Denominations Connect Churches and Pastors
One of the most obvious benefits of a denomination is the help it provides when a church needs a pastor or a pastor needs a church. It's no accident that I'm the pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church, since we're both part of the PCUSA. Likewise with thousands of pastors throughout the country.
Denominations differ in the ways they make connections between pastors and churches. Some operate with an episcopal model, in which a bishop (in Greek, episkopos) assigns a pastor to a church. Usually this happens with the agreement of both pastor and church, but the authority to make the assignment lies with the bishop or other similarly empowered denominational official. In other denominations, the congregation is more involved in the process. In the PCUSA, for example, a congregation seeking a pastor forms a search committee (officially, "Pastor Nominating Committee"). This committee works with the local governing body ("Presbytery"), which ultimately approves its recommendation. The congregation gets into the act only at the end, when it votes to call a candidate as a pastor. The bulk of the work of discernment is done by the search committee, which represents the congregation but works independently.
If a church in the PCUSA needs a pastor, there are official documents that are filed and official channels of communication that are opened. Search committees receive the dossiers of interested candidates from the national office in Louisville, Kentucky. But the informal networks within the denomination are far more effective than the official channels when it comes to connecting pastors and churches. Since I've been pastor of Irvine Presbyterian Church, I've been involved in four searches for associate pastors. Every time we found our candidate through the recommendation of a friend who knew us and the candidate.
These kinds of relational networks also help non-denominational churches and pastors. Yet the independent church often has fewer connections to other churches than a denominational church. Ditto the independent pastor. I've watched as friends of mine who are not in denominations struggle to find churches in which to serve when it's time for them to move on.
I don't mean to suggest that denominational help ensures a positive result. It seems to me that pastor-church relationships in the PCUSA work out about 60% of the time. (By "work out" I mean "lead to mutually beneficial pastoral relationship that last more than five years.") Nevertheless, denominational support in this process is helpful, both to pastors and to churches.
Speaking of this process, it exemplifies a benefit of denominations that I'll discuss tomorrow.
