This is from Monday Morning Insight —
Let’s come right out and say it. Here are two concerns that people have about senior pastors that aren’t married.
1. That they are prone to promiscuity. Unmarried pastors do not have a biblical way to carry out their ‘man urges’, thus we think they’re more likely
to act outside of scripture when it comes to sexuality.2. If they’re not married, some people will think (although they would never admit it) that the pastor is gay. After all, if he wasn’t, he’d be married.
Both are unfounded. Pick up the newspaper every day and you’ll see that being married as a pastor doesn’t keep you from either #1 or #2.
In the Churches of Christ, it’s nearly impossible for a single minister to get a job, not just as a pulpit preacher but as a youth minister or anything else. It’s true. Just ask around.
However, my church has had both male and female single ministers over the years. And our experience has been very good. We are presently in the course of a youth minister search, and some parents are asking for a single minister now! Really. The suggestion was even made that we hire a single female and a single male.
Question: If you were on the search committee for your congregation to hire a minister, would you consider singleness an advantage, disadvantage, or irrelevant? Why?
if i were on the search committee, one thing i’d take into consideration is protecting the single minister’s right (and need) to have a life outside of ministry.
obviously i don’t know the parents of whom you speak when you say they’re asking for a single minister. but i fear many parents who would desire a single minister for their children do so because they know this minister will have more time to give the kids. and that may very well be the case. [paul kind of says as much when he writes about remaining single…]
but i feel we often desire to employ ministers because we’re unwilling to be responsible for ministry ourselves. we’ve all got some roles we ought to be playing within the church, and parents are notorious (in my opinion) for handing theirs off to the youth minister.
i would not fear necessarily hiring a single minister; rather i might fear some of the parents’ motives for wanting to do so.
* [my little pet peeve of us expecting too much from a (single) minister is probably only second to believing we’re hiring two people (husband and wife) when we’re really only hiring one. a single male and a single female youth minister certainly would get more work done than the last married couple we hired — or were we only paying one salary back then?]
I would want a single male minister, especially if my daughter was the only girl and she was ugly as mud.
Other than that, I would greatly prefer he be married and not be the touchy, feely type..
There are pros and cons either way. @JamesBrett made some good observations, imo. I remember, in my youth, learning that a single minister had had himself castrated so as to better serve without the distractions of his male urges. I believe this was actually correct. I knew this man personally, and he was one of the finest people I've ever known.
Jay,
In my experience, in the case of married men, we hire only the man on paper, and yet the unspoken expectations put upon the wife is at least half if not equal to the stress of the explicit job responsibilities of the man. This has always seemed terribly unfair to me. Why not just say it all out loud and on paper and compensate the wife as well?
Maybe that complication is another mark in favor of single ministers.
(Why are singly ministers so taboo? i know what the post says, but surely that can't have been the case forever. If we rewind far enough, we're talking about Catholicism and every minister was supposed to be single. So did ministers start marrying just to make the point that they rejected the Catholic prohibition?
Furthermore, why is single-hood period so taboo? Both males and females in the church going into their 30's who are still single–i've seen it myself, people act like there's something wrong with that or those people can't possibly be well or okay and they need our help getting hitched. What is that about?)
–guy
My concern with single ministers, especially youth ministers, is that I think women should council women and teenage girls, not men-married or single. I agree that if a married minister is hired they should interview the wife and ask if she is interested in assisting in this manner. There is a level of propriety that needs to be considered. This, of course, is coming from a mother with a daughter. If there is going to be a single youth minister I think there should be a woman involved to also.
Man in general is a pack animal. To have one not want to belong to a pack makes it a Lobo. The pack runs off any Lobo as it never brings to but takes from the pack..
Humans are suspicious of anyone different and not joining the norm wherever or whatever it is where that person is. Same with animals in their kingdom.
We, whether we like it or not have more in common other than having two ears, two eyes, four hang downs (arms and legs) one nose, and one mouth like the animals of the world around us.
To study their actions and reactions is in most cases is to know and understand more of our own.
Could anyone sum up the scriptural qualification for "ministers"? Actually I do have a hard time finding that "office" in my Bible. I see elders, bsihops, deacons, teachers, prophets, servants of all kind … BUT there is no such thing as what is commonly called a "pulpit-" or "youth-minister".
