TiL Podcast- Pastoral Ordination Church of God #pastor #ordination #churchofgod

Church of God Ordination and Biblical Descriptive vs. Prescriptive Practice

Welcome to the truth and love podcast. Tonight we have another special edition in our series pastoral ordination. We're gonna look at the Church of God. Stick with us. Welcome back to the truth and love podcast and I just received a bunch of notifications.

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Yes, sir I will I will open up with a question that I've been asking everybody and then then Dan can take over with some questions. So I I hear this a lot in different conversations and I played a video for Pastor Jonathan a vertical life.

I'm not gonna play it tonight, but You'll have a conversation or you'll hear a conversation and somebody wants to interject. Well That's biblical or this is biblical and what Dan and I discussed and and worked through in the introduction is that what people mean by that is It's biblical in the in such a way that it their meaning is descriptive or it's prescriptive and some people Elevate a descriptive something that's biblical biblically descriptive and they're elevated to something that is prescriptive and vice versa.

And that kind of leads into to pastoral ordination. Somebody might say well, that's that's biblical. What is it biblical descriptive or is it biblical prescriptive? Is it something that we should practice we should follow?

Acts 6 and the Ordination of Qualified Men

So so what do you think is pastoral ordination? Biblical and if so in in which sense so I think that it.

Obviously, yes, it is biblical. I also believe that if something is prescriptive Prescriptive in Scripture it is by default descriptive in Scripture. So there's a possibility that something in Scripture could be descriptive and not be prescriptive as an example.

In Acts we see that the church sold everything that they had personally and put put all their money in one pot. That's definitely something that was descriptive of the time. But we find over in Scripture where that is necessarily prescribed that believers do right?

Is that fair? Mm-hmm. Likewise if we see something that is prescribed in Scripture as being Necessary then it will be described in Scripture as well so that you have an example to go by. So I would say that yes, not only is it?

Prescriptive is also descriptive in Scripture. Now obviously I've reserved right to be wrong, but We look at I use the book of Acts a lot whenever we talk about how the church functions. And how the church ought to function.

And it's example sometimes how the church ought not to function right we can we can go to Scripture for all that. And I don't want to. I don't want to jump ahead now. Am I if I give an example am I jumping ahead because it did say and why in here and one.

Yeah, go ahead. Okay, so.

Turtle me. Bibles in Acts chapter 6. We went over this several times. As a as a club here as a ministry team. The disciples were increasing in number. A complaint arose on the part of the Hellenistic Jews against the native Hebrews because the widows were Being overlooked in the daily serving of food.

We're talking about the way the church interacts with one another. Mm-hmm. We without going into it. You already see how the daily workings must be. Leading up to this like I said, everybody sold their private possessions and they all had one had all in common.

So that no one had need among them. So you see right here now. There's been a there's been a hitch in that giddyup. Right is the 12th from the congregation of disciples and say it is not desirable for us and neglect the Word of God in order to serve tables now.

Let it be known. They did not demean the serving of tables. But they had a job to do that was different than just serving tables alone right. So we already see a Variation in callings. Do not. Mm-hmm.

We get into verse 4. Nobody's call seems to be more important than the others. But we would agree that the Apostles had been given a task separate from the rest of the disciples, right?

Okay.

Therefore brethren select among you seven men of good reputation full of the Holy Spirit and of wisdom Whom we may put in charge of this task that right there is ordination. That's what that is. Pick from you seven brothers of Good reputation for the Holy Spirit and of wisdom now.

Paul would later on open this up a little bit further in the book of Timothy. Right. He must be of good report the husband of one wife blameless. You can shorten that say of good reputation, right? And full of the Holy Spirit, so I would say that that is both descriptive of what the Apostles did and I think that is prescriptive in.

Whom you ordain? I don't think that you ought to just be ordaining any Tom Dick or Harry that shows up because you need somebody to take care of a job in the church. These are to be people of good reputation Full of the Holy Spirit and wise to discern scripture and to and to be able to teach.

All right, I mean spoiler alert the guys that they picked the first martyr was he murdered for serving tables. Was he murdered for helping this? How was he murdered brother Dan? He was preaching boom.

So it didn't mean that His his role in the church negated his call to the Great Commission. Did it?

Right so.

He was he was to be someone who was apt to teach somebody who could lead folks to the Lord and it was this preaching Of Christ and his gospel that cost him his life ultimately. Well received in glory, I imagine.

The Meaning of Ordination and the Church of God Hierarchy

Well, you point you pointed out this. This is ordination. Can you can you define it in your own terms?

Ordination simply means to be appointed or called to be backed by somebody.

