What's a Community Pastor?

If you've been reading this blog for the past week or so, you've read about my new job. I thought I would take today's blogging opportunity to address the question that just about everyone asks after they hear "Community Pastor"... "What is a Community Pastor?"

When Pastor Linder and I were brainstorming about this plan months ago we asked ourselves if we had heard of this title/term before. We both agreed that we couldn't remember ever hearing of a Community Pastor before, at least not in this context. The thing is, it fits so well to what both God has burdened Pastor Linder to accomplish through the church in Winston Salem as well as where I felt God was leading me in my ministry.

Over a year ago (sometime in the summer of 2006) Christie and I were thinking of how to better our current ministry efforts. At the time we were the Youth Pastors in a local rural church in North Carolina. Through the 3 or so years that we had been working in this ministry we couldn't seem to get away from the needs of just average people in the community. High school drop outs, underprivileged kids that didn't have a safe place to study, students without mentors, parents that had no help in their homes. Even the elderly and the dying seem to have no one that cares enough to do the simple things.

The world calls it humane acts, but it is nothing like human nature.

An elderly woman who simply has no one to visit her in the last days of her life as she battles terminal cancer. Where does she fall in our "ministries"?

Where does an 18 year old boy who has the mental capacity of a 10 year old (because of years of abusive and neglected surroundings) fall into our "ministries"?

Where does a widowed woman (worth far beyond what I could imagine), who chooses to turn to alcohol in the face of loneliness fall into our "ministries"?

All these lives were ever before our eyes. But it was more than just these people... it was their needs that seemed to be consuming us. I found myself asking, what are we (the Church) doing about all of this? How are we helping people to not suffer? How are we meeting the needs of our communities?

I go to the Word for answers. Jesus stated clearly His mission for coming to earth, "For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost." (Luke 19:10) It is very clear to most Christians that Jesus' primary goal was to bring the message of salvation to mankind. That is the common theme of His life. It is why He was born into flesh. It's why He lived.

I find an undeniable theme in His ministry. It seems to me that He practiced meeting people's needs before ever presenting a word of doctrine. Before parables were given, miracles were performed. Before instruction was offered, hungry bellies were fed. Prior to any message of the coming salvation was presented, all manners of sicknesses were cured.

I can't help but think that God was trying to tell us something. I know for sure He was trying to tell me something. It's more than an edict to fulfill a need because God just wants us to. I think it is an opportunity! There is no better way to get your community's attention than to start meeting the needs that no one else is paying attention to. I think this is more powerful than the largest newspaper ad, the brightest billboard or the catchiest commercial running in the best prime-time slot. People pay attention to REAL solutions!

So what is a Community Pastor? It is simply a very focused and directed office in a local church to fill this vacancy that seems to have been overlooked in many congregations. People want to help the hurting, they want to feed the hungry... they just need good quality avenues to get plugged into, we are now giving them a way to make this happen. I go one step further, the unconvinced in our communities want to be a part of a solution... they just need to be introduced and plugged in. We need programs and ministry opportunities for the "first time guest" in our churches. Things they can get involved with right away so that they feel like they are a part of The Solution.

We all know that Jesus Christ is the answer. We know that the Church is the solution to our world's problems. The problem is, the members of our community may not know it... with God's help, I am going to show them.

Dan Ponjican
Community Pastor - Heavenview UPC
Winston Salem, NC