I have a deep love for the church. But I have a heartache for a church that is more dynamic, biblical and Christ-motivated. The same ache penetrates my heart as I pursue a deeper experience and life-changing knowledge of my Saviour, Jesus Christ. I want to know Him in a way that allows me to see and function in a church that truly worships, edifies, equips and mobilises believers to impact my crumbling culture. I have been a member of and attended evangelical and Pentecostal churches for about 40 years.

Many of these churches say that they preach from the Bible and only practise what the Bible declares, but when I look at the structure and ministry model of these churches, my heartache gets deeper. I can identify with this radical assessment: "In our age, we come to a [church] meeting to get our empty bucket refuelled. In their day [first century Christians], they came to a meeting to report out of the overflow of their lives. There's a world of difference." [2]

Four circumstances have caused me to think deeply about the church:

The first was a recent telephone conversation with a pastor whom I had never met previously. He transparently shared the stresses of the pastorate and that in his 25 years of ministry he had had two "nervous breakdowns" (his language). One indicator from the USA confirms this pressure: "The incidents of mental breakdown are so high that insurance companies charge about 4% extra to cover church staff members when compared to employees in other businesses." [3]

The second incident came on the heels of this conversation. I was reading the article, "Pastoral Pressures," in which it stated that "pastors are the single most occupationally frustrated group in America" and that "roughly 30% to 40% of religious leaders eventually drop out of the ministry… About 75% go through a period of stress so great that they consider quitting." [4] Even though this represents the USA situation, my mixing with the clergy shows similar frustration in Australia.

Publicity for a clergy conference said that "pastors are worn out, discouraged, and in need of affirmation. In fact, polls reveal that most pastors are battling isolation, depression, and loneliness. They are so beaten up by ministry." [5]

The third was Dr. David Wilson's observation of "a real lack of pastoral care in the Church today" and the exhortation that "God's people need to be cared for." [6]

The fourth is that as the coordinator of an evangelical youth counselling agency with a predominantly secular clientele, I need to be involved with a church that has a radical approach to ministry. Traditionalism will not do. I work in a white hot world of teenage rebellion, horrible sexual abuse (generally within the family or extended family), attempted suicides, plagues of drug abuse, abused parents, and parents who are disillusioned by child rights without children's responsibility.

I see a church that seems to be handicapped in addressing these issues and ministering to people caught up in Australia's cultural crisis. Staff members from other Christian agencies tell me that they grapple with a church that is slim on pastoral care. This has been my experience over the last few years also. [7]

It seems that two fundamental areas need to be addressed. But are we brave enough? To even raise these topics runs the risk of being branded a fringe dweller. But these issues are too critical to the Kingdom of God and the church in Australia to worry about name calling, labelling negatively or even ridiculing.

Maybe I am thinking too basically, but the biblical solutions seem rather obvious: Get back to what the Bible says about (1) spiritual gifts and the role of a pastor, and (2) the church functioning as God intended. This applies to when the church meets together, ministry to one another in the body of Christ, and how the church reaches out to the wider community.

My heartache could be summarised in a series of questions that get to the heart of the crisis in the pastorate and the pew, as I see and experience them:
 What biblical grounds do we have for the pulpit-centred, one-person, CEO pastor of the contemporary church?

• For what reason have we eliminated the "everyone" contributing when we meet together as a church?
• How can we give everyone the opportunity to participate in edification times when we meet together on Sunday and at other times (c/f. I Cor. 12: 7; 14:26 [8])?
• If elders and pastors are the only ones who can provide the ministry of admonishing, exhorting and encouraging, it should be expected that God's people would be inadequately equipped to do this. How can this change?
• What will it take to move the church away from going to church on Sunday to being the church?
• How can mute believers be given their proper place in the assembly and in the functioning body?
• Heb. 3:13 says we are to "encourage one another daily." How can that happen as a practical reality?
• How can we justify exhorting Christians that they must not stay away from church (Heb. 10:25), but must come to hear the one-person minister?
• Can the church's present order of service encourage "one another" ministry?
• Why is the building called the church?
• What is the church, anyway?

ü People quit going to church and become the church in action.

