A PANACEA TO THE PROBLEM OF PASTORS WITHOUT PLACE OF SERVICE IN THE NIGERIAN BAPTIST CONVENTION .
God has been in the business of calling people for ages and he will keep calling people till the end of the world. It is not God's desire for his people who he have called and have submitted themselves for training to be not engaged after completion of their training. Our Baptist polity does not permit posting of pastors unlike other denominations who ensure that all their trained pastors are engaged after their training. It was not so in the beginning,in the 60,s 70,s 80,s and Early 90,s. Churches are waiting for the Baptist pastors to pastor but the problem crept in around late 90,s gradually till it become a problem. The theological Schools produce less than 5,000 graduates in a year and less than 10 percent get a placement after graduation. This call for serious thinking and there should be an urgent step taken to arrest this menace. The convention need to have a round table discussion and find a lasting solution to this before we start training pastors for other churches and denominations. This paperwork critically examine practical ways graduates of our theological institution can be engaged after graduation.
GET A WORKING CHURCH PLANTING PLAN
God is working greatly among the Baptist denominations, There have been great development in our worship, discipleship, evangelism and membership. The Church is growing and she is spreading her tentacles beyond the nation to Africa and other continents. The growth and development of Baptist churches from 1914 to 2021 is commendable but the denomination did not prepare to maximize and contain this growth. How? As the Church membership is increasing and finances is increasing,we have more theological institution,more Baptist owned schools,hospitals, and other investments yielding gain but little has been done in the area of missions and Church planting. In 2020 a pentecostal church established in 1984 decided to plant 10,000 churches in that Year and it was a success. 10,000 pastors were engaged to pastor those churches immediately. The Church have a Plan to contain his growing membership. Majority of our local churches in the denomination are more concerned in building cathedrals and empires around them when they could have expanded and build more churches within the locality of their members. Few churches in Lagos and some major cities in the country are doing that and are expanding beyond their coast, they have plan and vision. These churches do not only plant churches but engage pastors there. Some of these churches also engage pastors in some churches that are not financially viable to call a pastor. We can still do better,many churches in the cities don't have outreach Churches otherwise known as daughter churches again. They hide under the umbrella that there is no money and economy is bad yet they are building schools, rented hall, cemetery and renovating their cathedral. Every viable Church should take it as a responsibility to plant at least one church in a year. A Church that is not engaging in missions and Church planting is dead. Church planting should be a burden of every church pastor. We have about 20,000 viable Baptist churches in Nigeria. If all these churches plant at least one church in a year, all of our graduates from theological institution will have a Church to pastor. In fact we will have more churches than the students graduating in our theological Schools. It is not good for the public image of our convention that graduated pastors are on the streets looking for jobs after leaving all to accept call, some have become commercial cyclist in order to feed their families. Church planting done in God's own way does not lack financial support. Let every church pastor have a working Church planting plan.
OVERHAULING THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS CURRICULUM
The present curriculum in our theological institution is not in reality with what is happening in the ministry. Many efforts have been put in by the leadership of theological institutions to ensure that the gospel training align with what is happening on the field. One of them is introduction of entrepreneural studies where student are thought practically on how to engage in poultry, painting, soap making and so on with the aim that they can be engaged doing that till call comes. Another welcome development is the introduction of multistaff into the curriculum. All these are good but it is not enough. An average Baptist church pastor does not want an associate Minister but want to be in charge of everything including things he does not have knowledge of. Definitely multistaff cannot be the solution to pastors not getting engagement. If it had been,we would not have many pastors roaming the streets without calls. The saddest thing is that since introduction of multi staff into curriculum many pastors have been more "churchless" than never before. The curriculum should be restructure in such a way that people do not have to resign from their secular jobs before they become students. Ministry is dynamic, you can't be doing ministry the way they are doing it in 18th century and expect results. It is obvious that so many churches in our denomination cannot afford to bankroll full time gospel Minister. Why encouraging full gospel ministries when there is no place for them to serve? Our polity does not support transfer of pastors hence we need to work on the curriculum of our theological Schools in such a way that it can accommodate full time student while they are still doing their daily job. There is provision for professionals in the curriculum through sandwich program but it would be better if the whole curriculum can be overhauled to permit all students to have means of income before becoming a student. The theological institution should not offer admission to a student without any profession or means of income. Jesus did not call lazy people. All his disciples had a job or means of income before calling them.This does not negate that God does not call people into full gospel ministry. Amos was a farmer and yet he was into God's work fully. Paul was a tent maker and he was also into God's work fully.Luke was a medical Doctor and he was into God's work fully. If this is done, churches will be willing to engage as many pastors as possible because they are not taking full financial responsibilities on them.
KNOW YOUR MINISTRY
The theological training is in such a way that looks like everyone's will be a Church pastor. Not all are pastors even though our polity recognizes pastor and deacon as the only two offices in the Church. Know what God has called you to do and stick to it. If God has not called you to pastor a Church, you have no business in becoming Church pastor. Find out what God want you to do for him.
CONCLUSION
The denomination belong to us and if it must work we all have a role to play as pastors,members and leaders at convention. The Church pastor have a key role to play if our churchless pastors must have a Church to pastor. Thanks to the association, conference, convention who have taken it upon themselves to plant churches and engaging pastors there but we can still do more by encouraging ourselves and members to take Church planting as a burden and prioritize it on their Church Budget.knowing fully well that it is only what is done for Christ that last and outlive us.
Abolanle Oladipupo( BSc OOU, BTh NBTS)
14th July,2021
