Pastors are There and Will Be There

From The Forum Magazine, Winter 2025 - view the full issue here

“The sun seems sick.” That’s what my dad would say on sunny but cold days to mitigate my temptation of leaving my coat in the closet. I understood what he meant when I opened the door and faced the reality of the freezing temperatures. The perception that the weather was warm would fade away immediately, and I would grab my coat. In such ordinary and everyday situations, we learn the importance of knowing how to navigate an endless number of perceptions with the goal of correctly discerning reality. 

Sometimes we get tired, and we wonder if the glass is half full or half empty. But on other occasions, nothing stops us until we see reality as it truly is. We perceive changes in the reality of the church, especially in its leadership, so we ask ourselves about the ways that these perceptions affect us, and we work on our perceptions by asking if there are sufficient competent pastors to take care of the church.

We are not alone asking this question in the long history of the church. As early as 1561, the Belgic Confession, anticipating our constant perception of feeling like a minority, addressed such feelings by encouraging the church to confess this:

And this holy church is preserved by God

against the rage of the whole world,

even though for a time

it may appear very small

to human eyes— 

as though it were snuffed out.

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Our minds tend to lead us to the false perceptions that not only are we few but also small and dull, that we will not make it, that there will be no pastors in the future, and that pastors are not competent. This fear is heightened when statistics indicate that the pastoral shortage is getting critical. Surveys also show pastors feel a lack of confidence to serve the next generation. We rightly wonder where the pastors are today. But, to avoid false perceptions about pastors, we first should recognize the different socio-cultural contexts in which our pastors conduct ministry. 

In a recent commentary on Acts, John D. Harvey and David Gentino describe the cultural contexts of three cities where the apostle Paul preached Jesus Christ in Acts 17. Given the Jewish presence, the cultural contexts in Thessalonica and Berea are stated as cultures with biblical “pre-understanding.” But they define the cultural context of Athens as without biblical “pre-understanding.” In their analysis, the commentators describe our Western culture as more like the culture of Athens, nourished by philosophies but not divine Revelation. These statements by Harvey and Gentino are helpful because they guide us to consider the cultural context where pastors exercise their ministry.

They are nourishing with zeal for truth

Demographic data show the number of pastors has decreased, yet it’s also true that pastors have not disappeared. Furthermore, the majority of North Americans still identify with a biblical worldview or pre-understanding.  So, as I mentioned in the previous issue, since there are fewer pastors and a documented decrease in knowledge of Scripture, then the strategy for church growth and sustainability must be to educate and support pastoral leadership, who then in turn can nourish their congregations in search of truth and life’s ultimate meaning.

Encouragingly, there are pastors who have never ceased to seek reason and virtue. Although they seem a minority, they do not dilute their ministry quality because, like the Bereans (Acts 17:10-15), they are dedicated to examining the Scriptures for the

truth of God. The ancient believers deduced through virtuous reasoning that Jesus of Nazareth was the Christ. The Bereans, in examining the Scriptures, applied two classical epistemological theories of truth: One, the correspondence theory of truth, where whatever corresponds to observable reality is true, e.g., they saw that Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus. The other is the coherence theory of truth, in which claims are true if they follow logically and coherently from a set of intermediate propositions, e.g., that because the prophecies of Christ’s resurrection were true in Jesus, then they should believe in Jesus as the Christ. The Bereans did not examine whether Paul's claim was in agreement with their culture or was pragmatic for them; their zeal was for knowing the truth. Therefore, in subjection to the Scriptures, they examined Paul's message and found it true.

The evidence of many present-day pastors who reason virtuously is in the vast quantity of sermons, books, magazines, podcasts, films, videos, courses and general material that they produce and translate into other languages. A digital search will yield hundreds if not thousands of links to free or for-sale material. Even though these pastors, old and young, might be few, they are nourishing the Church with the zeal for revealed and inspired Truth. They are caring for the sheep of Christ amid the rage of the whole world that is threatening, but not succeeding, to distort their perception and reality.

They are training themselves to call for repentance

We do recognize that the younger generation of Americans, in general, do not have a deep biblical preunderstanding. Anecdotally, I recently discovered that my hairdresser, a 22-year-old woman, did not know what the Bible is, and a waiter, no more than 35 years, knew nothing of Moses. But this lack of biblical pre-understanding does not prevent young people from experiencing spiritual needs. For example, a market analyst estimates that global spiritual and devotional products will grow 8.7% from 2023 to 2031 and will reach $8.3 billion by the end of 2031. Even the market attests to the reality of the spiritual need felt by the younger generation who often do not have biblical pre-understanding.

Thus, rather than being paralyzed by the reality of fewer pastors, we might better emphasize the reality of the great spiritual need, which in turn, encourages us to persevere. We might better act on behalf of the young pastors who are entering the classrooms of theological seminaries, because although they are few, they are also courageous. Their courage to train themselves to attend the spiritual needs of this generation is great and admirable. Because while they themselves are just learning the social infrastructure fabric, to practice skills of respect and understanding how to apply true conclusions in their calling and vocation, these students simultaneously face the aggressive cultural challenge of answering whether their preaching of repentance is authoritative or authoritarian.

Who wants to preach to an audience that has no pre-understanding of the authority and power of God? Only the courageous dares to call for repentance in a culture that resembles the Athenians. This is described by Harvey and Gentino: “Post-Christian is a polite euphemism for non-Christian and in many places anti-Christian.” For such reasons, if we perceive the gravity of the present circumstances, then we will see the reality that pastors are courageous. This is why they want and are seeking training.

Pastors are seeking training to call for repentance; they do so by learning to evaluate arguments and conclusions, and then by showing interest and respect for true conclusions. They aspire to have the capacities of Paul when he ministered in Athens. For the apostle, the situation was not impartial perception; he could see the reality that he was very small in human terms -- as though his message could be snuffed out. But without being intimidated, trusting in the authority and power of God, the apostle preached the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Unconcerned with the mockery or rejection of the Stoics and Epicureans, he confessed the reality and truth of the resurrection of the Son of God. Unquestioning, Paul called for repentance in Athens.

Pastors are and will be there

Pastors are there. They are preaching and representing the Gospel among our families, among the suffering, and among those who rejoice. They are, like Paul in Berea, among those who can trace the life of faith of their great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. They are also among those who do not even know the name of their parent, much less if he or she was a believer. Pastors are there to remind us that, although “the sun seems sick,” we must seek and know the reality of the risen Lord Jesus despite the many temptations of our time to deny him. Well-trained pastors are there to be an example to new generations of young pastors. Thus, pastors will be there, they will not judge what happened to the culture and society that was once Christian. Rather, like Paul in Athens, they will call us to repentance, to teach us to stop being guided by appearances and perceptions. We cannot focus on the number of these pastors, but instead we need to focus on the quality of their character. Pastors are there and will be there virtuously and courageously, to summon all to confess that Jesus Christ has risen and that… 

This church has existed from the beginning of the world
and will last until the end,

as appears from the fact
that Christ is eternal King
who cannot be without subjects.

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