What is the role of clergy in your denomination?

MarkRohfrietsch

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What would be the expectations around things like pastoral visiting, or church administration? Things which fall outside those two tasks but which generally are associated with the clergy?

IME, preaching and taking services generally requires half of my working week, on average.

And I agree with topher, every person will inhabit the role differently. @PloverWing, if you're interested enough to do a bit of reading, there's a great book called What Clergy Do: Especially When It Looks Like Nothing, written by an English Anglican priest which I found very helpful as I tried to get my head around how to be in this role!
Actually, all of the things you mentioned above fall under "preach the Gospel and rightly administer the Sacraments"; certainly, these things would be listed more specifically in the "call documents" for a particular congregation. I forget which saint once said something like 'preach the Gospel, and occasionally use words" or something like that. Visitation, charity, sick calls, outreach are all covered in the Gospels.
 
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Paidiske

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It's commonly attributed to Francis of Assisi, but reputable sources say misattributed.

That's a very broad definition of "preach the gospel," though. Sigh; I'd really like someone to tell me that the endless avalanche of email isn't gospel work, and I should ignore it! ^_^
 
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bekkilyn

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Sorry it's taken me a while to respond...super busy the past couple of days.

In the United Methodist Church, we generally use Reverend whether we are ordained Elders, ordained Deacons, or Licensed Local Pastor. If actually serving as a pastor, many will choose to use Pastor as a title vs. the more formal Reverend much of the time. Sometimes people will call you Preacher or the Minister as well.

I would be HIGHLY disturbed if anyone ever called me "Mother" or "Father", which would imply a hierarchy among believers, and God is to be one's only spiritual authority. We are called to *serve* our congregations as servant-leaders, not dominate over them or treat them as our children.

We aren't priests because the only mediator between us and God that we acknowledge is Jesus Christ, who is our high priest. We do not need to go through another human being for things, but can go directly to God, no matter whether we are paid clergy or a lay person with no formal leadership role or a child who has not yet confirmed his or her beliefs.

As for what Pastors do, much will be determined by the church. In smaller, rural churches, you may do a bit of everything along with the more typical preaching and visitations. You probably aren't going to have a church admin, so you may end up doing the bulk of the administrative work along with regularly meeting with the different church committees (finance, trustees, etc.) You may be doing the bulk of the worship services, not only preaching, but prayer, liturgy, scripture reading, the youth/children's sermons (which take separate preparation time), and leading the hymns/music (with or without musical accompaniment.) Of course, there is communion, baptisms, weddings, and funerals, doing invocations for community events, participating in both church and community events, other special services, bible studies, confirmation classes, and anything and everything church related that I have left out. :)

A larger less rural church may have more of the above activities divided up between Pastor(s), Youth/Music directors, and lay leaders, and any other laypersons who have stepped forward to lead a ministry.

As a Pastor, people will both love and hate you and everything in between based on all sorts of different conditions.

As a Student Pastor or Licensed Local Pastor, you may be taking classes or doing prep work for them as well.

There are also various seminars, district meetings, and other things that come up that are required or highly encouraged.

If you are part-time and do not live in the community you are serving, travel time is also a factor.
 
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bekkilyn

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Thanks for the book recommendation. Alas, I'm not seeing it in my university's interlibrary loan network, but I'll look around for other options. I agree, it's a wonderful title.

There is a Kindle version of it too, so if you read e-books, check if the libraries have e-book options available as well.
 
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bekkilyn

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Oh one other thing I want to emphasize is that though the Pastor may only have degrees in religion and theology, and not a math or finance or real estate or business, etc. person, s/he is still responsible for church budgets, compiling financial reports, etc. similar to a CFO at other organizations. Many members on church committees may not have much knowledge of these things themselves, and are there because the committee is required to have so many members in it and not because they are required to have the skills and knowledge necessary to make financial or business decisions, so you will be dealing with those things as well.
 
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Paidiske

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I explicitly am not responsible for church budgets, financial reports, etc. That is intentionally a lay role in my church (a kind of separation of powers, if you like; I don't control everything).

And yes, I agree, if you're not housed by the church that has a big (very detrimental) impact.
 
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bekkilyn

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I explicitly am not responsible for church budgets, financial reports, etc. That is intentionally a lay role in my church (a kind of separation of powers, if you like; I don't control everything).

And yes, I agree, if you're not housed by the church that has a big (very detrimental) impact.

We are required to have a yearly outside audit on the finances for accountability. While lay people on the finance committee may complete many of the various reports, meet to go over the budget, etc., the pastor is still responsible for their accuracy and for submitting them to the conference, so will still need to know where all those numbers came from.
 
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MarkRohfrietsch

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I explicitly am not responsible for church budgets, financial reports, etc. That is intentionally a lay role in my church (a kind of separation of powers, if you like; I don't control everything).

And yes, I agree, if you're not housed by the church that has a big (very detrimental) impact.
Neither are our clergy. Our Congregations will provide either housing or a housing allowance; transportation allowance, cover cost phone(s), and Synod requires that we pay into a "moving fund". Our clergy as busy, and the need not worry about the every day stuff.
 
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Knee V

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For us Orthodox, the clergy of a local area ("diocese", as it is often referred to) consists of the bishop along with the presbters and deacons. Each of those is a function of the same Apostolic ministry.

The bishop, in his ordination, receives the fullness of the ministry of the Apostles, and he receives it from other bishops (ideally a bishop is ordained by all the bishops of his synod, and by a minimum of three bishops if all the bishops cannot be present, so as to avoid having a rogue bishop ordaining other bishops). In his diocese, the bishop, having the fulness of the Apostolic ministry, has full and final authority in all administrative, pastoral, and liturgical issues.

Within that diocese, the Presbyters also have a share in that same Apostolic ministry, albeit not the full share that the bishop receives. A presbyter and a bishop are identical in almost every respect, except that the presbyter's ordination lacks some of the full authority given to the bishop in his ordination. Otherwise they "do" almost all of the same functions on a day-to-day basis. A presbyter is ordained by the local bishop along with as many presbyters from that diocese as possible (and I think that that is typically at least three).

And within that diocese, the deacons also have a specific share in the ministry of the Apostles. Since Christ made his Apostles servants before they were anything else, the deacons receive the Apostolic ministry of service as their primary ministry. That is also why anyone who is ever ordained is always ordained as a deacon first, because Christ's ministers must be servants before all else. The deacon is ordained by the local bishop along with as many other deacons from the diocese as is possible.
 
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