So.

As a general rule the term ordained Can both mean. It can be appointed to good or bad. Really? You can be. Set aside for a time in a season by God's choice. That is bad Says God hardened Pharaoh's heart to bring about his own divine in right.

I Would say that he ordained Pharaoh for that time and for that season. But I don't think nobody wants to walk a mile in Pharaoh's shoes. Likewise, he also ordained Stephen and there would be a short period of time I don't think if I wouldn't walk in his shoes either, but I don't think I believe any of us who trade places with him now.

So.

Simply ordained means to be called. And to be appointed. Did I answer that question in its fullness, let me check. Absolutely. We kind of got into the next question. To didn't we. I didn't mean to.

Well, that's gonna happen, okay, we're gonna believe we're gonna bleed over no matter what.

It's like a sharpie on thin paper.

You just keep on talking. We'll figure out what question we're on and go from there. Okay?

So, uh, I think the question that is gonna the way I listen to foster a brother foster and y 'all's Podcast and I don't think there's going to be very much different and the way that he would have answered the questions.

I Don't remember them the way he answered them. But I can't imagine being very different very much different than the way the Church of God ordains people as ways the way the way the Baptist Church ordains people with the exception of they will ordain women and I know that that's a massive difference between.

The denomination. I don't know about the Presbyterian. Do they just ordain women to the Office of Deacon or do they?

Ordain them to the office of pastor as well. They'll go down to the office of pastor now.

Okay. Yeah, my particular denomination is the only one that will ordain women to Office of Deacon, but we don't. We don't ordain women to the office of pastor. So there's three.

There's three offices inside of the Church of God in terms of licensed ministry and they start at Exhorter and Then it goes up to an ordained minister and then above that is an ordained bishop and There's extremely little difference between each level.

With.

One exception being that an ordained minister an ordained minister has the the freedom to marry and To bury is what some people say. And an ordained bishop has the ability to vote on certain things that others can't.

Without getting into the polity of the Church of God and boring everybody when I go get the minutes I got at my bedroom and I could read it. I can't vote on Certain issues at General Assembly, but I can vote on the things that the elders or bishops vote on.

Right.

Does that make sense at all?

Yeah, it might help if you give us just a basic rundown of Church of God Church polity just so we can kind of see where you're coming from.

Such and from the bottom up at the top up I mean, so I'm not.

Just a just a real quick rundown so we can kind of get a framework to know. How are you using your terms?

So the Church of God is a centralized has a centralized form of government not much different than the Wesleyan Church. In fact, it's a Wesleyan holiness movement that was founded in the 1896 cheer schoolhouse in eastern, Tennessee West North Carolina mountains.

It was in a it began at a revival meeting between some Westlands and some Methodist and. It's it's grown every since every year it's grown.

It was.

Originally not designed to be a denomination so much as it was designed to be a movement. But over the years it has become a denomination all the same the.

Each church.

Reports to an overseer and each overseer reports to an overseer until you get to the general overseer and he he has accountability through what is referred to as the Council of 18 and that is the Group of elders inside the church.

One of the things that is appealing to me. I'm a man that likes structure even though you wouldn't think Pentecostals do I there's a very I Wouldn't call it Concrete or rigid in the sense that there's no freedom in it and that there's no Joy in it, but there is a structure so that there is a there's accountability for everybody to everybody.

Does that make sense at all? Yep. So a church member that is Recognized as a believer who is 16 years old and older can vote on who their pastor is going to be and a district is set up by. Certain amount of churches make up a district and that district has a bishop who oversees that district and then each Set of districts belongs to what we would call a state overseer.

This is where things can become a little bit tricky. If you know, you know, but like in North England and the what's called Northern New England. Which I believe you'd fall into that district brother brother Dan is three states.

Three states make up one one one state overseer has three different states. Okay, because there's not enough churches to have that many different districts you understand. Where North Carolina has two different states inside of one state?

I'm in Western, North Carolina Church of God and there's an Eastern North Carolina Church of God in the in Gaston County Area in the Lincoln Gaston County district. I think there's 38 Church of Gods. There's more Church of Gods in that district than an entire Northern New England district.

In one County, so it's a very Populated this area is very populated with Church of Gods where other parts of the country are not for instance Gillette, Wyoming only has one. The entire state of Wyoming has one Church of God and it's in Gillette.

Ask me how I know. How do you know that? I'd like to move to Wyoming one day. When I was looking at a map, I said, I wonder if there's a Church of God out here and there is Gillette.

How a Pastor Is Called, Licensed, and Sent

So when so when you become a pastor.

