by Sandy » Thu Dec 19, 2019 3:28 pm
I'd like to see more "ecumenical" cooperation in things like church membership, ordination and acceptance of baptism. Of course, for many Christians, there is personal security in their denominational branding, so they are not willing to admit that accepting ordination or baptism from some other church isn't always acceptance or endorsement of everything that church teaches.
Educational options are such that while I believe a church or ecclesiastical authority that has the ability to grant ordination should set some minimum qualifications, there are some other factors which may need to be taken into consideration. I've known several pastors who were excellent at their job but who had no formal training in ministry. One in particular that comes to mind educated himself by reading and by "sitting under" the ministry of pastors he respected. He had two years of community college, but was capable of clear communication and could have written a doctoral dissertation if he's had to. There are a lot of undergraduate programs that provide the full scope of training required for an MDiv or MTh.
Having recently fellowshipped with a group of Christians who were only loosely connected to a "denomination" more by tradition and a very short list of commonly held values and which did not have "clergy" nor a hierarchy of elders, I wonder if many churches could avoid problems created by conflicts between pastors and members over the direction the church is headed. I served under a couple of pastors whose vision was always "get the church to build something" in order to "establish" their pastorate. One wanted to relocate the whole church, the other wanted a $1.5 million family life center for a mostly elderly congregation.