ü When the church meets, everyone has the opportunity to minister and participate.
ü The contemporary conception of the pastoral role must become biblical.
ü What's the role of the ordinary people in the church (the "laity")? Should there even be a distinction between the laity and the church leadership?
ü The church's view of possessions needs changing.

Gene Edwards claims that "church" buildings began in the fourth century: "The church was born in 30 a.d., and for the next 300 years it always met in homes. In 324 a.d. [10] that changed. In that year the Roman Emperor, Constantine, along with his mother, Empress Helena, invented the church building." [11]

Howard Snyder's research concluded that "Christians did not begin to build church buildings until about A.D. 200." [12]

Tillemont asserts that the first Christian churches were erected "in the reign of [Emperor] Alexander Severus [13]. . . He was murdered in 235" [14] and was Emperor from 222 to 235. [15]

Another view from tradition is that

The earliest church in Rome, that of St. Pudentiana, was founded as early as A.D. 143 by Pius I.; and the church of St. Cecilia is attributed, but with little authority, to Callixtus I. (A.D. 219-223). The basilicas of St. Alexius and St. Prisca are also supposed to be earlier than the conversion of Constantine. [16]

Constantine erected the church of the Lateran, near the palace which he had bestowed on Pope Sylvester. . . It was popularly known as the church of Constantine. [17]

Although Constantine was declared emperor in 306, he had to battle with rivals until 323 when he became sole emperor of the Roman Empire until his death in 337. [18]

Eminent Yale University Divinity School church historian, Kenneth Scott Latourette stated that "Constantine erected numerous church buildings in various parts of the Empire and endowed them. Later Emperors also erected churches." [19] When did the first church buildings appear in the history of the church? While not specifying the time of the first such building, Latourette confirms the prominence of church buildings in the fourth century:

In the fourth century we begin to hear of the dedication of edifices for Christian worship. Buildings erected especially for that purpose multiplied after the cessation of the persecutions in the fore part of the fourth century. Many of these were constructed near or over the tomb of a martyr. [20]

Gene Edwards is more specific:

In the year 327 a.d. (Mark that date, as it is pivotal in Christian history) Constantine ordered the construction of nineteen Christian buildings. That had never happened before. Until then we met in homes. . .  These buildings later came to be known as churches. So it was that it came about that Christianity joined all the other religions of the world and came to have its very own temples. We forever lost the word church (assembly) as meaning the body of Christ. [21]

Where, then, did they meet? Based on solid evidence from the New Testament, Gene Edwards can justifiably conclude:

The [first century] church did gather "all in one place" [23] from time to time, but we have no idea how often. The small home meetings and the large meetings which were "all in one place" were very different from one another, but they had one thing in common: they were both glorious to be in. [24]

The following Scriptures build a strong case for the early church's most common regular gatherings being in the house. See Acts 1:13 ff; 2:46; 5:42; 8:3; 12:12; 20:20; Romans 16:5; I Corinthians 16:19; Colossians 4:15 and Philemon 2. The issues needing a biblical review go deeper than where the church meets!

There were open-air meetings (Acts 2:6-14; 3:11) and some gatherings in the temple area (Acts 2:46; 5:20, 42; 21:28). However, the evidence from church historians supports Gene Edwards' view that "the main place the church met was in homes!" [25] Location is not the issue, but function is!

But wasn't the early church modelled after the synagogue service?

The synagogue was in the first place a community of Jews; only secondarily did the term come to mean a building. . . The synagogues never became Christian churches, so far as we know, and within thirty years or so of the birth of the church the Christians found "the door into the synagogue . . . slammed in their faces." [26]

What Paul planted was not buildings -- significantly, he built no physical synagogues -- but synagogue-type communities. . .

It is interesting that the early Christians normally called their gatherings ecclesia rather than synagogue. . . [27] The early church's preference for ecclesia suggests a desire to clearly distinguish the Christian community from the Jewish synagogue. . .

The synagogue provided a vital bridge for the gospel from Palestine to the rest of the Roman Empire and from the Jews to the Gentiles. But it was a bridge that once crossed, was left behind. The early church copied the synagogue as a pattern of community but apparently never as a building. [28]
 

B. Where is the church today?

Mostly, the church today meets in a building which it calls the church. This view is so widely held by both Christians and non-Christians that when one asks to be directed to a church, one is given an address of a building.