The only thing that comes close to that is the ministry Timothy or Titus did. At least Timothy seems to have been single. Timothy's ministry was apostolic, he was travelling around – building up churches, moving on again.
Alexander
As a new mom, I remember my one year old one day picking up a Bible and saying, "Bible". It was so adorable, melted my heart. I knew I hadn't taught her that. I then realized she had learned it in cradle role class. A relief came over me as I thought in my heart, "wow, "someone" is going to teach my child about the Lord" Immediately God's Spirit convicted my heart and warned and admonished me, "Do not become lazy in your teaching of your children. I have given that responsibility to you. YOU must train them up in my love and admonition" From then on I took it VERY seriously. I am with aBasnar as not seeing this concept of a youth minister or pulpit minister. Besides, I don't think one person ought to be over anyone alone. I am seeing that more and more as there is less and less accountability and too much authority given to one man tends to go to his head. Now if you ARE going to have youth ministers to invest in your children, I think it ought to be a shared interest and there be rules in place for their own protection and accountability. Even a married man often times works with the kids alone. So it isn't going to matter in that regard. Not that you treat someone with distrust, but even the best of us can fall, consider David. We must always be on guard of our flesh and take precautions to do everything in a manner that is "honorable, not only in the sight of the Lord, but also in the sight of men" As they did in 2 Cor. with the distribution of their generous gift. That's my 2 cents. 🙂
btw, I am not currently a new mom, that was a lifetime ago.
It wouldn't bother me at all if he or she were single. One's marrital status has nothing to do with integrity.
Our congregation has recently had two, no, that 's three, no wait that's four single ministers, oops, I keep thinking and I can think of five single ministers in the last ten years. We still have two of them.
I have to stop here, because if I keep thinking I may think of more than five.
Anyways, while hiring the second one, they question of "gay" arose. We discussed it for five or maybe ten minutes and moved on.
Being married is an American cultural norm. Some cultures think nothing of being single until in your 40s. Other cultures practically demand marriage before age 20. People outside our cultural norm tend to make us uncomfortable.
It is also an American protestant cultural norm that ministers are married. No biblical basis for any of this.
Roger, Exactly! I’ve known far too many ministers that fell into sexual sin. ALL were married. Even the homosexual ones. I’ve known one youth minister who had sex with a teenager in his program. He was married — to a wonderful, beautiful wife.Marriage does not make a man sexually faithful. Nor does it keep women from being willing to have sex with him.Single ministers don’t have wives, which means the church doesn’t get her as a volunteer. But they get a minister who isn’t worried about being home in time to put the kids in bed and who doesn’t have a wife who gets jealous of the attention he gives the ministry.On the whole, having worked with both married and single ministers, I think it’s an even match — the advantages and disadvantages of each are about the same.
Dwayne, I think you may be correct. I'm a Scot and have never heard this subject discussed, (in or out of the church) I would never even have considered it to be an issue and I've never came across anyone else that has thought of it as an issue. Of course, maybe I've not been paying attention.
. I'm sorry, but I was horrified when I read about the lad that castrated himself! (Not that it's any of my business)
Dwayne,
I don't think it would take but 10 seconds or less to discuss Gay with a prospective youth minister.
How long does it take to ask "Are you gay, yes or no?" If yes, GOODBYE and no, continue with the interview.
I've long thought that the myth about married men being less open to sexual temptation was created by men who were looking to fool their wives.
Any man who can't control himself when single can't control himself when married. The track record of ministers pretty much bears that out.
Grace and peace,
Tim Archer
I served as a single minister 20 years ago and I must say that for the good of the single man his singleness would be against him. The church tends to work a single man to a frazzle. They also tend to want to meddle in their dating, and when the time came, they tend to be meddlesome in a young marriage. Paul told Timothy that a deacon and an elder are to be the husband of one wife. This admonition is more practical than theological. A man should marry, have time to raise a family in the Lord and after he has some experience at life enter the ministry as an evangelist, with the blessing of his home congregation.
Dan wrote: “A man should marry, have time to raise a family in the Lord and after he has some experience at life enter the ministry as an evangelist, with the blessing of his home congregation. ”
How is he supposed to make a living in the interim? Ask the Episcopalians how well this idea worked. If you don’t know one, just Google it and read the essays/blogs. For a time, they only wanted seminary students who had been in other professions for a period of time before they could enter seminary. Hint: It did not work out too well.