Who.

Because the one called out to To be the the main preacher to do the pastoral shepherding duties of the church. Who's calling you. Besides we know God's calling you first. But as far as the church church structure goes who's calling you out.

You talked about Congregation voting. Okay. Does the bishop place you does congregation call you and vote vote on you?

How does it work? So the way this works is. For instance, I'm not a senior pastor at a church. Even now I'm an ordained minister in the Church of God and have been for I think three years. I've been licensed for four or five.

I Can't remember now. And the order of it is once you're an exhorter you're licensed and then you're ordained. It's ordained and then bishop is the following. You have to have so many years of service before you qualify.

To test for a bishop the way that I went about it. There's primarily two ways.

I.

Felt the call. To preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, so I talked to my pastor. I told him I said I feel like I've been called to preach and he said, okay. We're gonna fill out a form. We're gonna pray about it.

We fill a form out that form gets sent to the state office and the state office put me in what's called a calling administering service class and for a year. Well roughly nine, but almost a year. I Went to class once a month and I went over doctrine.

We went over church polity. We took Several several different tests to see areas that we might be good at or areas We might suffer at and all that is is a check. To make sure that this call that you felt like you have wasn't just an emotion.

But it's something that you're willing to push through for instance. You can feel like you'd be really really good at guitar. But until you buy a guitar and you sit down and you try to play it for six months eight months and you hurt your Fingers and you get disheartened and you break your strings and you spend piles and piles of time and still sound like hot garbage.

You don't know if you really want to play guitar until you keep playing through that. If you throw it away after about six months, you know, you really didn't want to play guitar. You just like the idea of playing guitar.

So the calling in the ministering service Process that I went through is to sort of weed out people who really aren't called. Maybe they feel like they should be because daddy was a preacher or maybe Papa was a preacher or maybe.

Maybe they just thought it was a really cool idea and they and they love the Lord and they love scripture but it does take a Different it takes it's a calling it is totally different to reside to pastoring people, right?

If you pass that class and you go through a panel interview after you've passed the test and Those men who are bishops will ask you assortments of questions. They'll let you answer them. However, you feel led to answer them then they'll make a judgment call.

As to whether they really believe that you're called or not. You'll pray together and then they'll let you know.

Right. Yeah.

Once.

They agree and you've passed all the tests and you've cut the muster or whatever. They'll issue you a license and the license simply says that the Church of God Has agreed to allow you to share the gospel in there with their blessing.

They've given you the right to defend the gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the way it's worded. But you're not really allowed to baptize anybody into the church or take membership or marry somebody. Unless you have the direct supervision of an ordained minister.

Because that's actually a state law I think I think in order to marry somebody you had to be ordained. If you go to the next step and you decide that you want to become an ordained minister then a similar process.

You sit with your pastor or your or your if if you're the pastor of the church and that's possible. You may need to sit with the overseer and you need to talk through it. You fill out an application you go back and then you and I went back to something that was called the MIP Program, which is a ministering internship program.

Where I work hand-in-hand with the minister they put they place you in a church you don't often get to pick which church you're going to and you work with that minister and he with the help of the state and with you develop a Program of what it of teaching you how to minister.

Hands hands and hand foot and foot boots on the ground kind of thing. You still have to report Every month to Charlotte sit through your lectures. You still have Five six hours worth of homework and computer work that must be maintained every day as well as research papers.

You have college level papers to write at the end of that nine months. You take a test if you pass the test and you get an opportunity to be grilled by more bishops. They ask you harder questions. They give they want to see an example of how you Started a ministry successfully During your time with the church and then once you pass that if they ordain you then you have to stay at that church for a year Working with that pastor.

So that's how you get to become an ordained minister.

If.

You want to pastor a church? The way that works is you submit a resume to the overseer? You tell him your intentions and then he'll call you if there's a church that Needs a pastor and you go to that church and you submit your resume.

You interview with the elders at that church the pastor's council or whoever they've picked to be. If there's not a big enough church to have a pastor's council, you'll sit down with a with a committee.

They'll ask you questions that they've dreamed up. Then you you minister a couple Sundays or whatever. However, they however many times they've asked you to and then they have a heads up vote. Up and down.

If you don't get to vote you don't get the vote.

See that's why I think this conversation is so important because So a lot of those things that you just described you lean more towards the Presbyterian method that Dan and I have already discussed then you do the Baptist method and if if the Baptist and in Church of God if if we would wipe away our Animosities our little quirks our nitpicks if we would just get rid of those things just for a second and say hey.