Writing in 1961, Elton Trueblood, speaking of the USA, said, "For the last few years we have spent in the neighborhood of one billion dollars a year on new physical structures for church purposes." [29] This leads him to conclude that "the fact that the Church and the building are identified in popular speech is particularly disquieting." [30]

My conviction is that it is more than "disquieting," but devastating to the contemporary function, witness and penetration of the church. Howard Snyder wrote in the 1970s that the emphasis on the church building attests to the church's immobility, inflexibility, lack of fellowship, pride and class divisions. [31]

"Theologically, the church does not need temples. Church buildings are not essential to the true nature of the church. . . Christianity has no holy places, only holy people. . . The early church did not build church buildings." [32]

Snyder's comments are pointed:

It seems to me that any church which spends more on buildings than on outreach holds all its gatherings only in "the church" puts construction before missions and evangelism refuses to use its building for anything other than "sacred" functions measures spirituality by the number of human bodies present within the four walls has an edifice complex and is almost totally ignorant of what the Bible means by the church. [33]

Snyder sees three problems when the visible church is identified with buildings:

(1) The buildings become a barrier between the world and life-giving Christian community, masking the true nature of the church before the world;
(2) The church is therefore faced with the task of convincing the world that the church really is something more dynamic than buildings and institutions;
(3) The church is almost forced to some kind of theory of the "true, invisible church" to explain the discrepancy between its profession and its visible manifestation. [35]

One view is that

In the days of the Apostles a Christian society naturally consisted of a very limited number of members, and in Rome and other great cities two churches may have existed in independence of one another. It has been conjectured that the Jewish and Gentile Christians frequently formed separate communities in the same town, and that these did not unite in some cases for many years. It is hardly reasonable to expect that in these small and widely scattered churches there should have been any rigid uniformity either of organization or discipline; nor must we look for a permanent and unchangeable form of government in any particular society. The subject of outward organization naturally did not appear of paramount importance to the earliest believers, who lived in constant expectation of the second coming of our Lord. . . Each Christian community existed for the threefold purpose of worship, brotherly association, and care for the poor and needy. [38]

The church had learned from the twelve how to meet the way the twelve had "met" when they were with the Lord. They met with Him, yet were not even conscious it was a meeting! That embryonic "body life" the twelve knew with Christ was now known by all!… The home meetings were to the church what sitting around with Christ had been to the twelve. . .

Meeting in homes, under Christ, in the midst of unbridled joy was one of the things which makes the church so unique, so wonderful, so believable, and so magnetic. (She must go back there again in order to be what God intended her to be, and she must meet without any human leadership in those meetings!) This is how the church looked when she met during the first century! These are the ways believers met nearly 2,000 years ago: meeting under a shed! Meeting in homes! (That is where she must return . . . utterly forsaking forever the professionally built coffin she now meets in.). . . It is an experience for which a substitute is impossible to find. . .

And if God be merciful, those who have the heart will yet see such days again!! [39]
 

D. Clergy and Laity

Where did the term "clergy" originate? It "was taken from pagan temple priests," says Gene Edwards. [40] In the apostolic age,

The laity seem to have exercised almost the same powers as the clergy. The Spirit manifested Himself in almost every member of the Christian body. [41] Naturally but little emphasis was attached to official status. In a society in which all lived in constant expectation of the end of the world, and all might claim the primitive charismata, no sharp line of demarcation could exist between administrators of churches and other believers. [42]

 As early as the beginning of the second century a distinct cleavage had begun to appear between clergy and laity, and this in spite of the fact that in the first century every Christian was held to be a priest unto God. By the end of the second century the clergy had clearly become a separate "order," that designation having probably been derived from the designation given to Roman magistrates in a tightly stratified society.

