My colleague and I have developed a tradition we observe each month as the new edition of Queensland Baptist magazine arrives. We check the ‘positions vacant’ section to see if there could be anywhere else we could escape to, or alternatively we check to see if there is anywhere else which could make us feel better about where we are. This month we were not dissapointed.

Under the new editor the magazine has grown and is an impressive read. The layout is still fairly typical of Baptists: the full spectrum of fonts and colours and desktop tricks are exhausted throughout the publication giving it a confusing visual appeal with no consistency. However, the substance makes up for the mangled style.

This month’s ‘positions vacant’ had a corker in it. Chinchilla Baptist are looking for a new pastor. Chinchilla is a regional Queensland town. When I say regional, it’s in the middle of nowhere in that big wide country there out north west of the big smoke in Brisbane called the Outback. Getting a pastor to hear God’s call to move into a small little outback town is hard enough. Putting an advert in Queensland Baptist like they did makes the task well nigh impossible.

This is what awaits the unsuspecting coot who applies for the job: [my additions in red]

CHINCHILLA BAPTIST CHURCH

We desire to appoint a pastor with preaching and teaching gifts [good start]. He needs to have a love for the lost [going well], be non-charismatic and conservative. [heading into trouble]

He also needs to hold to a Pre millennial view of Scripture [now you've lost just about everyone!], and be able to relate to both young and old. If you believe this to be God’s calling for you contact our church Secretary ……”

When I say they’ve lost everyone after “Pre millennial”, I don’t mean that most pastors take a different point of view on the Millennium. Rather, most pastors don’t care all that much about whether it is Pre, Post or A. Most are Pan Millennialists - it will all pan out in the end.

Sadly, whoever wrote this ad up pigeon-holed themselves and played up to the classic stereotype of the redneck outback Baptist church [which they are not as I understand]. The immediate perception created by this ad is that anyone other than a conservative, pre-millennialist country boy is going to get carved up, chewed over and spat out at a place like that.

A person in the know reliably informs me that this advert is not representative of the church body, but rather of the people or person who had control over the advert. I’m hoping that is the case. If you are from Chinchilla Baptist, and especially if you are the person who has the right to put these adverts in the magazine, let me help you rewrite your advert:

We desire to appoint a pastor with preaching and teaching gifts. He needs to have a love for the lost and demonstrate this in a ministry that reaches beyond the walls of the church and the churched.

We aren’t all that interested in his position on secondary and relatively trivial doctrinal positions which we cannot be sure about ourselves. We are more interested in a pastor who will lead us into unity so that we can focus on the Great Commission and the Great Commandment. Any pastor who takes an interest in divisive doctrinal arguments need not apply.