Professional what?

The other day I overheard someone talk about how church organizations (in general) and pastors (in specific) need to be “more professional”. Regardless of how I feel about that statement, I found myself playing along, and asking myself the following question:

“So, what type of professional should the church be?”

I quickly thought of three different kinds of professional frameworks we might emulate:

First, we could be corporate professional. This construct would ensure we came to work clothed in our best business-wear, had pristine org charts & strategic plans, clocked in right at 8 to conduct back-to-back meetings, and were assured of our impact primarily by the numbers (salvations, attendance, tithes) we produced.

Then there is clinical professional. Maybe we could provide proper service to “patients” that come in for some sort of counseling or spiritual therapy. Careful records of each member could be kept, and personal ministry could be well maintained (provided we kept our professional clinical distance).

Finally creative professionals came to mind. What if the church office looked more like a movie studio, television production, or band practice space? Say what you want about late nights, no dress codes, and unorthodox work habits, but you can’t say that creative professionals aren’t a part of defining our culture.

Admittedly, most people think of corporate or possibly clinical, when they talk about being more professional. Though we find excellence and impact produced from creative fields all the time, I have only noticed the outside fringes of the church embrace that as a valid professional model.

I think we can learn from and apply parts of all of these but I’m not arguing for us to uncritically reproduce any of it. We can, of course, learn from other models (you can think of more professionals: athletics, academics, military…) but before we decide we are going to copy the culture, can we remember some things? Things like…

• … the church is not a business; it is a body.

• …though we are in need of structure and excellence and hard work (I’m not suggesting we are called to laziness), what defines us is prophetic, not professional.

• …the fact that organic relationships drive our life together, not the org charts, staff manuals, job descriptions and performance reviews that—as good as they may be—at best can only serve to provide support for what we are really all about.

As I was considering all of this, I heard about a book by John Piper, written to pastors: Brothers We Are Not Professionals. Though I share Piper’s passion for Jesus, I don’t always share his theology. I do, however, look forward to reading this book if the following quote I found reflects the rest of it:

“We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. The mentality of the professional is not the mentality of the prophet—Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry.”

I’d love to hear your thoughts, too!