Theology, Pastoral Ministry, and More with Ken Keathley
The Forum often calls attention to the intersection between theology and culture. Many of my own perspectives on this was forged through the Center for Faith and Culture at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. In the past year, the Center has been led by long-time pastor and theology professor Ken Keathley. He has authored or contributed to several books, including A Theology for the Church, perhaps the most substantial contemporary systematic theology from a Baptist perspective. He was generous to offer some of his time to discuss theology, pastoral ministry, and more.
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Jackson Watts (JW): Dr. Keathley, it was good seeing you at this past annual ETS meeting. Share a little bit of the value of being involved with an organization like the Evangelical Theological Society.
Ken Keathley (KK): ETS is available particularly for those who have some type of theological education. It does require that someone have a Master of Divinity in order to attend because it is a meeting of scholars engaged in academic, biblical-theological studies. Any student, though, can get a student membership, and I would encourage every M.Div. student to attend at least one meeting during their ministry studies. This allows the student to become knowledgeable of the serious issues of the day, the state of biblical-theological research, and it would put a face to the names of the authors they are reading. It would also give them an opportunity to meet the various authors face-to-face, hear paper presentations, see what they’re thinking and why they wrote what they wrote. So it is a great opportunity, especially for any theological student.
For a pastor who wants to stay informed and engaged on the issues of the day, this is a great way to do it. It is an academic venue, but the things that are taught and discussed in an academic venue show up in the local church within 3-5 years. So it’s a great way to know what’s coming around the curve.
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JW: You’ve been in academic administration and instruction for many years. During that time you’ve served in a number of ministries—often as an interim pastor, but in other capacities, too. Could you share how your pastoral ministry and your vocation as theology professor relate and fuel each other? Your last answer suggests they do.
KK: I never considered myself to be a professor who preaches. I am a pastor who works in a seminary. I was a pastor for nearly 15 years (a senior pastor) before I ever became a professor. And so I hope I approach what I’m doing at Southeastern from that perspective. In fact, if you look at my website, the name of it is Theology for the Church. It’s not “theology for the academy.” It’s not “theology for the eggheads.” It’s theology for the church. I believe that everything that we’re doing should be for the purpose of serving the local church, and, as our mission statement says, “advancing the Great Commission.” If it can’t be clearly demonstrated that this is the ultimate goal, then you have to ask what the goal or purpose really is. So I do want to have one foot firmly planted in the church, and one in the academy.
There are many pastors who may hear that and say, “Well great. I understand why you should be engaged in the church; why then should I be so concerned about an academic discipline like systematic theology?” That’s because it is essential that a pastor, a missionary, or any Christian leader should be theologically engaged. If you’re not, someone else is doing your thinking for you. You won’t be able then to discern whatever new ideas come around. Let’s face it: there’s a new fad in churches seemingly every six months. Some of them are good ideas; others are not. How does one discern one from the other? You say, “Well I’ve got the Bible.” That is the foundation, but the church has 2,000 years of engaging with Scripture, and it helps to be informed on how the church has approached some of these issues in the past, or else—you know what they say—those who neglect history are condemned to repeat it.
Jackson, you and I are from an Anabaptist background. We’re part of a heritage that sometimes says, “It’s not just the Bible alone. It’s the Bible only.” And as a result, our heritage has not paid attention to how some of the things have been dealt with in the past and so we have repeated certain mistakes over and over again. It is a very important thing to not only know the Bible, submit to its authority, and stand on its infallibility and inerrancy, but also to be engaged with the community of faith. We need checks and balances in the approach we’re taking. And so it is very important that the work of ministry and theological education fuel and inform one another, as you put it.
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JW: I know from when I was studying with you that you were in several interim pastorates. I’m especially interested in that because we don’t hear much about the unique role of an interim pastor. What advice would you give to guys who will perhaps serve in this capacity one day, or ones who already are doing so?
KK: Probably the number one requirement for being an interim pastor is having had experience in being a full-time senior pastor. I’m not convinced that someone who has never worked as a pastor on a permanent basis will be able to come in as an interim and understand the dynamics of what’s going on. First, there are certain things you learn as a pastor that you really can’t learn any other way. Let’s face it: I don’t think church leadership can be learned in a classroom reading a book. It just can’t be done.
JW: Laughs
KK: You’ve gotten married since the last time we really talked. You can read books about marriage. You can take courses and go through marriage counseling. But nothing beats actually being married for you to finally understand, “This is what this is all about”—same thing with parenting. Who wants to attend a conference or seminar where someone talks about parenting, yet they themselves are not engaged or involved with children? I think that the first thing for an effective interim pastor, assuming you’re already solid on Scripture and theologically informed, is to have a significant amount of experience.
The interim pastor almost always goes into a church that is facing great challenges. It is a very traumatic thing for a church to lose its pastor, both in bad circumstances and good ones. If they lost their pastor in bad circumstances, they’re going through the trauma of a pastor having to resign because of some unpleasantry. That’s always tough. But I’ve also gone to be an interim where the previous pastor had retired after 38 years with his ministry ending on a high note. That situation had its own set of challenges because they had lost their leader who they loved and adored. His word was almost the fifth gospel.