Increasingly the Church centred about the clergy led by the bishops and especially around the bishops. . . The bishops were regarded as successors of the apostles. The development of the clergy and of ranks in the clergy may in part have been influenced by the example of the kind of officialdom which characterized the Roman Empire. [44]

By the time of church leader, Cyprian (martyred in 258), the importance of the laity had degenerated to where the bishop was seen as indispensable to the existence of the church. Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage in northern Africa (Tunisia today),

Insisted that the bishops were necessary to the existence . . . of the Church and were not merely a form of administration found useful for the well-being . . . of the Church. "The Church is in the bishop and the bishop in the Church," he said. He held that each bishop was the equal of every other bishop. . . He declared that no bishop should "set himself up as a bishop of bishops," and that a bishop "can no more be judged by another than he himself can judge another." In this he was in conflict with the claims of the Bishops of Rome. 

As the chief church in dignity, regarded every bishop as having all the powers of the group and at most esteemed the Bishop of Rome as only the first among equals. But the Bishop of Rome claimed greater authority, and it was natural that the bishops of the larger cities, especially Rome, should be more prominent than those of the smaller cities and towns. [46]

 

1. Change the role of pastor

preaches (more accurately, sermonises) most Sundays, and often twice per Sunday;
marries people;

buries people;

chief of the visitation ministry;

prayers on special occasions like Anzac Day [47] services;

CEO of the church;

chairman of elders', deacons' and board meetings;

chief and only counsellor;

dresses up for church services;

baptises new converts. [48]

From where did this view of the pastor come? It is not solidly based on the Word of God. One view is that

Pope Gregory the Great first popularized the term 'pastor' in about 500 a.d. He did so by writing a book on the pastoral duties of the priest! The term pastor appears in no Christian literature before that point other than in a long list of people in the book of Ephesians. The practical meaning of the word is unknown. Pope Gregory told priests to carry out pastoral duties; to visit the sick, teach doctrine, marry the young, sprinkle the babies, conduct the Mass, bury the dead, and bless local events (such as festivals). These became forever the Roman Catholic priest's pastoral duties. No such man and no such duties ever existed in Scripture. [49]

Without scriptural sanction, this view of the pastor dominates Protestant Christianity today but it did "not exist in first-century literature. Neither do these practices exist in the New Testament." [50]

I am convinced that Gene Edwards accurately assesses the situation when he concludes: "If we removed the present pastoral role from Christendom, there would be an almost total collapse of 'church' worldwide. Yet the present pastoral practice has absolutely no scriptural grounds." [51]

It should not be surprising that pastors have breakdowns and leave the ministry. "Rowland Croucher [of John Mark Ministries, Melbourne, Australia] estimates there are 10,000 ex-pastors in Australia: about the same numbers as those serving in parishes of all denominations." [52] This was at a time when Australia's population was approximately 18 million people. We ask of the pastor to perform what the Bible does not require. The expected role is closer to a one-man band or CEO than to a shepherd.

For a word that appears only once in the New Testament (Eph. 4:11) and even then as the dual role of pastor-teacher, we have built up an amazing job description for the pastor. This is contributing to the pastoral dilemmas we are facing.

A good case can be made for pastor, elder and bishop having similar roles, thus cancelling the impact of a once-only use of "pastor" in the New Testament. Latourette writes that evidence of the early church organisation after Christ's death "seems to support the view that at the outset in some and perhaps all of the churches the designations of 'elder' and 'bishop' were used interchangeably for the same office." [53]

This is not the place for a detailed exegesis and exposition of the elder, pastor, and bishop connection or distinction. However, 1 Peter 5:1-4 seems to combine these roles, which led F.F. Bruce to write that pastors "are the same people as are elsewhere called elders and bishops." [54]

Jon Zens' provocative article on "the pastor" challenged me. This got to my heartache:
 

There is no evidence anywhere in the New Testament for the primacy of one man's gifts. There is evidence 58 times in the New Testament for the importance of mutual care and multiple gifts; "love one another. . . admonish one another… edify one another… comfort one another… forgive one another… give to one another… pray for one another." Why are our churches marked by obvious emphasis on "the pastor," but very little - if any - concern for the cultivation of mutual relationships? We have exalted that for which there is no evidence, and neglected that for which there is abundant evidence. We are used to pawning off our responsibilities on someone else. We want the church to minister to us, but we think very little as to how we can minister to the needs of others. [55]

It should not surprise us that there are pastors at burnout, dropout stage! I spoke to a pastor recently who said that of the 13 students who graduated with him in his 1989 theological college class of a leading evangelical denomination, only seven are presently in the ministry as pastors.

