QUESTION
Posted by Nathan on Nov 9th, 2007
2007
Nov 9
So here should be a fun discussion topic in light of the last post. In what arenas, if any, should a non-believer be allowed to serve in the church? Are people only allowed to serve in a ministry area once they have been converted, or are there places where they can serve and still be seeking? Could a pre-beleiver be a secretary or a janitor? Could they pass out the bulletins in the morning? Could they be a helper in sunday school?Â
**Note** heretical answers may be picked up and posted out of context at CRN, in which case you will recieve a CRN.info merit badge of honor :)Â Â
November 9th, 2007 at 12:35 pm
–Are people only allowed to serve in a ministry area once they have been converted,–
Perhaps we should begin by dividing work between ministry and non-minstry work. For my part, I would say that pastors, deacons, children’s minsters and workers, and such as that would be ministry, while sound and video, graphic design, building care, and construction are non-ministry.
I would say that any ministry position does need a believer to fill that position. Some non-ministry may also require it, but others would not. If, for example, the church building was build by a construction company or was something else before a church, we may assume that not everyone who swung a hammer to build it was a believer.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
That’s a good question, and I think it has to depend on the particular capacity you are talking about. Frankly, I have a bigger problem with the number of churches that require that you be a member before you participate in anything. When I was a student, my wife and I were attending a church and we were singing in the choir. One day after a practice, the worship pastor approached us and told us that we couldn’t be in the choir because we weren’t members of the church. There was no reason for us to become members at a faith community in a geographical area that we were not planning on staying in, just to have to transfer membership again in about a year, so we stopped singing in the choir.
They could have kicked me out for any number of reasons, including the fact that I cannot carry a tune in a bucket vocally, but my wife has a beautiful voice, and she was upset about not being able to worship through using her God-given talent in the choir.
Restricting believers who are not “members” is a bigger problem to me. I think there are posts within a church that a nonbeliever could fill, and ones that a nonbeliever shouldn’t fill.
November 9th, 2007 at 12:48 pm
This illustrates beautifully, why I believe we just ought to do away with choir’s!
November 9th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Any position in the church, when filled by unbelievers/sinners which shows the church as condoning sin or unbelief cannot be filled by them. These are permanent positions.
Ministries must be filled by believers. Minstries are expected to be obedient to God. It makes no sense to include in a minstry people who are disobedient and we somehow assume they can be somehow turn obedient in a much more stressful environment such as a minstry.
When we ask ourselves the question :” but we don’t have enough people to do _____ minstry or mr/miss/mrs/mdm _____ is so talented” - we ask ourselves - is the ministry for us or for God? If it is for God do you not trust that God will provide the very people for the ministry?
A ministry that disobeys God’s commands e.g. putting non-believer/blatant sinners in leadership positions or women in leadership-over-men positions (1Tim2) show no faith in God - should we not trust God to provide the people? God is interested in faithfulness, not ministries, as it is written
” i desire mercy, not sacrifice” (in ministries, it is a form of sacrifice of time)
November 9th, 2007 at 1:03 pm
Why do i have a smiley face badge? CRN.com calls me a heretic lol?
November 9th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
I tend to agree with jazzact’s opinion that for positions such as janitor or facilities managment, it may be OK for a non-believer to do those things.
I think a lot of this controversy would go away if church relied less on paid staff people for every niche and actually depended on believers in the body to do more of the actual work. It obviously becomes more difficult once there is a huge building to take care of, but I sometimes wonder if we don’t care more about the buildings more than the people in them.
November 9th, 2007 at 1:29 pm
I think being too stringent is a sign of Neo-Donatism.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
My general rule for this one is that if you are teaching, praying, leading worship or put into a place as an example who shares their life with others as an example (sunday school teachers, youth workers, mentors etc.)
Then yes you need to be a believer to serve in that way. But if it’s just a hands-on sort of task or position, I not only think we should allow non-believers to take on these tasks but we should be extatic that someone would chose to do a job surrounded by Christians!
I also think it would help Christians to be on their best behavior in church, I think sometimes people view the church as this bizzarre vaccum where nobody who thinks differently from them will/should reside, so they seem to be very lax and just let a lot of ugly words and actions come out at church events, functions and meetings, but having someone who has to show up to someone could be a reminder that they need to be a light even in the church!
It can be a wonderful oppurtunity for someone to be surrounded by a community of believers who will hopefully reflect Christ in all they say and do towards them!
November 9th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
Since we’re on the topic of church, can I ask about something that I’m really kind of confused about? In Matthew 16:18 and 19:17 (in the NIV) Jesus uses the word ‘church’. The thing I don’t get is that when he said this, the church didn’t exist. So I’m told that the word he used is “ecclesia” (sp?) which is a Greek word meaning ‘called out ones’, which we translate to mean ‘church’. Except that Jesus didn’t speak Greek, he spoke Aramaic, and no-one seems to know what the Aramaic word he used was, or what Aramaic word might have been translated as ‘called out ones’. Does anyone know what Jesus was referring to? It seems to me like someone, somewhere along the line, has put the word ‘church’ in Jesus’ mouth. In any event, ‘called out ones’ doesn’t seem like a very good definition of church at all, so I’m wondering if someone might know what that meant at the time, as well.
November 9th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
RWK,
Actually, most recent scholarship has concluded that the common language of natives of Israel in the first century was Hebrew, not Aramaic. The concept of ekklesia, developed from the Roman use of the word to mean those who were “called out” in service to “god” (that is, Caesar). This is the word used by Paul to describe the church, in imagery we miss, and is likely congruent in meaning to what Jesus used - those “called out” as servants of God (the One true God).
