Chapter III: Valid Reasons for Change

A change of field is doubtless sometimes the duty of a pastor, and the providence and Spirit of God, which guided him in forming the pastoral relation, will make equally plain the obligation to dissolve it. Some of the reasons which may require a change are the following: 1. Growth in pulpit and pastoral power beyond the scope of the field. A young man has settled, perhaps, in a circumscribed field. Fidelity in study and labor has developed him, so that his capacity plainly fits him for a wider sphere. If this is made evident by the judgment of his brethren and the providence of God, he is required by duty, alike to his own life-usefulness and to the cause of Christ, to enter the wider field opened before him. 2. The necessities of health in himself or family. The severity of the draft made in this age on the intellect and nerves of the minister may sometimes compel change so as to obtain relief by the more free use of previous pulpit preparations. This, though unfortunate for the intellectual growth of the minister, is still to be chosen rather than broken health. Or the climate may prove unfavorable, and on this account a change be demanded. 3. Inadequate salary. The pecuniary support may be insufficient for the growing needs of the pastor, and a new post with larger salary may be opened to him. Here, however, great care must be taken in scrutinizing motives, for a wealthy church and a large salary have glittering attraction and appeal strongly to mere selfishness. The need of a larger income must be real, not fancied. 4. Permanent discomfort and embarrassment in his work. A minister, even after the most conscientious discharge of his duties, will sometimes find controlling influences in the church arrayed against him, or his cherished plans of church work defeated by counter-counsels; so that the pastor and permanent and influential members of the church are in relations wholly incompatible with comfort or efficiency. Now, if these relations cannot be altered, it would seem clearly his duty to leave, and to enter a field where his relations will be congenial and his labors unobstructed.

Finally, I suggest: A pastor must expect trials in any church, and commonly, in a change of place, he will only find a change in the form of trial. It is a serious question whether in most instances of change a simple faith in God, a patient forbearance, and a persistence in faithful work would not have avoided the necessity and added much to the strength of the pastor in the higher development of all the forces of his intellectual, moral, and spiritual nature, and in the enlargement of his influence as a minister of Christ. Certainly, the unrest so widely seen now in the ministry argues a great wrong somewhere, either in pastors or in churches, and is serving to deteriorate the character and weaken the influence of both.

+SECTION XVI.+

MINISTERS NOT IN THE PASTORAL OFFICE.

All ministers are not called to the pastorate; and it is sometimes the duty of those who were once called to that position to leave it and enter a different department of ministerial work. In the ministry which the ascended Christ gives His church, besides pastors, there are "evangelists" and "teachers"--terms designating important classes of ministers permanently existing in the kingdom of God. A brief characterization of these, and of the functions with which they are charged, may properly be presented here.

FIRST, EVANGELISTS.

Of this class, Philip, Barnabas, Apollos, Timothy, and Titus are examples in Scripture--men having no permanent, local charge, but commissioned to preach and administer the ordinances of the Gospel wherever the Spirit and providence of God might call. These men were engaged, for the most part, in work analogous to that of our foreign and home missionaries--preaching the Gospel where it was not already preached, organizing churches, and supervising them in their incipiency while yet feeble and struggling. It is probable, also, that at times their work resembled that of those men called, in a narrower sense, evangelists--men engaged in assisting pastors and churches in special services for the promotion of revivals of religion. Possibly, Barnabas, when sent by the church at Jerusalem to labor in the great awakening at Antioch, may be conceived as acting in such a capacity, as also Timothy when left in Ephesus by Paul to hold in check certain heretical tendencies in that city (Acts xi. 22-24; 1 Tim. i. 3, 4). Evangelists, therefore, may be considered under the following classifications: