From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Paul's main thing that he would do when he would set up a church, he would appoint elders. Titus was going to have to carry that out. Paul reminds him what he was to be looking for: the character of a pastor. He lists 17 things here, and I've taken the 17 things and put them together and compiled them to come up with four major requirements that the Lord says you need to look for when you're looking for a pastor.

Larry Nobles: What are the biblical qualifications for a pastor? Today's candid lesson is called "When Searching for a Pastor," and in it, we're going to learn key godly characteristics of a pastor that they must possess in order to effectively serve people and glorify God.

This is From His Heart with pastor, teacher, and author Dr. Jeff Schreve. This lesson is from the eight-message series, "Setting the House in Order: A Study of the Book of Titus," and we'll be airing it for the rest of this month. You can find out more about this series when you go to fromhisheart.org. First, though, open your Bible to the New Testament book of Titus. Here is Pastor Jeff to identify the critical things you need to consider when your church is searching for a pastor.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: I have been a pastor now for a little over 16 years, and over those 16 years, I've talked to several pastor search committees. This is what I've found about pastor search committees. When you get on a pastor search committee, it seems like it's such a glamorous thing until you're on there. Then you find out this isn't so glamorous. This is a lot of prayer and a lot of hard work, and it takes a lot of time. Sometimes people in the church don't realize how difficult it is to be on this pastor search committee and how much spiritual attack is involved.

If it takes some time to find a pastor, they think, "What are you people doing? Give me a week and I can find a pastor." But they don't understand the spiritual dynamics about it. I heard an interesting report from a pastor search committee. Obviously, this is just a little levity. It says that the pastor search committee approached the church and gave a report.

It says, "We have looked high and low and have not had great success finding a suitable candidate for our church, though we have one promising prospect." They thanked the church for their suggestions and followed up on each one with interviews and calling at least three references. The following is our confidential report, so nobody go and share this.

Adam: Good man, but has problems with his wife. One reference told us how he and his wife enjoyed walking naked in the woods. Noah: Former pastorate of 120 years with no converts. Prone to unrealistic building projects. Joseph: A big thinker, but a braggart. Believes in dream interpretation and has a prison record. Moses: A modest and meek man, but poor communicator. Even stutters at times. Sometimes blows his stack and acts rashly in business meetings. Some say he left an earlier church over a murder charge. We don't want him.

Deborah: One word—female. David: The most promising leader of all until we discovered the affair he had with his neighbor's wife. Solomon: Great preacher, but serious women problems. Elijah: Prone to depression and collapses under pressure. Hosea: A tender and loving pastor, but our people could never handle his wife's occupation. She's a prostitute, so that wasn't very good.

Jonah: Told us he was swallowed up by a great fish. He said the fish later spit him out on the shore near here. We hung up. Amos: Too much of a country hick. Backward and unpolished. With some seminary training, he might have promise, but he has a hang-up against wealthy people. John: He says he's a Baptist, but he doesn't dress like one. Maybe too Pentecostal. Tends to lift both hands into the air to worship when he gets excited. We limit that to one hand. Sleeps in the outdoors, has a weird diet, and provokes denominational leaders.

Peter: Too blue-collar. Has a bad temper. Even said to have cursed. He's a loose cannon. Paul: Powerful CEO type and fascinating preacher. However, he's short on tact, unforgiving with young ministers, harsh, and has even been known to preach all night. Timothy: Just too young. Judas: His references are solid. A steady plodder, conservative, good connections, knows how to handle money. We're inviting him to preach this Sunday in view of a call.

Pastor search committees can get it wrong. It's a daunting task to be on the pastor search committee. God tells us in His Word what a pastor search committee is to do and what they are to look for. The Bible lists it twice. It lists qualifications for pastor in the book of Titus, which is the pastoral epistle, and also in the book of Timothy, which is a pastoral epistle.

We have entitled this series on the book of Titus, "Setting the House in Order." It's based on verse five where Paul says this to Titus: "For this reason, I left you in Crete, which is an island, that you might set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you." Paul wasn't able to do all the things he wanted to do. He had to leave the island of Crete, and so he had Titus there. He said, "Titus, you finish what I started. You set in order what remains."

That "set in order what remains" is a medical term. It's like setting a crooked limb. That's what Titus was to do. One of the key things that he was to do was to appoint elders, pastors, overseers in the cities on the island of Crete. There were cities, and in those cities, there were churches. That was Paul's main thing that he would do when he would set up a church. He would appoint elders in the churches. He talks about that in Acts chapter 14, verse 23.

He wasn't able to do that, so Titus was going to have to carry that out. Then Paul reminds him what he was to be looking for: the character of a pastor. It's crucial for any church when they look for a pastor to review what God says about a pastor and what a pastor is to be. Titus chapter one, verse five: "For this reason, I left you in Crete, that you might set in order what remains and appoint elders in every city as I directed you."

Notice that for an elder, there are three words that are used interchangeably in the Bible: elder, pastor, and overseer. An elder is an *episkopos*. We get our word Episcopalian from that. An overseer is a bishop, and then you have a pastor who is a shepherd. So he says, "Appoint elders in every city: pastors, bishops, shepherds, overseers."

