EVANGELISM: SOME MINISTERS ARE JUST ...

... plain scared of going out to reach someone for Christ.

Britain’s Protestant clergy are too shy to go out to convert people to Christianity, according to research that will be published next month. [CRIB emphasis added]

And yet a major distictive of Christianity is Christ's "Great Commission" [Matthew 28:18-20]. How is it that "men of the cloth" are resistent to responding to this charge?

A survey of Anglican, Baptist and Methodist clergy by the Right Rev Michael Whinney, retired Bishop of Southwell, showed that most were sensitive introverts who lacked the characteristics to be “out there” in the community.

Perhaps as the old preacher said, "The reason there is no function in the pew is because there is not unction in the pulpit."

“One wonders about the stressful element of this type of work for the introverted majority in church leadership,” Bishop Whinney said. “This begs the question as to how effective is the system for choosing and placing ministers in churches.”

It isn't "the stressful element" I wonder at: Jesus asked rhetorically, if they abuse Me how much more will they abuse those who follow Me?

Notice, Whinney refers to the pulpit ministry as a "type of work," I doubt that was inadvertant; he also refers to the "choosing and placing" of ministers "in churches" rather than God's calling the minister to go to a particular pasture. This may relate more to a particular denomination's distinctives than to Scripture ... just think about fallen man choosing God's under-shepherds.

Bishop Whinney’s study indicates that personality type may also play a part in the reluctance of many clergy to go out knocking on doors and winning converts.

Let me see if I understand this: on the one hand, God commands all of us to "go" to the lost sheep and then, on the other hand, calls shepherds who can't go because of something in the guy's personality that God didn't know about?

He found that the more introverted clergy were more at home in traditional, contemplative and structured worship styles, while extroverted and spontaneous ministers were happier in the freer, participative style of the fast-growing younger churches.

He added that, in spite of low morale, few ministers abandoned their calling. “Their sense of vocation may suffer some blows, but they soldier on despite low pay and dropping attendances.”

I'm sorry, but I'm rendered speechless. There are no comfort zones on the Cross we bear daily. I spent twenty miserable years in a vocation I was not called to, now I have more tribulation than I did then, but now I consider it all joy as I do! If you want to read more, go here!

Calling; Christianity; Church; Church decay; England; Evangelism; Pastoral calling; Religion