I am living under my 14 th president of the United States of America. I saw two of them in person. I have lived under the mentorship of five pastors. I felt close to two of them. Those pastors I have known who were not my leader have to be counted in the dozens and perhaps the hundreds. If I had kept detailed records, my exposure to pastors over the course of my life could be in the thousands.
What I have discovered during this journey is that pastors can be profiled, but it would require writing a book to provide an in-depth coverage of ministerial types. I have (of necessity) shortened the list for
this article. Who knows? Maybe this will be the start of a book dealing with the methodologies of pastors. For now, I choose to keep it brief. Only a few dare to be Preacher-Prophets! This category of minister is far more prominent in the ranks of televangelism than in local pulpits. The “church on the corner” is likely to have a pastor who uses the pulpit as a platform to instruct parishioners in scripture, doctrine (implied), and how to adopt a “get along behavior” to get from Sunday to Sunday.
Megachurches are by and large what we call “seeker friendly” and the music prepares the congregation to hear a presentation that fits snugly into a very cozy environment. In many cases, these pastors come across as “life coaches” who deftly apply Practical-Psychology to the ears of the hearers.
So in the case of “the church on the corner” the pastor may be using the old Practical-Theology approach, clergyman number three in the seeker friendly situation may be using Practical-Psychology. So what could we call the approach of person number one (the Preacher-Prophet)? If he is a pastor of a local church, we would probably use words like radical, narrow, conservative, or even uneducated.
If he has“a good educational background” and persists in being a Preacher-Prophet, maybe we could call his approach Practical-Bible? It seems so! And that is a compliment of the highest order! It is my desire that we have every pulpit used by a Preacher-Prophet so truth will ring out with a clear, clarion call to really know God, in Christ, through the Holy Spirit. Amen (which is to say, So Be It!).
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