Then he says in verse six: "Namely, if any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation or rebellion. For the overseer," now he switches and he uses that other interchangeable term, "for the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict."

God's requirements for a pastor. He lists 17 things here. I've taken the 17 things and put them together and compiled them to come up with four major requirements that the Lord says you need to look for when you're looking for a pastor. Requirement number one: a pastor must be above reproach. He says this twice. He says it in verse six, and then he says it again in verse seven: above reproach.

It's used in Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter three. Look for a man who's above reproach. Interestingly, it says the same thing about a deacon. When you are selecting deacons, a deacon must be a man who's above reproach. Both of them are supposed to be above reproach. What exactly does it mean to be above reproach? That word in the Greek means that you are unaccused. There is nothing to take hold upon when it comes to your life. Nothing on one's conduct that someone could ground a charge against. It's the idea of being blameless.

When you talk about somebody being above reproach, that person is not sinless. He's blameless. You can't put blame to his charge. You can't go through his life and all of a sudden say, "He's got this huge inconsistency over here and this huge inconsistency over there." In the last city he lived in, he didn't pay the electric bill, he didn't pay his water bill, and he skipped town in the middle of the night. He doesn't have anything like that. He has to be above reproach.

I've told the deacons this before. When you look at people, pastors or deacons, and they have to be above reproach, you've got to be careful. If you raise the standard so high to where above reproach means sinless, nobody can serve. You'll never have a pastor, you'll never have a deacon, and you'll never have anybody serve in any capacity in that church because nobody is sinless. There is none righteous, not even one.

But there's a big difference between being sinless and being blameless, between being a person of moral character who doesn't have a bunch of things that people could come up in a court of law and say, "Yeah, but he did this, and yeah, but he did that, and yeah, but he did this other," that are just big glaring things. The pastor has to be above reproach. That is the first requirement, and that covers a multitude of things.

Larry Nobles: Pastor Jeff will cover more about these things in just a moment. But first, a quick reminder that From His Heart is here each and every day to help share truth, love, and hope to a hurting world. Our world is lost and hurting. People are longing to hear the truth spoken in love, and that's why your support is needed to spread the Gospel to people around the world through From His Heart, to others who may not know the real truth, the real love, and the real hope that's offered through Christ.

When you financially support From His Heart Ministries this month, you help us share the Gospel globally. We have weekly TV broadcasts in 182 countries, 850 radio stations just in the United States alone, and online hundreds of resources for people all over the world. You also help us lead more people into a deeper personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ, people like Gregory in Africa who shared, "Life is becoming harder and harder here. The devil is at work all the time, but your godly encouragement is a light to me and many others. So remember that all we're doing is not in vain. We're growing spiritually because of your ministry."

Would you please give this month to help continue to reach people like Gregory around the world? With that gift this month, we'll say thank you by sending you Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series, "Soul on Fire: God's Plan for Revival." Just call 866-40-BIBLE and make that gift of any amount. You can also go online to fromhisheart.org. Now, let's get back to part one of the message, "When Searching for a Pastor."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: In the book of Daniel, chapter six, when they were trying to find grounds to get at Daniel, they did a search on his life and they couldn't dig up any dirt on him. He was above reproach. They said, "The only way we can get at Daniel, it has to do with something regarding his God." If you remember the story in Daniel chapter six, that's how they got at Daniel. They got the king to pass a law that says no one can pray to a god other than King Darius for 30 days, and Daniel wasn't going to abide by that because he prayed three times a day to the Lord. He didn't care what they said. He didn't care what the law was. He was going to continue praying to God. That's a guy that had a great testimony. That's a guy who was above reproach.

So that's the very first requirement. The Lord says he must be above reproach. Requirement number two: a pastor must be a family man. Look at verse six. He says, "Namely, if any man be above reproach, the husband of one wife, having children who believe, not accused of dissipation, wild living, or rebellion." He goes right into the pastor's home. He talks about his marriage and he talks about his family. Those two things are critical.

If you ever serve on a pastor search committee, that's one of the first things you need to look at: What's this guy like at home? What's his home life like? What's his marriage like? What's his family life like? The Bible makes it clear in 1 Timothy chapter three: If a man cannot manage his own household, how is he going to manage the church of God? Your own home is a little church, and in every home, the husband, the dad, he's the pastor of that home. He is to lead his family, he is to love his wife, and he's to lead his children to faith in Jesus Christ.

Notice this: it says that this family man is to be a one-woman man, the husband of one wife. Literally, a one-woman man. That makes it very clear as to the gender of the pastor. If he is to be a husband of one wife, he's a man. That's really clear. It didn't say he or she is to be the spouse of one spouse. He's the husband of one wife.

Here's what I think the Scripture teaches very clearly when it comes to ministry. Can women do ministry? Yes. Yes, and in many cases, they can do it better than a man. A woman has a sensitivity to the things of God sometimes that men don't have. Naturally, they're just more sensitive to things around them. They can definitely do ministry. Women can do ministry. Women can't be the minister. That role belongs to a man.

