Executive Pastor?

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LawrenceU said:
What I find disturbing is the use of the name 'pastor' for individuals who are not 'pastoring'. A man who is in charge of the balance sheets and operations is not doing the work of prayer and word. He is working, but not in that area. Would it not be better to entitle him, Executive Director? We are warping the understanding of a biblically defined name. That is dangerous. No woman should ever wear the title. Frankly if a man is doing the above mentioned work, or handling the technology of a congregation's needs, or something else along those lines he is functioning in a more deaconly role.

Names/titles mean things.
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:agree:
 
Whitefield said:
One person I know who has the title Executive Pastor ... spends most of week running the business of the church (bills, accounts, scheduling building use) ... but ... preaches the Sunday evening service, conducts a weekly Bible study, and visits the hospitals. Now is that enough to be called a pastor? He is not "THE" pastor of the church, but he is involved in pastoring the church, however his main activity is administrative and executive. Where is the threshold, then?
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That is why I described the range of Executive Pastors in my circle of acquaintance: one does ONLY business matters; one is like the friend described in your post; and one is a former preaching pastor who moved into the mainly-administrative role due to a better match with his gifting.

Outside of the local church, there are positions such as mine that require (by job description) an ordained person. I teach and preach weekly (some might suspect weakly too!) but MOST of my job is devoted to administrative and managerial matters. Frankly, my primary gifts are public speaking and the local church was a more comfortable fit for me than spending all of my time with lawyers and accountants. [Oops! This post just got interrupted because the health department came for a surprise inspection. More administrative work, unfortunately.] However, there are some who would gravitate to this type of role due to their primary gifting being in more administrative areas. I never, however, describe myself as a "pastor," merely a "former pastor" doing CEO work for a ministry.

I have no problem with staff pastors being called pastors if they are expected to preach and teach, counsel and shepherd, marry and bury. However, the logic of an ordained person acting as Rev. COO is a bit more of a stretch for my old school mind.
 
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