I do think you’re right, not about the pastor being seen as the professional, per se, but about the worrying of the growth of the church. We are a people completely and utterly fascinated with numbers and this is certainly not limited to the pastors. In fact, a lot of times, it seems this comes from the elders and laity as well.

Will we ever be free of the grip of numbers?

Regardless, I’m grateful for the shift in thinking and think that it has been helpful for a lot of people to be able to identify singing at church is just one small part of their worship to God…and perhaps, even, one of the least significant parts.

I believe this is an end product of the very idea that there is such a thing as a professional pastorate; I’ve repeatedly heard the complaint from the pulpit in the post-church-growth era that just because pastors are paid it doesn’t mean that they’re exclusively responsible for the growth of the church.

I’m tempted to unwind the problem in a different way: the problem isn’t that the people in the pews aren’t doing what the professional in the pulpit is telling them to do; the problem is that the pastor is seen as a professional, like a doctor or a lawyer, hired to perform a particular service, including in this case worrying about keeping the church organization functioning and growing, rather than being just one of the sinners, serving as part of the Body.

I don’t know if it is fair to pick on the Southern Baptists in particular, but they’re the ones facing the demographic crisis, which is why they’re doing all this self-study. I’d be interested to see how much overlap there is between the experiences described in the last two bullets above: how much “sharing the Gospel” (whatever that means) was actually done one-on-one, with someone they consider a peer or a friend, and how much of it was “declaring” from a position of authority and from a safe distance.

How did the word “worship” take on the Chris-Tomlin-related meaning you mention above?

I spent about ten years completely out of church between 1990 and 2000 or thereabouts; when I left congregational singing was still “singing” and when I got back it had become “worship.”

Was this originally a California thing? A non-denominational thing? A megachurch thing?

Another way to look at evangelism that I have come to understand more in recent months, is in conjunction with spirituall gifts (charisma). When based soley on our human understanding, evangelism tends to end up lookng a lot like the stuff mentioned in that poll of SB pastors: programs that are well intentioned but often devolving into works-based substitutes for real movements of God.

However, when God’s grace flows through us as spiritual gifts, things really start to happen: preachers preach the word and people are born again; prophecy is spoken and folks heart’s just melt and great healing takes place; teachers teach and the Holy Spirit convicts people of sin and there is great repentance; their is a healing or mirical and God’s Kingdom breaks through to this world in a way that draws people to Christ.

I am not saying that we should sit back and wait for God to act. we should plan and strategize and use whatever brains God gave us to do things in the best way possible. But God has given us some fantastic tools with which to do this stuff and for the most part I don’t see the western church taking advatage of it.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/mayweb-only/120-42.0.html

His article got play that seemed to my amateur eyes to vary according to whether people liked the quote or not, pretty much along deeds/creeds lines.

I feel an example of what you’re talking about can be found in my latest post here: http://richardtgarner.blogspot.com/2009/12/renewing-stars-faith.html