Selecting Pastors and Church Members

Jack T. Parrish. Bloomington, Indiana: Westbow, 2014. 57 pp. (Paperback).

I wonder if you also scratched your head when you read the title of this book. We could always use guidance in selecting pastors for our churches but we don’t select church members — at least, not in my experience.

Halfway through the book I was thinking the author had made a mistake in choosing his title. The first half was taken up with a treatise on the need to have elders in Baptist churches instead of deacons. The author makes the point (among others) that elders are mentioned many more times in the New Testament than deacons. I had noticed the distinction but I always assumed the terms are considered to be interchangeable in Southern Baptist practice. I wondered if it is an issue in any of our churches — or if it should be.

After a conversation with a seminary graduate who was willing to patiently explain the issue to his mother, I realized there is much more to this issue than I had realized — and the author has some valid concerns.

Finally after a section on giving — well done but seemingly out of place in this book — I got to the part that discusses selecting church members. The author points out the disheartening percentage of church members who are nowhere to be found on any given Sunday, leading him to conclude those members are unregenerate. Parrish lays out a convincing — but, I fear, wasted — argument that any prospective new member should be examined carefully prior to admittance to the fellowship.

Parrish has served as pastor of churches in several states including Alabama and now ministers to snowbirds in Baldwin County.

—Martine Bates Fairbanks, Ed.D.