Clarity Provided On Commissioned Pastors

Commissioned pastors are men and women who become pastors in a church or ministry through methods outside of a traditional seminary education. They have also been known as “ministry associates” and “evangelists.”

As more and more people enter ministry by these alternate routes, there is a need to establish better procedures and regulations.

In answer to this need, Synod 2018 took several measures:

• required background checks and psychological assessments for commissioned pastors serving in solo or senior roles.
• initiated a reformat of the Commissioned Pastor Handbook for final consideration by Synod 2019.
• took steps toward requiring that solo/senior commissioned pastors develop and complete a “contextualized learning plan.”

The report before synod stated that “though not expected in all circumstances of persons serving as commissioned pastors, a plan toward candidacy may be beneficial for the pastor and the church.”

Because the report recommends significant changes to the Church Order, it will go before Synod 2019.

Rod Hugen, Classis Arizona, said that adding requirements can be burdensome to commissioned pastors, especially when these pastors are not compensated or provided with benefits similar to other ordained ministers.

“At some point we need to figure out what are we offering them, as well as what are we expecting of them,” said Hugen, a commissioned pastor himself.

Melissa VanDyk, Classis BC Northwest, asked “Why not require all commissioned pastors [not just those in solo/senior roles] to have background checks?” to ensure safe churches.

David Koll, director of the CRC Candidacy Committee, responded that the CRC has recommended background checks for all commissioned pastors, but not required them. Such a requirement could come before a future synod, he added.

For continuous coverage of Synod 2018 including the live webcast, news, video recordings, photos, reports, liveblog, social media links, and more visit www.crcna.org/synod.