God has set that up for a man. Anytime you see a church where the woman is the lead pastor, the senior pastor, it's a dysfunctional place. You're not operating the way God intended. It's very obvious because in the home, the Lord has made it clear: the husband is the leader. Doesn't mean the husband's better. It just means God designated him the leader. He is to be the leader of the home. God has set it up to where the man has been given the place of leadership in the home and in the church.

He's a husband of one wife. He's obviously a man. What does that mean to be the husband of one wife? Some people say it means no polygamy. You can't have two or three or four wives. That's pretty good for a pastor search committee. Just make sure he doesn't have more than one wife. That would x him out right away. No Mormons for our church. Obviously, it would cover that. You can't have more than one wife. Some say it's no polygamy and it's no promiscuity. You can't be like Solomon and have a bunch of wives and then girlfriends on the side. You can't have that. But that's just a no-brainer. So he's got to mean more than just that.

Some have said that means you can't have ever been married more than once. Then the argument comes, "What if you're a godly guy and you marry a godly girl and then she dies, and then three or four years pass and you marry somebody else? Now you're not the husband of one wife. You've had one at a time, but you could say, 'I've had two wives.'" Some say that knocks you out. You can't have that. You can't be a person who remarries, even if your wife died. Some are real strict on what that means.

How does divorce figure in there? Can the pastor be divorced and remarried? Is he still the husband of one wife if he is divorced and remarried? I was listening to a sermon by John MacArthur. He takes a real hard stand on that. His attitude is that there are certain qualifications for certain positions, and you can disqualify yourself. It doesn't mean you're thrown to the trash heap, but it means you can't do certain things that you would ordinarily be able to do if you've had some failures in the past. He believes that divorce is one.

On the other side of the spectrum, you have a guy I respect so much, Adrian Rogers. Adrian Rogers, before he went to heaven, he used to say, "God used Moses. Moses was the great prophet, the great leader, the pastor so to speak of the huge church in the wilderness. Well, he had committed murder. If God can still use you and you've committed murder, but He can't use you if you've been divorced?" Because how could if Moses had divorced his wife, then he couldn't be used?

I'm not exactly sure, but I will say this: I think that God puts a high standard on a pastor. I know He does. I have known some guys who early on in their ministry, they've had marital problems and they experienced a divorce. It's not something that they wanted. It takes two to make a marriage work. I had a seminary professor whose wife divorced him early on in his ministry. No kids. He was one of my best professors, such a humble guy. But it was going to be difficult for him in ministry because the husband of one wife was going to be something that plagued him.

Your home for a pastor is critical. Your marriage is critical. If you lose your marriage, you lose your ministry in a great way because you have this thing that's there that makes it hard to be used to the maximum because of that situation and how that sticks in people's minds. So he's to be a one-woman man, literally what that says, and he is to be leading his wife and kids in the fear of God.

It says, "Having children who believe, not accused of dissipation, wild living, or rebellion." Look at his kids. Are you leading your kids to the Lord? Are they walking with God? Are you having influence in your kids' lives? Because if not, then that's a big red flag that says, "Hold on. He's got three kids. His three kids are little hellions, and we're going to put him over the house of God?" I think not. You look at his family. That is what the Lord says a pastor must be: a family man.

It's a word for all of us, especially us guys. It doesn't matter what you do out in the business world or even in the church, if your home is falling apart, God looks at that and God says, "Fix that first." I still remember my pastor when I was in Houston. We had this illusionist come in for a big event for two days. Thousands of people were there. One guy after the event was over, he came up and he was all upset about his wife because she didn't want him to do his craft, which was working on his tricks and his illusions.

He was an odd fellow, but he was just like, "Magic's my life. Doing magic tricks and illusions, that's just my life. If she can't get on board with that, then I don't know what I'm going to do because this is what God has called me to do, and this is my ministry." My pastor, Damon Shook, who is normally very discreet and diplomatic, just looked at him and said, "Hey, buddy, if you lose your marriage, you don't have a ministry." That guy was like, "Whoa." He wasn't expecting that. That guy needed to hear that. He needed to know that you've got a wife there that you need to take care of, and you don't need to just throw her over to the side because you're working on your ministry.

Larry Nobles: You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve today and the message, "When Searching for a Pastor." Today's subject matter is too often ignored in churches, and it is indeed essential. But maybe you know somebody serving on a pastor search committee and they're concerned about the biblical way to fulfill their obligations. It could be that they'd find a copy of today's message helpful.

You can go to fromhisheart.org and click the "Listen" link to listen to it or to download a free MP3 that you can share with them. We'll have part two tomorrow. This message is also one of eight in the series, "Setting the House in Order: A Study of the Book of Titus." For more information or to get this message or the series, call 866-40-BIBLE or go to fromhisheart.org.

We're delighted that you joined us here today on From His Heart. I am Larry Nobles, and we hope you'll come back for part two of the lesson, "When Searching for a Pastor," from the series "Setting the House in Order: A Study of the Book of Titus." Thank you for joining us today for the message, "When Searching for a Pastor." That's on Tuesday when we again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.