November 9th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I agree Joe, I am personally not a fan of choirs. I was, however, newly-wed at the time and my wife wanted me to join with her.
The community I am part of now does not have anything resembling a choir, we have a band and we play the kind of music ODMs hate. I play bass and harmonica (we only use it for a couple of songs) in the band.
The reason I now mention this is Kevin I’s “general rule.” When you talk about leading worship, then does that mean the “worship leader” - more often than not the rythm guitarist and main vocalist in the band, or every member of the band? If you are talking about the “worship leader,” then I wholeheartedly agree - it is insincere at best for a nonbeliever to lead people in worship, and if authentic worship cannot be had by the “leader” because he or she does not believe, then it is inappropriate for them to thus lead. However, I don’t think that it is necessary for all of the members of the band to necessarily be believers, even though they have a part in the leading of the worship.
More than once we have had someone playing with our band, in practice and then at the Sunday gathering, who was not a believer. I think there are times when we pass up opportunities to be missional and to form real relationships with people for Christ because we tell people they have to do or believe XYZ before we will spend time with them.
November 9th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
i’ve had non-christian instrumentalists.
we’ve shared Christ with them.
they’ve prayed the prayer…
Is that good enough?
Or was that compromised methodology?
never mind “use all means to save some”…
November 9th, 2007 at 4:11 pm
I totally agree with having non-christian instrumentalists. I don’t think they need to “pray the prayer” to play with the band. NC, I think you and I are on the same pae on this one.
November 9th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
pae = page
November 9th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
Personally, I’ve only had a non-Christian play with us once. It was a one-time thing, and the guy was genuinely looking for truth. He was a music major, and hung out with us constantly, and we were doing an acoustic worship set. He played upright bass, and I think it was alright for a special thing.
As far as having a “regular” on the team being a non-Christian, I would not be comfortable with it. I think doing it regularly would give the impression of worship as a show or performance. I think that the people who are on the stage or leading worship need to have a good understanding of that difference. How can members on a worship team lead others in worship if they aren’t really worshipping?
November 9th, 2007 at 4:51 pm
I think the biggest issue is that instead of letting God place someone in the ministry that He wants, our churches are set up in such a way that more time and energy is wasted on “administration” of the instittion than real ministry. Now, there is the gift of administration… yet is an usher as we have it today the same as those who served the tables in Acts?
What I mean is many people depend on other men to tell them what their ministry is. I see that many “sin” issues would be gone if the person would seek after God and pursue His Calling on their life with all abandon.
To have people have to go to a class, and jump through all these hoops just to lead a bible study seems to miss that God often is more spontanious.
Again, the person with a clear vision from God will have less time and energy to persue “sin” if they are pursuing his/her calling. So the issue of “should” seems to be out of sinc to me with the biblcal model of “pursue”.
Be blessed,
iggy
November 9th, 2007 at 5:16 pm
I think unsaved people can perform clerical and maintenance tasks, however only believers should participate in ministies.
November 9th, 2007 at 5:54 pm
Most non-believers willing to work/help out in a church are ones who are searching for truth and are interested in learning more about God. I have a friend at church who ran the sound system/power point Sunday mornings. He helped for about a year and eventually became a Christian. It was really cool. I think when you invite non-believers who are interested to come and help out with small jobs like that it does make them feel welcomed and comfortable coming to church. However if the non-believer helping out seems to show no interest in God, you might want to ask them what they are doing there. But that doesn’t happen too often, I wouldn’t think.
November 9th, 2007 at 6:19 pm
Chris - Thanks. I’m still not sure I understand what Jesus might have meant by using this word in the way he did - Paul is a little easier to get a handle on. I think you’re right though - there’s an image here that I may never see (on account of it being about 2000 years away)
Okay then… end of off-topic stuph!!!
November 9th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
–This illustrates beautifully, why I believe we just ought to do away with choir’s!–
Only if we can do away with all church music. I’m not exactly a big fan of the ‘praise band’ type of arrangement, either.
November 9th, 2007 at 7:27 pm
My opinion on the matter is that non-Christians should never be allowed to serve. I understand the difficult position it places me in because it is very exclusive and prevents the above examples coming about, however I believe what I do due to my own past experience. I posted it once before, and I will again for this: I at one stage wanted to subvert the church as a non-Christian. Give me as much as you want on discerment, but the church as a whole is lacking, and if you think you have it, you don’t and you might miss.
One of the biggest points of confusion for me is the strange mix of “the gathering of the saints” and making a service open for “seekers”. Making a service seeker friendly past what is specified in 1st Corinthians loses depth - music is not as deep, teaching isn’t either, and a variety of other things. Then what happens is that the emphasis is places on home groups to get into deeper things leaving the pastor the teacher if things shallow and “lay people” the teacher of the deeper - or it never happens.
I don’t understand why people even go to church at all rather than simply having it all in the homes. Making the large gathering purely outreach and church is in the home I understand however.
How all my ramble relates? I would however think it OK for non-Christians to help out in the proposed evangelistic service because that’s what it’s for, just never in the gathering.
November 9th, 2007 at 7:31 pm
Dave,
Interesting split you have between the gathering (ecclesia) for the believers, and the large groups with unbelievers for evangelism. I’m inclined to agree with you. Acts 2 all the way!!!
Joe
November 9th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
That’s my thoughts
I simply don’t understand why people struggle with a system that just isn’t in the bible - and then wonder why there’s problems with it.