I went into one situation where the retired pastor’s name was Charles. He was just a great, godly man. The very first Sunday I stood up and said, “Folks, my role here is to be the ‘not Charles.’ Let me be the ‘not Charles’ so you won’t judge the next pastor in that way. What will happen is you will hear me preach and think, ‘Well he’s good and all, but he’s not Charles.” The role of the interim then is to be cartilage. The role of cartilage is to help two bones from rubbing together and causing any damage. His job is to absorb the shocks, helping the joint to work properly. The interim does have a very odd role in that his role, if the church isn’t on mission, is to get them on mission. At the same time, we shouldn’t implement things that require long-term structural change. In other words, I can’t start a new building program. I can’t start a revamp of their leadership. I can’t redo their constitution. There are all kinds of things I may look at and say, “This needs to be done.” But it requires someone who will take 5-7 years to do it.
An interim has to prepare the people to be eager and willing for change without implementing the change himself. That’s not easy. But you must refocus their attention once again on Christ, the Great Commission, the promises of the Gospel, and help them look hopefully ahead to the future. Then when the new pastor comes in, they aren’t simply grieving over the past; they’re anticipating the future. That’s a very rewarding thing to see happen. I think of churches where the pastor has had to resign for some tragic reason (moral failure and things of that nature), and the church is teetering on the brink. Then they call in a wonderful, godly man to serve. I’ve had the opportunity to return 8-10 years later and they’re doing great. That’s a very rewarding thing.
Probably the most difficult thing that an interim pastor has to deal with are situations in which there is a staff member that has to be dealt with in very clear way, with integrity, that addresses real problems. And many times those problems need to be addressed before the new pastor comes in. That’s probably the least pleasant thing that an interim might have to deal with, but he has to do so with integrity, transparency, and with backbone.
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JW: As you were speaking, I looked on my shelf and saw a book on church government that your boss, Danny Akin, contributed to. Do you think it’s fair to say that some of the troubles you mentioned stem from this single elder/pastor model that is so common, especially in Baptist circles, in which you’re “the guy”? In the case of the long-tenured pastor, you unavoidably run into that kind of thing. Despite all the benefits of long-tenure, when you have “the guy” you run into that more than if you have a plural-elder, plural-pastor approach. Can you comment on that?
KK: You alluded to Dr. Akin’s contribution in that book. You’ll notice that he does not argue for single-elder position, but he does argue for a senior-elder position, which would be a sort of a hybrid where you do have a plurality of elders, but clearly one is a first among equals. I think that there is a lot New Testament evidence for that model. Take the book of Acts, for example. It’s clear that the church at Jerusalem had elders, and yet at the Jerusalem Council clearly James is the “senior pastor.” And so I think that it is good to have a plurality of elders. But let’s not kid ourselves: the preaching pastor has a role that the rest of them do not have. Think of the churches that have well-known pastors in a plurality situation. Does anyone not think that Mark Dever is truly the senior pastor at his church, or John Piper at his church, or John MacArthur at his church? All of these men (Piper is retired now) are in a plurality situation, but they are the 600-pound gorillas in the room.
JW: Laughs
KK: So let’s not think for a moment that plurality solves all problems. You’re always going to have “that senior pastor” who is there for a long time. He will have great authority and power—it’s a very dangerous thing. It’s a wonderful thing, but it’s a dangerous thing, too. There is the danger of a mini-papacy where you become a mini-pope in that church. If you’re a man of integrity who preaches with power, and you’ve been a blessing to people as you have baptized their children, conducted their parents’ funerals, counseled them through the dark days, have fed them, led them, been that spiritual compass in their life for 25 years—you’re just going to have a tremendous amount of moral authority in their life. So having the feedback of a plurality setting obviously has its advantages.
Let’s face it: In the settings you and I are in with our typical churches, the deacons operate as an elder board rather than a body of deacons. Why is this? Because we don’t have an elder board! They’ve just stepped into a vacuum. There has to be a group of laymen who help the pastor in making decisions about the day-to-day decisions of the church. That’s just the nature of a church. If you don’t have a plurality of elders, the deacons then step in and find themselves in that default role, particularly if you’re in a church in which there has been a significant turnover of pastors. Who’s going to take care of the day-to-day operations? Well, the deacons end up doing that. As a result, deacons don’t do what deacons really should be doing. They’re busy being elders, so they’re not busy being deacons. And so there is a real confusion in the typical Baptist church as to what the proper tasks and roles of deacons are, and I’d say that in just about every church that I can think of that has a single-pastor model, the deacons are operating as elders rather than deacons. I think that’s true 98% of the time.
Now, let’s not throw too many rocks at the single pastor. It isn’t as if there was some type of malicious plan that brought this about. During early Baptist history in America, we were able to spread across the country much quicker than many other denominations because our polity allowed us to have new congregations sprout up. Take my wife’s grandfathers for example. They were part-time pastors at a number of churches. In other words, on one Sunday they would be at one church, and the next Sunday at another church because they didn’t have enough preachers to go around. So they were only enough pastors to have one pastor per church. Well of course you’re going to have a single pastor with that model. That’s part of the reason why the single pastor model sprouted up the way that it did in our Baptist context.
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Part Two will post tomorrow.
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