Imagine yourself and a group of people in a meeting with your church's pastor. You've come up with an idea for a phenomenal new ministry. Excitement grips the group as they explain the concept to your pastor. You're elated when she says "yes," and you start planning the roll out. Your team ????

Then the reality of the situation sets in. You find out about newly imposed guidelines and limitations that cut out the core of the ministry. Influential members of the congregation complain to the pastor and he sets limits out of fear that the church will lose major donations. The elder board or denominational hierarchy are afraid the ministry will reflect poorly on the church and reduce the weekly attendance.

Also, you might have decided to set up one way but the pastor tells you that you have to run it a different way. The mandated changes aren't simply another way to implement the proposal. Rather, they cut out the essential core out of the proposed ministry, leaving it to rot on the garbage heap of failed programs.

We've been working through the re-definition of church recognizing how much it is a product of a corporate, modernist mindset. Book after book and innumerable blog posts explore how western society's transition out of the enlightenment era are the catalyst for major transformation what it means to be a church. Yet I have only encountered a limited number of publications examining the role and training of pastors as obstacles to this transition. Most fervently seek Christ's leading but their training, denomination, parishioners, or administrative board gives them a strong bias to do the exact opposite.

The issues start in seminary with the strong academic bias toward Bible as text rather than Bible as narrative, thus removing the inherent humanity of the God's self-description (do I like this??)

Pastoral training - seminary

Is the church you attend struggling?

Micromanagement

The role of a pastor changes as a church grows or shrinks. Who has ownership?