What does this guy have to say? Because in in the Baptist Church when it comes to ordination It could last though. The process could be five minutes. It can be five days. It's whatever the church wants and then you you have a committee that you get together.

It could be committee from your your church or your local association. They ask any question that they desire to ask it could be anything. They vote they approve you you're done you're in and then beyond that.

Where's your accountability? You don't go back to classes like you're talking about. You don't go to the lectures. You don't have a bishop that you go to in the Baptist Church. There's not that accountability there.

And so that's why this conversation is so great because I Can say here's the things that I have against the Church of God denomination. I'm setting that aside What can I learn from Big John and the process that they go through in the Church of God and and bring that over is Is is is this biblical it where where am I weak and where are they strong and and what can I bring over?

Well, I mean anytime you want to join Church of God, I mean, we'd be love we'd love to have you. I mean, I'm just I'm just gonna throw that out there. You know, I mean we we take Baptist we take Presbyterians brother Dan.

We'd you know, I mean.

Well, I think it's good for us to have this conversation with the different denominations that we're trying to reach out to. We talked to Pastor Jonathan to come from the Southern Baptist and that's the background that I come from.

Dan the Presbyterian and his branch of Presbyterian ism you're you from the Church of God and hopefully plenty others will have a chance to have a conversation with. And Lining of course lining up from Scripture is what they're saying biblical.

Can it help me where I'm weak? And maybe Sure up some things that are that have been Missing for a long time. And I think I think Baptists have a lot to learn in that area. I really really do.

Well, I think that I don't and obviously, you know that that I care about you boys and and I wouldn't sell the Baptist too short because Here's here's a couple things that I like about about everybody right here in our state North Carolina brother Dan, you're not from North Carolina, or you don't live in North Carolina now, but I used to live in North Carolina.

You know that this state for all its conservative values is a very liberal state in terms of its in terms of government. During the pandemic You know the the governor Adhered powers that really weren't his to wield and decided he would just stop church.

Stop the gathering of the Saints. Now there were people inside of my denomination who were like, well, okay, maybe we need to stop for a period of time and Listen to what the governor says There were other people in their same denomination like no.

Well, you might imagine people don't always agree on everything. Everybody looks at things a little bit different and I recall a Conversation that was had and We were not forbidden from having church, I want to make sure that that everybody understands that we were not forbidden.

However Within the polity of our church if our state or general overseer and state overseer had forbidden Us gathering together. We wouldn't be allowed to meet at the church building because with few exceptions Church God congregations don't own their building and grounds.

It's owned by the Church of God International.

Conscience, Romans 13, and Meeting in Homes

So.

What would you do in this circumstance? Let's say your congregation deemed their call on a situation unbiblical, would you say hey. Is it possible that you you and your congregation say hey, we're we're doing this or we're not doing this.

Despite what they say because they're taking an unbiblical stance and then you know, tackle those circumstances or consequences later.

I mean, they're happening. So I think that if if we were going to handle it biblically In those kinds of situations if I were asked to do something that went against my my convictions. Mm-hmm, and I believe that asking someone to stop gathering together In accordance with Scripture is unbiblical and I believe that that would go against my convictions.

I Would say that we would just meet at someone's home.

Mm-hmm and.

Let everybody like I would open up my home to whoever wanted to come and that would be at your own personal Discretion you do you act in accordance with the convictions that God's laid on your heart? I'm not going to condemn you if you don't show up.

I'm not gonna thank any less of you if you don't show up. But I'm also not going to go against those that are over me in the Lord and use some Somebody's property that is not my property in a way that I think is right because now I'm getting out of line.

Now I'm.

I'm.

I'm out of step with those that are over me, right? So I think that you can disagree With people that are over you, but you have to. If you're gonna do that on your own, it has to be on your own. You have to take that step outside and say okay This is this is our this is the Jones family and whoever else wants to come.

This is no longer a Church of God sanctioned event, right? This is Christians meeting in my home and all of you are welcome. And I think that that's really the take that we had to take as Christians. I think it's a very similar approach whenever the governor or Anybody that is in the office Assumes power and authorities that really aren't his and uses emergency powers and actions to do it.

I think in order to Follow Romans 13 and and and and Be submissive to God You have to listen to God first and you have to continue to meet. But it might be that you meet at home and you Take the the mode that we see in Scripture that is descriptive right which is house church.

And that's okay. If that's what it takes What is that.

This was supposed to be my cheer button. Oh, oh, I gave you a cheer.

I can't hear it on my end because it worked. It's all right. We couldn't really hear much on our end either.

But I mean, I think that's a biblical. I think that's a I think that that's a healthy understanding of Scripture and a applicable an applicable way to use Scripture and also not to.

