Village Vignettes 6: The village pastor

We were privileged to live with a pastor’s family during our village stay. We also got to know a few other pastors in the village. Talking and living with these men gave us a glimpse into what it is like to be a pastor in a village. It makes for some interesting comparisons with what we’re used to.

A typical pastor in Canada or Australia goes to school for a long time before he begins his work. Three or four years of university, followed by four years of seminary (a rigorous academic program plus a number of practical internships) provide a lot of knowledge and tools for the ministry. It is often very different for a village pastor. Going to school is very expensive without sponsorship – not just because of tuition fees, but also because it usually means leaving one’s village and moving into a cash economy without a good source of income. A fairly typical route to becoming a pastor is: being a song leader in church, then becoming a lay preacher, and finally becoming an ordained minister. Some, however, do go to Bible College and get some more training.

A Canadian/Australian pastor typically has many resources at his disposal: row upon row of bookshelves lined with books, plus many more resources in computer software like Logos, and access to countless more resources online, not to mention easy phone or email access to experts on particular issues that may come up. A village pastor in PNG has very little compared to this. He may have a metre or two worth of books on his shelf – some Bible College textbooks perhaps, and a few hand-me-downs from missionaries. With this, he has to make all his sermons. It’s not impossible, but it requires a lot of prayer and careful study of Scripture.

In Canada or Australia, it’s typically a full-time job (and a half!) to be a minister. Preparing a sermon or two every week, teaching classes, making visits in the congregation, leading meetings, and the list goes on – the schedule gets full very quickly. But he does receive a stipend, and the congregation looks out for his material needs. But in the village, on top of all these pastoral duties, the pastor is also expected to earn his own income – which, in a non-cash economy, means having a garden and growing some crops that can be sold. That’s not to say that churches don’t provide for their pastors at all; they do – both financially and in kind – but not enough to live off. To be fair, the churches here are typically a lot smaller too (e.g. our village church had about 30 people), which does reduce the pastor’s workload.

I often wondered how pastors in the village manage to take care of their everyday business and still have time to write sermons and work in the congregation. The answer is that a lot of that work happens at night – come home from the garden after dark, spend several hours studying the Bible, wake up early in the morning, keep on studying, lead family devotions, and go to work outside again.