Elliot has been a big impact on my fiancee. She’s a really amazing lady. I think complimentarianism is having a bit of a comeback, so Elliot’s books are really making an impact on young women.

Interesting blog!

Just an aside — the “Brethren” view of New Testament churches generally DOES include both pastors and sermons, really, I think, as a more or less lifetime adherent.
I think what MAY be a little different in the pastor area is the USAGE of the term. Generally, with us, it is thought of as a gift, the pastoring, and may be the gift of one or several individuals who, in particular, excel at that type of ministry/service.

Of course, we’d also hope that those who preach or teach or are elders would have a pastoral heart, even if it is not their chief gift. For that matter, hopefully, most Christians pastor a teensy bit, right, as in ‘look out for other Christians, especially the less mature,’ and so on.

When I’m in other evangelical churches, I find that the term ‘pastor’ is often used to describe the person who is assigned the main preaching and so on. In some cases, it is one of his pre-eminent gifts. In other cases, although, as mentioned before, he probably has a pastoral heart, his chief gifts lie in other areas, but he’ll be expected to shoulder the burden of the pastoring, perhaps with help from others. Of course, in the larger evangelical churches, there may be several ‘pastors’ and one may deal more with pastoral concerns, right?

So, with us, we’d look more at an individual with a pastoral gift — this person might operate in one locale, or his ministry might be shared amongst several churches, or, say, he/she might be a chaplain in a prison or hospital. Hopefully, he’d be utilized to encourage the pastoral gift of others who might have such a gift, but in a rather undeveloped and unutilized form.

As for sermons, I think we hear a lot of them! Probably, it is just semantics — we hear more about “messages,” or “talks,” or something like that.
Probably, it’s an attempt not to institutionalize, or something like that, so we’re trying not to assume a hierarchy.

Anyway, I liked your summary of the Elliot accounts. Interesting sidelight: I had thought, some time ago, that Elisabeth Elliot might not be well, so I put a Google Alert with her name, into action.
Would you believe? Every day I get, I’d say, at least TWO alerts on her name, and I don’t believe a one of them has been about her — they say that blogs are becoming old stuff, but not according to this. It’s almost, every time, a Christian woman somewhere blogging who has been inspired by something that Elisabeth has written, or who has just read one of her books. I had NO IDEA how current and how widespread was her readership.

Anyway, nice chatting!

Blessings!

Bev

I enjoyed my time in the Plymouth Brethren, even with their odd ideas ;-)