Lara Rusch ~ 20
As an example, the speaker praised a woman who is one of his associate ministers
for doing exactly what he would do when he asks her to fill in for him. He trusts her
because he is certain that she will run the service the way he would, and preach with a
message in reflecting his style and interpretation of scripture. Simply put, a pastor does
not want to put someone in front of the congregation if he does not know what they are
going to do.
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Unlike Catholic churches, Baptist churches provide the opportunity for lay people
to climb into ministry, but that climb can be wrought with potential problems for the
congregation. As the speaker at the CBP warned, “If you put the wrong person in the
pulpit, you will be out of the church.” He suggested that in the pastor’s peripheral vision,
there are always, “folk trying to run us out, trying to take over.” Implicitly in his speech,
all present recognized the power of the pulpit, the will of the congregation projected onto
the person who speaks in it, and thus the potential that the congregation may follow that
person out of the church. Rev. Bullock noted wryly in an interview, “we multiply by
dividing.” The speaker indicated his frustration at stories of dissatisfied congregation
members speaking to “deacon so and so” about unhappiness with the pastor. Such
practices must be “nipped in the bud.” Quoting his own former pastor and mentor, the
speaker recounted, “God only sent one person to save the world, not any number of
committees.”
While this speaker probably expressed a more extreme concern about takeovers
than many pastors would, his main points resonated with my interviews and the manner
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These statements were congruent with indirect comments I heard in interviews with MOSES clergy.
When I asked pastors about sharing the pulpit with clergy visiting from other congregations (common
among the Baptists I interviewed), they emphasized the importance of knowing the person, having heard
him or her speak before, and making sure their perspectives on the Bible and worship styles are
complementary.
Convention