September 14, 2007 Simi Valley, California, United States .... [Ansel Oliver/ANN]
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Paulsen received comments and addressed questions from nine ministers in the United States and Canada during the unscripted show, Pastors: In Conversation, at the Adventist Media Center in Simi Valley, California. Topics included age differences in congregations, women's involvement in ministry, meeting the needs of several cultures in one church, and funding for local churches.
"You are a very trusted, very important part of our church's workforce," Paulsen said in his opening remarks to the ministers. "You represent some 22,000 pastors around the world who minister to 25 million Seventh-day Adventists and others who may come to our church on the Sabbath to worship."
Several times the world church president asked the ministers for each others' thoughts in response to questions during the boardroom-like discussion.
Responding to a question of age differences in church, Paulsen said that young professionals in their 20s and early 30s are a "vastly underused" segment in some churches.
"Look, if they don't take responsibility now, who's going to look after it [the church] tomorrow when you and I are gone?
"I could talk for the rest of this program on just this one issue," Paulsen said 27 minutes into the hour-long show.
"This is not something that can be regulated from an office such as mine," he said. "It happens in the local church."
Paulsen asked pastors to trust young men and women who show spiritual maturity, elect them as elders and not wait until they are 50 years old.
Carlton P. Byrd, a pastor from Atlanta, Georgia, brought up the challenge of conducting evangelism at local churches, sometimes with insufficient funds. "Salvation is free, but ministry takes money," he said.
Paulsen responded by describing the church's tithing commission, a group of more than 100 members from around the world meeting to examine the church's use of funds. He said he didn't want to guess what the commission was trying to do, but suggested the group was considering channeling more funds to local churches. Paulsen urged patience in waiting for their report which he said would be presented in October, 2009.
Three women joined the discussion, including host Bonita Shields, a former local Adventist church minister and current editor of youth bible study guides.
Ann Roda, a pastor from a Fulton, Maryland church, said when many young women tell her of their interest in ministry, they feel the church is "seemingly hostile," and ask why they aren't given the same recognition as men.
Paulsen acknowledged the frustration and said the question is often a "euphemism" for a more pointed one: "'Why don't we ordain women to the ministry in same way as we do men?'"
"You all know we've been around this one a few times," Paulsen said of the world church's history of discussing the topic beginning in 1990.
The world church, he said, has never taken the position that the "concept" of ordaining women is rejected by the Bible or the writings of church co-founder Ellen G. White.
"It's just a question of 'can we make this major change and still hold together as a global community?'"
Paulsen told Roda his response to women interested in ministry: "Respond to the call God has placed in your heart. Train for ministry, seek the profession, become engaged in it."
He pointed out that many women already effectively serve as pastors in local churches, including his niece.
He also called for women to be paid equally to men and acknowledged many women around the world are not asking to be ordained, but to function as a "legitimate minister."
"So many local churches are not open to receive them. ..."I think this is very, very unfortunate. They are part of our spiritual community."
"They are as trained and gifted and skilled as any man could possibly be. ...Please, use them," Paulsen said.
Several pastors, including Andre Flores from Provo, Utah, asked about methods for reaching many cultures within one church.
"You have many cultures that may be together in the same church, but they call each other 'brother' and 'sister,'" Paulsen said. "And when you really get down to it they share a common identity... I find it around the world."
Jim Hiner Jr., a pastor from Minneapolis, Minnesota, said he sought support from elders representing different cultures to help him understand the expectations of various communities in his church.
Paulsen responded to another pastor's question of training and resources available for intercultural ministry: "You need to find out, 'how can I make the Bible ... come alive to my particular culture, or my basket of cultures which I have to minister to in my church?'"
Many of his responses put the responsibility on pastors to make their own decisions regarding their ministry.
Several times, during a discussion of balancing work and family, Paulsen suggested scheduling family time in a weekly calendar. "The family will suffer if all you have for them is the leftover time," he said to questions on the subject from Eddie Polite from St. Louis, Missouri, and Franklin David from Silver Spring, Maryland.
Pastors were selected to represent the church in North America's diversity of cultures, gender and church size. There are about 3,500 ordained credentialed Adventist ministers in the U.S. and Canada.
The program was seen internationally on the church's Hope Channel. Similar discussions are planned for 2008 in Europe, Africa and South America.
"More of my colleagues in leadership need to be involved in this kind of thing. I can only reach so many," Paulsen said in his concluding remarks.
Copyright (c) 2007 by Adventist News Network
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