Verdugo,

I wish, respectfully, to correct a couple of things you have said on this forum.

First, you said that Commissioned Lay Pastors are not allowed to administer the sacraments.
G-14.0562 says that the Presbytery may authorize them to do just that.  If they are not allowed to
do so, it is because the presbytery didn't know they could authorize them or chose not to do so.

Second, and we had this discussion on the old boards too, the CPM's power is not so unchecked
in the BOO.  They are a committee of the presbytery, and the presbytery can always amend their
recommendations before acting on them.  If the CPM allows a particular candidate to languish,
that candidate's session should take action at the presbytery to remedy this situation.  I acknowledge
that I have never heard of this being done, but it would, in my opinion, be consistent with our
principles of governance.

Sterrett

"Although it would be wonderful to have Ministers of the Word and Sacrament in all congregations, I don't see that as practical at this time.  Our Presbytery has many small and family churches that need a 1/4 or 1/2 time pastor and the CLPs serve this function very effectively.  According to the newest BoO, CLPs can administer the sacraments (G-14.0562)."


But this is the very point that bothers me... shouldn't the denomination do something to financially support our smallest churches in order to have a full-time seminary trained pastor.  I would rather see us make a financial commitment to all of our churches no matter the size and maintain the standard of seminary training.
What does it mean that we have seminary training as a luxury of the larger churches because they can afford it?  Aren't we judging churches once again based on size rather than aspects of ministry?  Plus, at what point do we decide that seminary training itself is overly expensive and just not needed for our ministers.  CLP's are practical but do they put us on a slippery slope?
This from someone who serves a small church and who has a father who is a CLP that provides an important service to the denomination.

Just to confirm previous comments - I serve a congregation as a 1/2 time CLP, and I am authorized by the Presbytery to administer the sacraments, moderate the Session, and perform marriages and funerals. My training was administered directly by our Presbytery, although I know that at least a couple of seminaries also offer CLP training (I know Dubuque and Pittsburgh both do; others probably do as well). As far as Presbyteries offering financial assistance to assure ordained ministers in all congregations, it sounds great but it just isn't practical. The Presbytery only gets its money from its member congregations, and if they're so small and/or poor that they can't afford a FT Minster of Word and Sacrament, they're not funding a whole lot up the food chain to the Presbytery. And with something like half of all PCUSA congregations numbering fewer than 100 members (and many having far fewer), I doubt that there is adequate money even on a denomination-wide basis, to distribute funds sufficient to accomplish it.

[QUOTE=jedithom;82839]Dewey,
I hear the practical argument but I wonder if anyone has really tried to solve the problem or have they just looked at it and said it can't be done.  Show me a committee or an incentive within the denomination that has stated as its goal every church has a seminary trained minister.

Just to be clear, I'm not trying to lessen the work that you and other CLP's do and the service you provide these small churches, but it concerns me where this road takes us as a denomination.  If we are indeed becoming more and more a denomination of small churches then what is the future of seminary trained ministry?  At what point does the seminary become a luxury that we cannot afford and the CLP road to ministry becomes the main road?  At what point do future candidates decide that seminary is not worth the effort, time or cost?  I also realize that seminary training is no guarantee for effective ministry... I'm sure there are many examples of CLPs being more effective in their ministry than those who have been seminary trained.     

Yet, it still seems to be a point of our evolving denominational connectionalism that we should refocus back on enabling every one of our congregations for the work of ministry to the best of our ability.  There doesn't exist at the moment a baseline for CLP training.  It could be we are seeing the beginning of that with these seminary offerings.  But at what point do we have two classes of ministry doing the same thing and practicality eliminates one of those classes?[/QUOTE]

Just so you know, I didn't take your comments in any way as demeaning the ministry of CLPs.

To your point that seminary trained pastors may eventually disappear, I really doubt that for a few reasons. First, God calls different people to different ministries, requiring different preparation and training. CLPs must rely on some other form of compensation to subsidize their ministry. Even for those of us who feel led to that form of ministry, God will always call people to full-time ordained ministry. As evidence of this, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I myself am also a commuting evening student at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and will eventually do exactly that.

The truth is, while CLPs may be authorized to perform all those duties, our ministry will always be hamstrung by the fact that we're part-timers, and cannot devote the amount of time that most churches ultimately want from their ministers (or frankly, the amount of time that the CLP would really like to provide, but can't). Every congregation being served by a CLP has to accept that they're not going to receive the same amount of hours that a full-time MWS would be able to provide. And that's a tradeoff that I think most churches, given sufficient finances, would not be willing (and should not be willing) to make.

I'm a huge fan of the CLP process. I think that in fact, it may be a key factor in possibly saving the denomination from ruin, by getting reasonably qualified people to serve, maintain, and possibly even build up, small congregations to the point where they're able to have fulltime clergy again. In a very real sense, I view part of my ministry to be, if at all possible, putting myself out of a job.

CLP!
I said "CPL" in the title of my post and in a private message.  Thanks for not snickering too loudly!