Rent-A-Pastor

I read an article recently that proposed a disturbing idea. The author put forward the idea that churches band together to enable the pastors of each of the churches an opportunity to save time and energy. The way in which the churches would band together would be to enlist one man to represent all of the pastors and to do all of the hospital visitation for the churches, thus saving the pastors countless hours crossing the city in traffic to visit one patient here and then another over there. In addition, often these hospital visits tend to be exhausting and emotionally draining since, many times, the illness or injury is of a serious nature.

A great advantage of this method, apart from incredible time savings, would be the level of care that a professional or expert could render. A man that did nothing but visit people all day long would get very good at learning the right things to say in certain situations. He would learn quickly the appropriate demeanor to exude in particularly difficult situations. In addition, he would master certain texts of Scripture that apply to such crisis situations and would become streamlined and proficient in applying the selected Biblical texts. You might even say that the patients and their families would be helped in greater capacity than if their “novice hospital visiting pastor” were there fumbling his way through each encounter.

Now to the real challenge… How could a smaller church afford to pay for such a designated hospital visitation expert? Well, two solutions were proffered. First, since many churches were banding together, the cost would be split up amongst many churches, thus reducing the actual cost to each individual church greatly. Perhaps, this could even be incorporated into the church’s missions budget? Secondly, why not just charge the patient for the service of an expert hospital visit? Should the church be collectively paying for a service that only one individual is receiving? This, of course, would translate into “free” for each banded individual church. This would place the burden on the visitation expert to earn his money. In essence, he could be on a commission basis. The more visits he was able to make, the more money he would be able to pocket. There couldn’t be a more convincing motivation for creating and inventing ways of being more productive, could there? The cost may even be able to be passed along to an insurance provider, if the hospital would cooperate! In fact, the expert could even pay a fee to the churches for the right to represent them at the hospital(s). Wow, not only would the pastor be saved enormous amounts of time, energy, and angst . . . but the church could actually see a profit from this method! Brilliant.

Hey, hold it . . . it just struck me! Why limit this principle to just hospital visits??!! Why not use the same productive paradigm for funerals, weddings, baptisms, counseling, and even message preparation??!!

Do you see any problems with this proposal? Does it strike you the wrong way? Are you bothered by the implications? Does it leave you with a bitter taste in your mouth?

Just think of it . . . “Rent – A – Pastor.”