THE OFFICE OF THE PASTOR

Pastor is not a title. It's a function. It simply means shepherd. 

Etymologically, it's from the Latin verb "pascere" (past participle: "pastus") meaning "to lead to pasture, set to grazing, cause to eat".

Some mature Christians are called to pastor souls by helping and serving to provide essential spiritual guidance and nourishment for other believers, not to replace but to confirm the personal leading of the Holy Spirit, and most importantly to bring God's children to maturity. Every Christian needs a 'pastor', especially new or young Christians.

However, many pastors are presumptuously pastoring the unsaved who they have not taken time to lead to Christ. Plus, many pastors are not committed to true discipleship and to bringing believers to spiritual maturity. They are responding to the socioeconomic and sociocultural demands of members who desire the things of the world more than they desire to know God and grow spiritually, which their actions clearly show regardless of their lip service and emotional patronage of God.

A pastor is a spiritual coach or mentor. A mature Christian can essentially pastor the souls that God brings to them without wearing a clerical collar or cloak. A person does not need to "start a church" to function as a "pastor" over the souls God has given them the responsibility of raising to spiritual maturity through travailing prayers and the ministry of the Word. Actually, some people are pastoring others without the official title.

A person can be in a church that has a pastor but still not truly have a pastor in their lives because they have no spiritual accountability and no one is responsible for their discipleship as young Christians. Reason why many remain spiritual babies whose growth in the spirit has been truncated or even displaced with God-sponsored earthly pursuits. The typical pastors and their 'churches' have crowds who give their money to church, for whatever spiritually sub-optimal reasons, but not their hearts to God.

There is an abuse of this word and the office of the "pastor" today. Many who should be genuinely preaching the Gospel and pastoring souls through earnest personal discipleship quickly become "church owners", primarily as a source of income, and they become caught up in administration and building a "successful ministry" in the eyes of men. This is a form of abuse of religion. Remove the possibility of income generation from "church business" and see how many truly called pastors will go into the ministry.

As a brother or sister in Christ, you can function in your God-given ministry as an apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor or teacher, with or without an official title. Ministry gifts are not titles but ministerial functions.

Christians should learn what true ministry is and stop abusing it with their carnal ego trips and fleshly focus of titles. There is nothing wrong with bearing or not bearing a title. But there is everything wrong with bearing a title in pride or presumption. Pride and humility are issues of the heart irrespective of how "humble" we present or project ourselves. And God is the accurate judge of that. Appending a bogus title does not always represent a gnawing sense of pride or vainglory. It is sometimes indicative of a sense of low self-worth, need for human validation, social status, religious ranking or public honor. It could also be the result of plain ignorance and societal stereotypes. 

May Christians mature so we can begin to see things as God sees them. This is my humble submission.

Grace and peace be with us all.