two and likewise a couple of pitchers, other hitters, catchers, etc.? Should they all be allowed to play together as a team, or do we stick our star hitter out there all by himself to do all the jobs, some of which he is only marginally qualified for?

Viola made an impression on me with his evaluation of the sermon, but Clement of Alexandria’s comment during the late second century, lamenting that the sermon did so little to change Christians (page 89 in Pagan Christianity) kind of says it all. Do you remember the sermon you heard last week? The week before? How did it affect your life? Some of you will remember and will say that last week’s sermon did in fact affect your life, but if it did, you have to admit that this was the more unusual case, particularly if you have been a regular church attender for some time. You have heard all the sermons and seldom hear anything new (which is a good thing in most cases). In order to hear something from a different point of view, you need to go to a different church or listen to a guest speaker. Some churches invite guest speakers in on a regular basis, but what if members of the congregation were allowed to speak the things God had given them, not in a 45 minute oration, but in a five minute exhortation, followed by another encouragement given by another brother or sister and so on? This is the church as Viola sees it.

So if every member should be functioning (or learning to function) and building one another up, what does the pastor do? Viola takes care to point out the dedication and love for God that characterizes most of the people who fill the modern-day office of “Pastor,” however he also points out that the office itself, as we know it, has scarcely any scriptural foundation. It is mentioned once only, and not defined, in Ephesians 4:11-13, and it is mentioned in its plural form, intimating that several or more members of a local body might bear the ministry of “shepherd.” Indeed, this ministry is such a demanding one, caring for the sheep, that it would surely seem that more than one or two people would be required to fill it.

Viola makes his point that the office (not the gift) of the pastor is of pagan origin. He spends a lot of ink doing this and though it’s interesting to read, I’m not going to recount it all here. In times past, it was considered wrong for the laity to partake of the Eucharist, sing the sacred songs during the sacred service, or even, when Latin had ceased to be the common tongue, to hear the sacred service in a language they could understand.

Times have changed. As the unofficial children’s pastor of our last church, I gave communion to my kids with the full knowledge of our pastor, who seemed puzzled that I felt I needed to check with him for his okay. We recently attended a baptismal service in which fathers were invited to baptize their own children (and I’m sure that, absent a Christian father, mothers would have been welcome to do the same). The idea of the priesthood of all believers is coming back to us a little bit at a time, but the office of pastor is still a firm bastion. I can’t see any pastors I know opening up each and every church meeting (or even one meeting) for the free-flowing ministry of the Spirit through the congregation to take place. Can you blame them? It wouldn’t work. Congregants would be puzzled–wouldn’t know what to do–and they would therefore do nothing but sit. How awkward.

But the job of the pastors (usually referred to as elders, which means “wise old men”) in the early church was to care for and nurture the brothers and sisters. That’s a big job, and probably why there was never just one person doing it. The whole church was engaged in building one another up, though there are always a few people who seem specially designed for this task. Note, the job of the pastors wasn’t to preach. That was typically done by evangelists, to unbelievers, or by apostles on their occasional visits. Elders, or pastors contributed to the assemblies in the same ways other believers did, by exercising their own spiritual giftings, whether these were in the area of prophecy, teaching, music, ecstatic utterances/interpretation, exhortation, or any of the gifts of the Spirit. They also provided individual care and nuturing to God’s kids as needed. This is Viola’s argument, and he does back it up with scripture rather convincingly.

Today, the pastor is seen as a trained professional, a servant of the body and the figurehead of the individual church. I doubt that many house churches hang a sign out front that says, “Pastor Rich Johnson.” Why would we advertise the pastor’s name unless we saw him (or her) as the main drawing card of the church? People come to church to hear a sermon preached by a preacher. The identity of the preacher is important because people care whether the sermon is going to be entertaining or enlightening or electrifying, etc. And they know that you can usually count on Pastor Rich Johnson for a stirring oration, so we advertise him on the marquee like some kind of performer.

Do we expect our doctor or our attorney to train us to practice medicine or law? No. They went to school for years to learn what they know and that was only the beginning of their education. We’re paying them to use their expertise on our behalf, not to teach us medicine or law. So do we expect our pastor to train us up to perform the work of the Lord? We might say we do, but what we’ve really come to expect is a stirring message from the professional preacher. We might then go out into the world and invite people to come in to the church to hear him preach. Do we make disciples ourselves? We might, if we’re unusual, lead someone in the sinner’s prayer and encourage them to attend church with us, but making disciples generally falls outside of the average layman’s training and ability. That’s the job of the clergy, isn’t it? We don’t really know how to do it.

On top of all this, Viola contends, the pastor takes the place of Jesus as the head of the church. I’m certain most pastors would hotly contend this and would shudder at the thought of doing such a thing, but Christ is supposed to be the head of the church, and who is really the head in actual practice? I see what he means. The pastor of a church I once attended in another city used to correct anyone who referred to the church as “your church,” but as my mother observed, “I wonder how he’d feel if someone else came in and took it over?” Actually, I think this man would have been okay with Jesus taking over the church, but Jesus would have to have taken it over, because the pastor was definitely the head of the church–under Christ, sure, but maybe Christ doesn’t want to be the indirect head of the church. What if He wants to be the actual and direct head of the church? Can He do that? What if Christ wants to be the head and everyone else gets to be arms and legs and fingertips and stuff?

Viola’s last point in this chapter is that the pastor, by trying to carry a load that was never intended to be carried by one man, does violence to himself and to his family. He is pressured, by the fact that his livlihood depends on his “job” as pastor, to avoid angering key people in the congregation. He must operate in giftings he hasn’t received simply because it’s “his job.” He can’t have any family struggles or personal battles, and he can’t confide his problems (other than physical illness, and in some denominations even that is a touchy area) to members of the congregation. So he’s battling with this or that temptation . . . dare he share that with anyone? Or suppose he’s struggling with doubt as to God’s true nature–this little tidbit would be so quickly buried that he might not be able to find it himself, let alone ask the body to help and council and pray with him over it.

These are, to me, the main points Viola makes in his chapters on the contemporary sermon and the office of pastor . . . to wit: that the sermon was not known to the early church in its present form, but only as an occassional, extemporaneous and sporadic event. Regular meetings of the church were characterized by every member contributing something through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. The meetings were designed for members of the body to minister to one another and build one another up in the faith.

And second, that the office of pastor as practiced in the modern day church not only prevents non-professional believers from functioning as priests, as God ordained, but also harms the pastor himself by placing on his back a burden never intended to be born by anyone but Christ Himself.

I think Viola makes a good point. I think . . . he may be right. Being old enough to know that things can sound wonderful on paper and yet not work at all in real life, and not having anything similar to the “organic” church Viola advocates near enough to explore for myself, I still hold some reservations, but academically, I am persuaded. This does seem to be the direction the church is inching toward, even here in the back woods of South Dakota. The church we’re attending now has not one, but three preachers, none of whom are ordained. Fathers baptizing their own kids. The head pastor himself is an ordinary guy who was chosen out of the congregation.

Jesus does plan to return for a bride who is pure and without spot or wrinkle and the western church is a long way from fitting that description. Could this be the stirrings of the last great “reformation?” The one that will ready the church for His coming? We can see the signs of the times. We know that the world is winding down. Maybe this is the last great move of the Spirit in these last days? What do you think?