Elder Jan Paulsen, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, recently spent an hour with Adventist Review associate editor Bill Knott, discussing the special role of Adventist pastors in the world church.

BK: Many voices are calling us to rethink the familiar features of congregational life in light of the pressing needs for mission. Do healthy churches need professional pastors?
JP: Yes, I think they do. Pastors belong to the normal life of a healthy, growing church. They're shepherds, trainers, focus-setters, and they're a spiritual resource to the church. I see pastors having multiple functions and not defining their role solely in terms of being the one and only instrument through which the sermon on Sabbath morning is given. It matters to the pastor as a person how spiritual life is developing and being modeled for the church, and how members experience it. If it goes well, the pastor feels well; if the members suffer, the pastor suffers.

Some leaders have noted that the Adventist Church seems to be growing most rapidly in places where there are the fewest pastors. Do you have any sense of why that might be the case?
In some areas of our world church where we have rapid growth, an ordained, trained pastor is responsible for 20, 30, 40 churches and may not get around to some of them more than once a year. This person becomes an itinerant pastoral superintendent who primarily officiates at baptisms. It's also true that where the church is growing rapidly there's an enormous involvement by laity in the witnessing outreach of the church. It's a mistake to think that the pastor must be the one to own all initiatives and all ideas that advance the church. A pastor should affirm the role of every church member. Once you are a church member, you are under obligation to your Lord to share Him with others. If He represents something strong, stable, and permanent in your life, without which your life would lack direction, you must share it. This is a relationship responsibility between a believer and Christ. And the minister isn't the definer of that. A minister may be a trainer who can help people hone that witnessing function, or a provider of tools that will make it easier for them to perform their role, but he or she shouldn't get in their way.

You've worked with hundreds of young men and women who believed they were called to pastoral ministry. How have you helped them understand the differing roles of shepherd and evangelist in Adventist ministry?
I think ministry has many, many faces to it. And there are some people who are gifted more as trainers, and others as very good preachers of the Word. There are some who are gifted as counselors, and there are certainly some who have a greater gift of reaching people who are unreached for Christ. It has to do with personality; it has to do with gifts. It has to be what I feel for. Dynamics such as these are what drive us. I think it's important that a minister shouldn't feel guilty because he or she doesn't have all of those gifts.

You've also had the opportunity as a teacher and administrator to be closely involved in the training of many pastors. What do you consider to be the most important part of that preparation?
I'm a great believer in providing fine professional training for ministers. I see the training for ministers not so much in terms of being given the skills to lead-a lot of that you develop along the way yourself. But I see the basic training of the minister as the creating of a mind. It's a type of mind you help to shape that is geared to see visions and feel strongly, and to move spontaneously into what's possible here for Christ. Then that special person will pick up a lot of skills along the way. You don't need to walk out of school with all the skills at your disposal. But you need to leave school with a unique mind that has been shaped to enter into ministry with joy and with a sense of hunger. If the mind is rightly conditioned, then ministry isn't something that you do. It's something you are. It's you.

A chorus of voices in recent years has echoed Ellen White's warning about pastors who "hover" over a congregation. How does unhealthy overattention differ from appropriate shepherding?
Sometimes pastors see themselves and are seen by their conference leadership-and worse yet, are seen by their local congregations-as those who are responsible for everything. They define the church; they tell the church; they do it all for the church. In many, many places we're now discovering that this isn't the best way to lead the church; that the church that is awake to its responsibility as part of the mission of Christ contains so many spiritual gifts. There are so many dynamics latently placed within the church that need to find room for expression. And ministers need to be sensitive so that they don't impede the process of letting what the church has been given emerge in space and time. They shouldn't try to control that. They're helpers, guides, facilitators, but they must let the church have all the space to be itself and do for itself in mission.

One of the essential functions of a local pastor throughout our world church is that of preaching the Word. What encourages you most about Adventist preaching today? And what concerns you most?
I want Adventist preaching to be undertaken with a strong sense of identity. I think it's a disgrace to go into the pulpit and "waffle." And going into the pulpit to offer generalizations is similarly a waste of time. Many years ago I made a decision for my own preaching, and it was this: Let me not enter the pulpit on a Sabbath morning without very deliberately and consciously trying to achieve two things: (1) say something important about Christ; and (2) let what I have said in the sermon help unite us as a people. Now, I don't always succeed, but I have really been quite conscious of doing that.

I find many sermons today aren't as focused as I wish they were. They don't carry as specific an Adventist identity as I think they should. I don't mean a sermon should be all that formal, but I don't think it should be overly chatty, either. Those who sit in the congregation need to sense that what you are saying flows from the text.

As I've listened to you preach through the years, I've noticed that there's always a strong ethical component in what you share. Why do you think this is important for pastoral preaching?
Christ addresses me as a minister and asks: "You who have a head full of information, you who are called to ministry at this time in history-how do you relate this truth to what you are doing?" As Seventh-day Adventists we preach the second coming of Christ, and as we look around we see that there are many signals telling us that He will come very, very soon. I think we need to listen very seriously to what Peter says in his second letter: "Since you know this, consider how important it is to live it." This is a crucial point. I'm not judgmental of my congregation, because I'm as flawed as they are. And I stumble as often as they do. So when I say to them, "Let's keep an eye on our lives," I'm saying it to myself as well. There must be correlation between our much knowing and our doing.

What one phrase would you offer to pastors to convey your concern about the future of Adventist ministry?
I'd say to the pastor, "Be sure that the generosity of God comes across." It's very important that our members feel, sense, discover, that God is actually a wonderful God. It's not difficult with a sensitive congregation to create a sense of guilt at shortcomings. And we all carry baggage. There are plenty of things that we can feel guilty about. It's important that the congregation gathered for worship discover for themselves Christ as Lord, God as a healer, as a wonderful companion, as the one who is going to see them through, as the One who is constantly in the business of saving people. Sometimes we think that God is looking for those to disqualify, when in fact God is far more preoccupied with getting into the kingdom everyone He can lay His hands on. The generosity of God needs to come out strongly in our preaching.

Tell me about a pastor who has been spiritually important to you.
Without naming the man, I think of one of my teachers who taught me theology. His heart was so full of the warmth and consideration of a good pastor. He stimulated my mind, stirred it, provoked it to think, to think extraordinary thoughts. But he always-always-lifted up Christ as a wonderful friend. That sense of partnership with Christ became strong in my life. And I came away from three years under his influence feeling very good about my church, with a deep sense of loyalty to the church and to the Lord.