Pastoral sheep or sheepish pastors?

Koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Visiting Professor

Department of Liberal Arts Education

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

Conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

Australia

The lay-ministry is a wonderful concept that a team of ordinary laymen is inspired by the Holy Spirit to do more than just the ordinary daily life, namely, to plant a new church where there never was a church. The Holy Spirit helps, as always, in mighty ways, since Evangelism is the main business of heaven. The group grows and soon there is a call for church-building. Not long afterwards a very expensive building is erected and it becomes a hall-mark of the Three Angels Message. This last sentence is a typical General Conference statement about the issue. It is romantic in content and outlook and looks at the ideal. On grass-roots level, there is much more to be seen and experienced.

Just south of Seoul, is a region that is known in the country of South Korea as the region with the highest rate of lay-ministry churches. The churches are run by lay-members. Being a member of this large community for a couple of years, one cannot otherwise say, we know the grass-roots level situation.

We were hired as their mission-couple since my own language is English and my wife is local and both of us have enough credentials to be pastors in the region. They were willing to have me as a pastor if my wife will translate. At first, it seemed as if this was theological based. In hindsight, there are more than meets the eye.

We helped them for two years with evangelistic programs and people from Seoul coming to help us and the church started to grow. It was just on the verge of growing with new baptisms, when the egg hit the fan. When the word came out that they actually do not wish the church to grow but just to stay about the same as they are now, status quoism thus, we smelled rat. This is where the story of the Uri-kiri fits in.

Uri-kiri is a Korean word for a social instrument that is powerful in God’s work. It is a group or team of same thinkers that are united in age and willingness to sacrifice their time and money in order to make God’s business work. This works very well in God’s church, provided it is a good Uri-kiri and not a bad Uri-kiri. Our problem was that we ended up with the bad Uri-kiri but it took us two years to discover that.

After two years, we stopped being their pastor, due to events like money theft by an Elder in the congregation and his Uri-kiri friends trying to cover up his bad actions. We heard in Seoul of money theft by pastors in Tokchun church and Dobong-church and the shock that it can happen, made my wife and I wanted to introduce a stricter finance system in the church to prevent theft of church-money by individuals, even the pastor. We suggested that the stamp or seal [official signature] be kept by one individual but the money will be in another individual’s name. Without unison agreement, no money could be transferred or taken out of the account. Also, we suggested that the system suggested by the Conference, computerized system, should be used. The Uri-kiri rejected the computerized system as “not necessary” much to our own surprise. We were not willing to continue under those circumstances. Due to stress my wife got sick and God let us “resign” but we remain members on condition they get a pastor. They did. A very senior pastor who wrote a couple of songs in our hymnal. Very able. Retired of course and they only want to hire him in concert with the conference. Half-half.

At first it looked like a harmonious relationship between the conference and the laymembers that works well. Soon the pastor discovered what we were discovering and soon we came to similar conclusions: vested rights is the most problematic issue in the lay-ministry.

Vested rights means that the church was built with my money, the aircon was installed with my money, the benches were put in with my money. The piano was bought with my money. Therefore, I am the owner of the church, not Jesus Christ or the Seventh-day Adventist Church. I am the man in authority who will say who preach and who not. I will say who will be the pastor of the church and who will stop to be the pastor of the church. Acting in that manner, these laymembers control the ministry in the region and not the ministers the laymen. When you mention to people in Seoul the situation, they cannot believe it. They do not have to.

My message is very simple. Pastors, beware of the lay-ministry region. They do not like the ministry since they like the pulpits for themselves. They hire the pastors who are retired and far, just to have a name on their church-bulletin, but not because they really want a shepherd. They want to be pastoral sheep or sheepish pastors. The sheepish pastor is a laymember who has built a church and was their “minister” for a couple of years so that the rest of the region’s farmers, for that is what they are all doing, congratulate them for. They have “graduated” among themselves and receives the “ordained rights and honor” from the caucus of laymembers in the region. Yes, such a person is a good man, he tries hard to be a pastor, He succeeds to impress on the others that he has a cloud of “pastoral talents”. But when it comes to theological issues, biblical decisions, biblical issues, tough ecclesiastical issues, common sense the farmers way, the Uri-kiri’s way, give sway to many Church Manual rewriting actions.

Talking about Church Manual. The region hardly knows what is a Church Manual. The bad Uri-kiri, since there are good Uri-kiri also in the region, farm of Sabbath, work on Sabbath, drink alcohol sometimes, smoke sometimes, 2424 on Sabbath, a word for moving from apartment to apartment on the Sabbath. They do not pay tithe and if they do, they pay it on the name of their son who is a doctor and who can claim the money back from the tax-system, at least potentially.

You may say: Stop hanging out dirty washing. What concerns me is that the ministry was in the same crisis in the days of Jeremiah and Isaiah. The prophets complained about the same situation in those days and God was angry and called it rebellion against Him. If a person is not following the Torah of the Lord, in the bible it is defined as rebellion. Rebels are severely punished by God for their actions and so was Lucifer.