The pastoral role is in serious trouble in the church today. The evidence demonstrates that we have sabotaged the Scriptures when we say that we are believers who practise the Bible's teaching on the function of the pastor . Do we have the discernment and will to return to a biblical pastoral role? Are we too far gone to change it?

The New Testament evidence seems to point to a church (singular) having elders/pastors (plural). This applies even to new churches that may have had small numbers. I do not see the biblical evidence for one person (pastor) as leader (overseer) of a local church. One of the reasons we have pastoral trouble today, I am convinced from Scripture, is linked to a wrong pastoral theology.

One of the primary functions of the pastor-teacher is "to prepare [equip] God's people for works of service" (Eph. 4:12). In forty years as a believer, I have never seen this as a function that rates high on the agenda in the local church. There may be lip service and classes, but this is barely a start in equipping people for their ministries.

We are in strife today because we have built a pastoral role out of our own thinking, following the precedent of the Roman Catholic Church. Or do Protestants have to blame Martin Luther or John Calvin who brought this baggage with them? Where in the Bible do we find anything like the current pastoral role?

 


2. Everyone is a minister

The stress in 1 Corinthians 12:7 and 14:26 is that "everyone" has the opportunity to participate with his/her gift when the believers "come together." No matter what one's view of tongues and prophecy, the first century church practised open ministry where everyone was given the opportunity of ministry. The one-man band is an anathema to biblical functioning of the body of Christ.

Eduard Schweizer rightly notes: "It is completely foreign to the New Testament to split the Christian community into one speaker and a silent body of listeners." [56]

What's the purpose of everyone being involved in ministry? I Cor. 14:26 says that it is "for the strengthening [edification] of the church." A mute congregation is contrary to biblical Christianity. This is one of the blights on much of today's church. We have closed down believers from functioning in their God-given gifts. Would it be safe to say that no more than 15% of the people of God are doing all of the church work?. The present design fosters this low participation rate.

First Corinthians chapter 14,

Reflects a church service where there is dynamic interplay, sharing, give and take--not detailed liturgy climaxed by lengthy exposition delivered by one properly recognized authority. . .
     These verses (especially 1 Cor. 14:26 ff.) do not describe all that should take place in every meeting of the church. Nothing is mentioned, for instance, of corporate prayer or reading of Scripture, both of which are mentioned elsewhere ( 1 Cor. 14:16; 1 Tim. 4:13 respectively). . .
     There were aspects of corporate worship characterized by a great deal of spontaneity, Spirit-led sharing, mutual edification, and the like, and other aspects characterized by solemnity, formal reading, and explication of the Scriptures already given, enunciation of apostolic truth, and corporate prayers and singing. [57]

Paul's chief aim. . . is not to lay out an exhaustive list of necessary ingredients in corporate worship, but to insist that the unleashed power of the Holy Spirit characteristic of this new age must be exercised in a framework of order, intelligibility, appropriateness, seemliness, dignity, peace. For that is the nature of the God whom we worship. [59]

Getting back to biblical functioning for all of God's people will help the pastoral crisis and get God's people involved again. But can we do it in light of at least 1700 years of contrary practice? The elevation of the clergy and the virtual silence of other believers seem to have happened around the third century.

The situation is so serious that one pastor

Likened the total church to an army. The army has only one Commander-in-Chief, Jesus Christ. The local church is like a company with one company commander, the pastor, who gets his orders from the Commander-in-Chief. . . The Pastor has the power in a growing church. . . The pastor of a growing church may appear to outsiders as a dictator. But to the people of the church, his decisions are their decisions. [60]

There is no clergy-laity distinction in God's kingdom values. May all Christians quit handing over many duties to the pastor and moving him/her to a stress breakdown. The alternative is that all believers should become involved in ministry. This would ease the burden on the pastor, address the pastoral care needs, and involve believers in active ministry. The believers' meeting would then be more attractive than going fishing.

