Here’s the third in my series of nominations for words which should be banned from the Christian’s vocabulary: ‘Pastor.’

This one hits close to home for so many 21st Century Christians. This refers, as we all know, to the professional Christian who leads the congregation, brings a sermon in Sunday morning worship services, and is expected to visit the sick, preside at funerals and weddings, and basically do the ‘ministry’ things that the folks don’t want to do themselves. You can tell who he is, as his name is often on the sign in front of the church building. In larger congregations, we see various derivations of this, as in ‘worship pastor,’ ‘youth pastor,’ ‘executive pastor,’ etc.