{"id":911,"date":"2013-01-30T07:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T13:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomrainer.wpengine.com?p=911"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:33:23","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:33:23","slug":"thirteen-terms-for-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/thirteen-terms-for-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"Thirteen Terms for \u201cPastor\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I guess \u201cpastor\u201d is the more common name used in congregations. You can say, \u201cpastor,\u201d and most people know what or whom you are referencing.<\/p>\n<p>But the times are changing. And so is the name.<\/p>\n<p>To be clear, there are some denominations and religious traditions that have never used \u201cpastor\u201d to describe the spiritual leader of the church. I know of more than one denomination and Christian fellowship where \u201cminister\u201d is the only term used.<\/p>\n<p>But as local congregations across America continue to experience significant changes, we are seeing the more common term of \u201cpastor\u201d declining in favor of more expanded, or even totally different, terms. And I am not even speaking of all the others who serve on a church staff. The multiple terms for those different roles seem unlimited.<\/p>\n<p>If you spent your entire life in one denomination or fellowship, you may think the names used for church staff are uniform. The evidence, though, points to much variety.<\/p>\n<p>But let\u2019s take a moment and look at the different names for the leader of a congregation. I found these examples in just a few minutes of searching:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Pastor<\/strong> \u2013 still the most common term, at least for now.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Senior pastor<\/strong> \u2013 typically is used when the church has more than one minister or pastor on staff. The senior pastor oversees the other staff members.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Lead pastor<\/strong> \u2013 most of the time this phrase is used synonymously with senior pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Teaching pastor<\/strong> \u2013 in some churches, the name refers to someone who preaches or teaches in a primary worship service, but who is not the senior pastor. In other cases it is synonymous with senior pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Preaching pastor<\/strong> \u2013 same as teaching pastor<\/li>\n<li><strong>Teaching elder<\/strong> \u2013 same as teaching pastor in the context of a plurality of leadership.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Preaching elder<\/strong> \u2013 pretty much the same as teaching elder.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Vision pastor<\/strong> \u2013 already located this term in several churches; in all cases it is synonymous with senior pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Campus pastor<\/strong> \u2013 typically used in churches that have more than one location. This person has leadership over one of those locations.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Minister<\/strong> \u2013 see pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Teaching minister<\/strong> \u2013 see teaching pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Preaching minister<\/strong> \u2013 see preaching pastor.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Bishop<\/strong> \u2013 in some cases it is synonymous with senior pastor; in other cases it is used to describe a leader over pastors in multiple congregations.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have no doubt I\u2019ve missed several other names for pastor. What names can you add to this list? What do you think about the multiple terms that are being used?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I guess \u201cpastor\u201d is the more common name used in congregations. You can say, \u201cpastor,\u201d and most people know what or whom you are referencing. But the times are changing. And so is the name. To be clear, there are some denominations and religious traditions that have never used \u201cpastor\u201d to describe the spiritual leader&#8230;","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":912,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,177,194],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-lead","category-preaching"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Thirteen Terms for \u201cPastor\u201d | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/thirteen-terms-for-pastor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Thirteen Terms for \u201cPastor\u201d | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I guess \u201cpastor\u201d is the more common name used in congregations. You can say, \u201cpastor,\u201d and most people know what or whom you are referencing. But the times are changing. And so is the name. To be clear, there are some denominations and religious traditions that have never used \u201cpastor\u201d to describe the spiritual leader...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/thirteen-terms-for-pastor\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2013-01-30T13:00:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-02-07T21:33:23+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/13-terms-pastor.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"250\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thom S. Rainer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Thom S. Rainer\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/thirteen-terms-for-pastor\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/thirteen-terms-for-pastor\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Thom S. 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