Yes, every christian is a minister to whoever he contacts. I am thinking
of experience- Does making a lot of mistakes BEFORE ordination differentiate between those ministers who make them AFTER ordination?
Must the ordination be formal? Can anyone just start a church? A ministry?
Is degree and seminary (book learning) more valuble than life experience or is a combination of both more desireable? At what age is one at the peak of their effectiveness as a minister?
How would you determine if the Applicant was Holy Spirit led?
Beside the Lord Jesus, how would you list
necessary qualifications for a minister or ministry leader, in order of importance, and how many necessary qualities, categorizing each one- must the candidate possess as witnessed by a competant group of Christian believers?
Just wanted some thoughts.
Shalom
I am 52 years old and have been in church just about every Sunday of my life. I have been very involved in over 15 churches due to moving around a lot, and have participated in pastoral changes, church constitution writing, and in about every ministry of the church, including officiating at funerals myself. I say this so you will understand that I am not out of touch with reality.
Having said that, almost all local churches, including evangelical churches, are led in the model of the Roman Catholic church. That is, they have an ordained pastor that is basically, in function, a parish priest for the church, in spite of the belief in universal priesthood of believers. He is often a young man, supposedly qualified for his position by a program of seminary training (indoctrination) and ordination by a group of denominational leaders. If Biblical qualifications are referred to at all, they are summarized in the requirement that he not be sinful (or be blameless). This is the Roman Catholic model. It is not found anywhere in the Bible.
The Biblical model is that all are active ministers withe their spiritual gifts, and leadership is divided among a plurality of elders (overseers) and deacons (ministers), that probably will be serving several local congregations in a city simultaneously. Their qualifications are listed in I Timothy 3 and Titus 1, and I understand from Acts 6 and I Timothy 5:19 that those qualifications are to be evaluated by the whole congregation with no more than one dissenter. I understand from I Timothy 5:17 that an elder often is not even involved in public preaching and teaching the word. Instead, people like the Apostle Paul, who was not qualified to be an elder since he was not a family man, and Timothy, who was too young to be an elder, do public teaching and preaching in subjection to elders who are the overseers watching what they are doing. If an elder is also a teacher of the word, he is doing a double job and hence is worthy of double honor.
If you go to this Biblical model of church operation and leadership, you will find that many of your questions are not applicable.
TDGW
Are you an ordained minister?
If not, how can you tell me what the actual quals are with any surity?
"Are you an ordained minister?"
No.
"If not, how can you tell me what the actual quals are with any surity?"
This is baffling to me. What has being an ordained minister have to do with knowing the qualifications? The qualifications for being an elder or deacon are listed explicitly in I Timothy 3 and they are for the congregation to decide, not an ordained minister.
By the way, I could become an ordained minister if I so chose, and have been offered ordination. I do not choose to accept it, partly because I want to emphatically declare that I am not gifted to do all the ministries in a church and ordained ministers are expected to do just that.
2cor517-
You OP sounds as though you are a lay person with a grudge against God's ordained leadership. I realize it is hard to distinguish your man on the street from the clergy, outside of the organized church, and it is good to try the spirits of anyone claiming to be a christian, to see whether they are really of the Holy Spirit.
The scripture says, Satan masquerades as an angel of light. Beware of
a pastor or teacher deviating from the principles found in the word of God, especially in his activities outside the confines of the church family.
Y'shua came to give us life and that we might have it more abundantly, whether lay or clergy.
I wouldn't worry too much beyond what is written, except for our choice of close friends. Paul told the believers as a whole in the book of Corinthians, He has made us able minister's of the New Covenant -without the designation of the fold ministry gifts. Maybe you should find your gift in your journey towards the giver?
I have been involved in the formation of a church body where the teaching or the letters of Paul distorted the striving for the spirit of
Christ into a "ministry revelation knowledge" contest, even to the point of who was going to be given the chance to speak. This was in an charismatic atmosphere, under an independant self supporting ministry.
If you truly desire to minister in a formal or structured manner, allow the Holy Spirit to lead you to a group of believers grounded in God's word
and able to inspire you to make the commitment to study the word
and have an answer for those that ask you the reason for the hope that is in you. Remember, there are more people outside the walls of the church building than within.
To answer one of your questions -you may very well be most effective in your own age group. Now I will ask you, who are you ministering on behalf of? It is Christ I pray.
We know where our final hope should rest, not totally in our leadership, but in Jesus Christ alone. For He is our hope.
Seek God's kingdom first, and you will begin to recieve the things God has for you, for He has provided us all things that pertain to life and Godliness.
LIGHT-
You can minister to, or serve the Lord any time any where and any place.
One secret to this is Praise or thankfulness for what Christ has done,
not regret for what you are not doing.
You were right, about my opening post I was coveting one of the ministry gifts.
Beside the Lord Jesus, how would you list
necessary qualifications for a minister or ministry leader, in order of importance, and how many necessary qualities, categorizing each one- must the candidate possess as witnessed by a competant group of Christian believers?
Just wanted some thoughts.
Shalom
As Paul wrote down for Titus:
Qualified Elders
5 For this reason I left you in Crete, that you should set in order the things that are lacking, and appoint elders in every city as I commanded you— 6 if a man is blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of dissipation or insubordination. 7 For a bishop[b] must be blameless, as a steward of God, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money, 8 but hospitable, a lover of what is good, sober-minded, just, holy, self-controlled, 9 holding fast the faithful word as he has been taught, that he may be able, by sound doctrine, both to exhort and convict those who contradict.
A pastor is like a chief elder by appointment and approval of the elders and deacons.
How would you determine if the Applicant was Holy Spirit led?
Also written to Timothy:
1 Timothy 3 (New King James Version)
1 Timothy 3
Qualifications of Overseers
1 This is a faithful saying: If a man desires the position of a bishop,[a] he desires a good work. 2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, temperate, sober-minded, of good behavior, hospitable, able to teach; 3 not given to wine, not violent, not greedy for money,[b] but gentle, not quarrelsome, not covetous; 4 one who rules his own house well, having his children in submission with all reverence 5 (for if a man does not know how to rule his own house, how will he take care of the church of God?); 6 not a novice, lest being puffed up with pride he fall into the same condemnation as the devil. 7 Moreover he must have a good testimony among those who are outside, lest he fall into reproach and the snare of the devil.
Yehudiah,
Your answers are biblical, yet you would want to meet the person first.
Find out maybe from an open mike, or testimony.
Matthew 28
[18] And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.
[19] Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
[20] Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.