Date Posted:13:41:28 12/07/04 Tue Author: Nick T. Subject: some thoughts about minister qualities
On the PCUSA website, they have quite a number of different levels of service, in a variety of ministries. They also have a number of qualifications for anyone interested in exploring church service as a missionary or as a minister/pastor.
If anyone would like to review them, they are here at
http://www.pcusa.org/prep4min/qualities.htm
Take some time to read these, they tell alot about how a normal and healthy church can remain normal and healthy.
Of course, I would like to take the opportunity to comapre the PCUSA qualifications to those of the ubf qualifications. The PCUSA has a whole series of qualifiers, from before getting into the minsitry, how to be properly trained and educated, how to properly condict oneself, how to mature, and how to be measured for effectiveness. So it is not about just making a decision to be something, like a missionary, it is about receiving a divine calling and living up to the divine call.
One thing that really jumped out to me was this (and this is just one small but indispensible part):
willingness to be self critical and to self-disclose
exhibits self-confidence, while admitting limits and vulnerabilites
acknowledges mistakes, seeks forgiveness
exhibits a congruence of words and behavior
record of trustworthiness, honesty, and fairness
does not pursue personal advantage, not self-serving
This is just a small part of the qualifications to be a minister in the PCUSA. From all that I have seen, I have not met a ubf leader who can honestly say he/she is qualified to be a minister, just based on this one small part of the entire package of qualifications. I just hope that people can see that ubf, which has the lowest qualifications, has the lowest quality of missionary/pastor/shepherd, whatever.
Don't be fooled. It is incredibly easy to become a ubf missionary. All a person has to do is fog a mirror and put up with alot of garbage from the ubf leadership. That is it.