To to be disrespectful to our elders. I think that's a very honorable approach. I appreciate that.

Yeah.

Yeah, can we go back on something you said a little bit ago because there's something that you said about that the process that a lot of folks don't get a. Lot a lot of folks. It's just not how they do.

Things you talked about being placed with a pastor to work for for a period of time sound like. You know hands-on discipleship. That's right of how to. How to actually minister for for a time. Now, I know our our Presbytery requires you to have.

It's either one or two internships and usually you take care of those during during your school time. But it sounds like they actually place you with somebody in the within your denomination. And you're supposed to be there for what you said nine months or a year or something like that.

The program is nine. The program is not much long after the program. It's a year you have to stay.

So you're not much minimum. Yeah, so you're looking at what like 18 18 months night or What's that math 21 months to 24 months something like that? Yes, sir. Yeah, what does that look like during that time?

Like what did you do? In order to like what paces were you put through in order to kind of set you up for success, so.

In in my case was slightly different. I was on staff at real-life Community Church I ran the outreach program and had been running the outreach program For some period of time and the bylaws Say that if you're already on staff at a church they wouldn't move you if it affects your pay because all this is on voluntary basis and I didn't have to move.

In.

Hindsight, I kind of wish I had sometimes not that not that I didn't absolutely love working with with my pastor and. And getting to see more about what he does on a daily basis as opposed to what you see from You know the members point of view but because I've realized that.

Just like you were talking about brother Rob a while ago I stand to learn so much more if I listen to more people. Not that everybody you listen to you should be listening to but we should hope that those that are leaders inside the church.

Even if we disagree with their approach we stand to learn something from them if nothing else learn what not to do, right? I mean, so in in the case that I was at I did not leave my home church but instead of Just helping with outreach.

I wound up. I wound up working with with Pastor Johnny. I. Much more day to day. It was. It wasn't every day. But do you recall any of these times Rob during the times? We was reading scripture outside or the outreach programs that we were putting on or during a zoom.

How many how many weekends how many days during the week? I was at real life or or doing something with real life. I mean it was a full-time job for the most part on top of a full-time job.

There's.

Things that I'm hesitant to even say. You know, I'm not gonna say it in total because I don't want to I don't want to take away from the blessing That it means to people to pastor. But there's things that I never I never thought about.

Not even a million years and maybe this is different in other denominations but I mean I've worked on people's cars and helped move furniture. I've worked on on their homes and Built stuff for them. I've never in my wildest dreams called my pastor Any other church and asked him to come help me fix something on my house because my water was frozen or but in some cases Some of these some of these pastors are are literally Helping hand and everyday life this to the members of their church and that's not seen.

Nobody sees that and it's not something that good pastors tell anybody ever about right? So there was a lot of stuff that was going on That I would have never thought there was enough hours in a day for for one man to do and sometimes there wasn't and in those cases I would do those things that That he wasn't allowed to do.

And another thing.

That.

Brother Robert and myself were talking about one time.

You.

Love these people is It's hard to put into words. How much you can love somebody? That they don't really. They don't really care. It doesn't seem like they really care that much about you or your church.

But but you find yourself at the altar crying with them because they're praying for somebody who's sick or a loved one is lost or for their own for their own soul and. And you you care about them, it's that's it's it's otherworldly the way that you care about them and.

There's times that you have to say things from behind the pulpit that you know hurts their feelings and it hurts their heart and they got to hear it in order to be whole and You know if you say it They're gonna hate you for it.

And there's a part of you that don't want to do that. At least there's part of me that don't want to do that.

And I remember.

I was listening to the pastor one night preaching and I could tell it was killing him to Deal with some of the things that he was having to deal with my pulpit and I thought What if he didn't have to always do that?

What if I could be? sort of the bad cop from time to time and Give them somewhere they could go and complain about me in the harsh teaching or the harsh preaching That they've had to endure. Then he can have an opportunity to give them the same truth But maybe a little bit softer or maybe with with what appears to be more love in a way that they'll listen to it from another point of view in which case we found that We we became more like a team of ministers than we became One minister and associate pastors that worked with him.

We became like a I Don't know like a ball team. Does that make any sense at all?

I.

My wife's not going to want to hear you say things that hurt her feelings or in any way make her kids look bad, but if If I can say something that makes you check Where you're at? Then you can go to the pastor and you can say How about that?

You can you can let them come to you and and. And be a and be a loving pastor and they don't have to be a bad guy all the time and and. He wound up showing me a lot of stuff that uh. That I'll be honest with you.