2. PASTORS AND THE CHURCH.

Pastors have a key place and role within the community of faith, providing leadership in the church’s ministries of worship, community, formation and mission. They touch people’s lives at many points of joy, pain, celebration, grief and vulnerability. They train the church to serve the Lord in caring for one another, praying, studying the Scriptures, and proclaiming the good news of Jesus. That is, they minister within pastoral relationships in which they seek to empower/ enable others to focus on God as the source of healing, restoration and wholeness. They have roles which are prophetic (challenging the status quo when it is not aligned with God’s Word), didactic (teaching biblical truth), priestly (representing Christ and the community in its commerce with the Sacred), artistic (appealing to the imagination through story-telling and other means), and community-building (facilitating networks of people to help one another).

Because pastors-as-leaders model Christian living for others in a special and unique way, all their relationships should be characterised by Jesus’ love, care and compassion. And because they exercise considerable influence and power, it is essential that they act at all times with integrity, aware of appropriate boundaries in their relationships with others. Pastors and other leaders cannot do this alone, so they will readily submit to disciplines of accountability – to their Church’s Council or Leadership Group, a peer support group, prayer partner, mentor, and/or spiritual director or soul friend.

Pastoral care aims to ‘present everyone mature in Christ’ (Colossians 1:28); nurturing others so that they have power over their own life – regardless of their age, gender, ethnicity, economic circumstances or other personal characteristics. Ministries employing each person’s ‘spiritual gifts’ will be encouraged, and, guided by discerning prayer, all of God’s people will be trained and commissioned to ministry in terms of those gifts.

THE ‘CALL’ TO MINISTRIES OF PASTORAL CARE AND LEADERSHIP

Any ministry of pastoral leadership is both a ‘vocation’ and a ‘profession’. As a vocation it is a free response to a call from God and the Church to commit ourselves to love and serve others. As a profession it is a commitment to be of good moral character and to acquiring special competence in serving the needs of the community of faith.

The ministries of pastors and others are recognised through vows of commissioning or ordination. These vows reflect an intention to exercise ministry through faith in Jesus Christ and relying on the power of the Holy Spirit; within the faith of the church; being nourished and guided by the study of Scripture; through announcing the Good News of Christ to those outside the community of faith; through regular celebration of the sacraments; in a mutual manner, offering pastoral care and nurturing people in faith, recognising and valuing other peoples gifts, training them for ministry; working for justice and peace; striving for peace and unity among all Christian people; engaging in ongoing study; and respecting the guidance and decisions of the councils of the church.

As a Union of Churches, we encourage each other to accept the theological validity of the ordination of both women and men for ministries in Christ’s church.

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