The cell church movement is seeing such action, but as Ralph Neighbour says: It requires a paradigm shift. [62]

 


3. One another ministry

The pastor-teacher's role is linked with equipping the saints. What is critical tends to be minimised in Ephesians 4: Believers mature as "every supporting ligament" is involved and "as each part does its work" (Eph. 4:16). [64] This is far removed from one dominant part doing most of the work.

In the "one another" ministry,

There are no mere observers or auditors; all are involved. Each is in the ministry; each needs the advice of the others; and each has something to say to the others. The picture of mutual admonition seems strange to modern man, but the strangeness is only a measure of our essential decline from something of amazing power. [65]

When I became a believer, I was baptised into the body of Christ (I Cor. 12:13). I believe we are losing what it means to be a functioning member of the body of believers, connected to one another, ministering to one another, and living in Christian community that is more than a theoretical option. Sadly, too many of us get more community in the Lions, Rotary and Quota clubs than in the church. Gangs and the drug culture attract youth to a radical community! Where's the community of the King as a functional alternative to today's secular culture?

Our experience of Christian community is especially needed in a culture on the skids, like Australia's. I have led and participated in many groups for secular parents with rebel teenagers, only to find that many of these people do not have the commitment to be available for another parent as a support. Those of us who love Jesus, read our Bibles and minister to troubled individuals, know that selfishness is rife. Christ's body has supernatural resources to be a selfless, caring community. We dare not abandon our responsibility.

Over 20 years ago, Howard Snyder called the church back to a comprehensive understanding of the gifts and the elimination of the clergy-laity distinction:

If we wish to be biblical, we will have to say that all Christians are laymen (God's people) and all are ministers. The clergy-laity dichotomy is unbiblical and therefore invalid. It grew up as an accident of church history and actually marked a drift away from biblical faithfulness. . . It is one of the principal obstacles to the Church effectively being God's agent of the Kingdom today because it creates the false idea that only 'holy men,' namely, ordained ministers, are really qualified and responsible for leadership and significant ministry. [66]

Christian psychologist, Archibald Hart, speaking of pastors, said that "their strong religious beliefs mean they won't kill themselves. They just spend their time wishing they were dead." [68] Jon Zens disagrees, claiming that "burnout, moral lapse, divorce, and suicide are very high among the 'clergy'. Is it any wonder such repeated tragedies occur in light of what is expected of one person." [69] John Zens' assessment seems closer to the mark of the causality of pastoral burnout.

For such a situation, the Los Angeles Times recommended: "Pastors need to set limits for themselves if they are to avoid burnout." They "need to have hobbies and interests outside the church" and "a regular support group of other religious leaders." [70]

I doubt that this would be adequate, especially in light of the way the contemporary pastoral role is without biblical precedent. If we are out of line with God's will for the pastor, why should we expect God's blessing? In opposing the very idea of a clergy conference, Jon Zens writes that

 By not challenging the "clergy" system, which has brought untold hurt to those within its pale, you end up giving pep-talks and encouragement to people who are functioning in an office Christ has nowhere revealed in His Word… The most Christ-honoring and caring thing you could do is to tell the 70,000 men that come to Atlanta to stop being "clergy", because God's Word teaches nothing about "clergy". . . Do you leaders care at all that the New Testament is, in fact, against the "clergy" system? Are you concerned that the "clergy" system, as James D. G. Dunn points out, does more to undermine the canonical authority of the New Testament than other heresies? 

Could there be any possibility that the local church would become as radical as the early church in its view of material possessions?

In 160 a.d. (130 years after Pentecost) a bitter pagan antagonist named Lucian referred to the Lord's people as "those imbeciles [who] disdain things terrestrial and hold [them] as belonging to all in common."

In about 190 a.d. a Christian named Tertullian disclosed , "We have all things in common. . . except our wives!"

