What is difference between a minister, preacher, and evangelist? What are you? What does your congregation have? What does your congregation want? When does the term “pastor” apply? Clergy consist of what?
Hello Gene, these forums are supposed to be for discussion of the software, not general questions about faith, Christianity, etc. A different website is used for that: https://faithlife.com. Do you have Logos? If you do, we could point you to resources in which you would find some of these answers. All the best.
A different website is used for that: https://faithlife.com.
Another web site is => http://christiandiscourse.com/
Keep Smiling [:)]
Welcome back, Gene! I'd wondered if you had perminently departed the flock, forum, community, or powerful-protectors-of-Logos, or us nere-do-wells!
I'm sure, if you haven't been sent to the ChristianDiscourse corner, many will chime in.
Here in Sedona, we have the sequence, and it's how we tell who's denomination-type one is a leader of. Life would end as we now know it, if there was a pastor at our local Church of Christ. And our pastor turns his nose up at an evangelist (theologically). Indeed, how would our congregents address our pastor, if he wasn't a pastor?
Now, the bigger question is an 'assistant-pastor'. Anyone from the preacher-world can not bear to hear 'assistant-pastor'. Oh my. How can one 'assistant' spreading the gospel??
My Dad started out as an evangelist in the 1950s. Then he latched on to preacher in the late 1960s. But minister was always for the folks downtown who didn't know correct titles.
Ok, sorry. But welcome back!
There are a couple of things that these terms can often tell you about a particular Christian group. The first is whether it draws a clergy/laity distinction. Clergy typically consist of those leaders who have been formally ordained by the denomination. Someone who assists in the worship service, but hasn't been ordained, generally isn't considered to be part of the clergy. The second is how the group understands the role of the leader. The terms "preacher" and "evangelist" are fairly self-explanatory here. "Pastor" implies a little different understanding of the role, one that applies the verses from the NT that deal with shepherding the flock to that particular role. Other groups apply those verses to the role of the elders, for instance, and would likely use another term such as preacher or evangelist for the person who delivers the sermons. That's an example of how a congregation's understanding of the overall leadership structure can affect the terms they chose to use for specific roles.
