Jump directly to the Content

WHAT AUTHORITY DO WE HAVE ANYMORE?

How to bridge the credibility gap that today's listeners perceive.

I attend a Bible study with business executives, and recently one man s commented that in all the years he had been in business, his pastor had never visited him at his office.

"It's just as well," said another. "A minister would feel out of place in my office."

Since I consider myself a minister, I pressed him to explain.

"Most ministers I know come across best visiting the hospital or working in the church environs. That's their turf." He went on to say that he saw the world of the pastor and the world of business people as very different. "The pastor is used to working alone or with a small staff, and his interest is relationships. The world of business is a more impersonal atmosphere, dominated by people who put an emphasis on the bottom line.

"Pastors do pretty well with issues of grief and loneliness and interpersonal ethics-not stealing, coveting, fornicating, and so on," he said. "But I don't know too many pastors who address the problems of the individual's conflicting loyalties in ...

April
Support Our Work

Subscribe to CT for less than $4.25/month

Homepage Subscription Panel

Read These Next

Related
When You're the Firing Squad
When You're the Firing Squad
Are you making those tough decisions for the right reason?
From the Magazine
Fractured Are the Peacemakers
Fractured Are the Peacemakers
A Christian reconciliation group in Israel and Palestine warned that war would come. Now the war threatens their relevance.
Editor's Pick
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
What Christians Miss When They Dismiss Imagination
Understanding God and our world needs more than bare reason and experience.
close