That means that 160 years after Pentecost the believers were still practicing what was begun in Jerusalem--throughout the whole Roman Empire! So it was not a one shot affair after all. Living in common ought not to be the stepchild that it has become. You ought to have the option of having a go at it -- first century style. [72]

Why would they lose interest in material things? "Their passion was Christ. They had no interest whatsoever in that wealth. Nor did they go out and purchase property with it. (The early church never owned property)." [73]

F. Conclusion

In short, I believe we need to:

return to a biblical view of the church. This will involve a radical rethink of the pastoral role and quitting the exaltation of one-person ministry in the local church;

equip and mobilise all believers to be active, participating members of the local church, especially when believers meet together as the ecclesia (church);

abandon the distinction between clergy and laity,

be the church rather than go to church,

 quit this building mentality for the church, and

demonstrate and promote the "one another" ministry that the Bible advocates.

Jon Zens gets to the core: "It seems to me that we have made normative that for which there is no Scriptural warrant (emphasis on one man's ministry), and we have omitted that for which there is ample Scriptural support (emphasis on one another)." [75]

These are realities for me as I observe and participate in the Australian church scene. Are there others with a similar heartache?

 

Endnotes:

 1. I am an Australian family relationships' counselling manager, doctoral student in biblical studies, an active Christian apologist, and may be contacted at: P. O. Box 3107, Hervey Bay 4655, Australia.
 2. Gene Edwards, How To Meet Under the Headship of Jesus Christ. Sargent, GA: Message Ministry, 1993, pp. 63-64).
 3. "Pastoral Pressures," Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 850, 25 June 1999 from clergy@pastornet.net.au, 1 (This is no longer a current email contact).
 4. Ibid.
 5. Men of Action, November 1995, p. 4, relating to the February 1996 Clergy Conference, Atlanta, in Jon Zens, "The 'Clergy/Laity' Distinction: Help or a Hindrance to the Body of Christ?" Searching Together 1998, http://www.searchingtogether.org/articles/zens/clergylaity.htm, 2 (retrieved 4 July 1999).
 6. "The Other Side," New Life, 8 July 1999, 11.
 7. I speak as an Australian who has been pastor of two churches, taught in a Bible college, is an ordained Christian minister, has established two counselling agencies, one of them being my current employment.
 8. Unless otherwise stated, all Scripture references are from The Holy Bible: New International Version, New York International Bible Society. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Bible Publishers, 1978.
 9. Gene Edwards, The Early Church. Goleta, California: Christian Books, 1974, 222.
10. Hereafter, a.d./A.D. will be eliminated in the statements of dates after the birth of Christ, except in quotations. For example, in this manuscript A.D. 200 will be written as 200.
11. Edwards, The Early Church, 223. Edwards wrote:

Constantine and Helena had been born and raised as pagans. They were part of the elite of the Empire. In keeping with their position and the political customs of the day, they had often erected pagan temples in honor of various gods. After Constantine was converted, he continued the custom, with only the slightest variation. Now he erected "Christian" temples. The "Christian" buildings looked exactly like the pagan ones, the only difference being that the new temples commemorated dead saints instead of pagan gods. The first such temples built at Constantine's command were in Rome, Jerusalem, Bethlehem and in a new city called Constantinople. All were commissioned in the same year, 324 a.d.

Were there "church buildings" before that?
If Christians had been foolish enough to erect a building before 313 a.d. (the year Constantine took over the Empire) it would have been ripped down. At one time or another, in every part of the Empire, the church underwent extensive persecution. . . There is a record of the Christians in one city trying to erect a building back in the mid 200's. It was destroyed (p. 223).

The word, 'pastor' does appear in the New Testament. One time! But never, anywhere, is that office clearly explained. It is not defined, and there is no illustration of it anywhere in first century literature. Certainly the Scripture contains nothing similar to this modern day thing called 'our pastor.'
     Today 'the pastor' is literally the cornerstone of Christianity. He holds Christianity together…
     The present day concept of the pastor originated no further back than the Reformation. A pastor has less Scriptural foundation than the pulpit he leans on.
     Martin Luther unwittingly invented the modern pastor. Soon after Luther broke with the Pope he turned his ex-Roman Catholic cathedral into a place to expound the Bible. . .
     These priests turned Lutherans wanted to remain in religious service. . . So was born something that later acquired the handle of "pastor" (The Early Church, 226-227).

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