Quote:
Originally Posted by Stephen  You cannot plant a church if you are not called to a work. Only a qualified ordained man can do that. |
It's not quite as simple as that, although if you are trying to get others to look at it from a cut-and-dry, high-church presbyterian model you may attempt to persuade others that it is so.
It would be better said that if you are working from within the bounds of a presbyterian body, and you have not been so outwardly called, it is less than likely that you will be able to accomplish your goals.
You could be called to a work outside of the bounds of the PCA by an independent group, and decide to minister there (but you'd have to give up membership in the PCA and relocate it within a congregational polity). You could leave the PCA, declare yourself independent (or affiliate with another church planting denomination) and begin a work. Etc.
I get a little tired of individuals who would throw out a statement, such as the one quoted above, and make it sound as if this was from the mouth of God. Nobody who studies the history of polity in the church with any amount of historical integrity can make such assertions without qualification. It is fine to speak this way from within the presbyterian understanding, but one should at least acknowledge that from within the history of the church, and even within the history of Reformed churches, there have been differing opinions on this matter. That is a fact.
John Owen (unless he's now not really reformed), and the Savoy Platform of Polity (which is congregational) are clear that where Christians have gathered, they have a right to constitute and recognize their own officers. Cotton's
Keys of the Kingdom also assigns this authority to gathered Christians apart from the "authorized and duly recognized ordained oligarchy" etc. etc. These were all men who affirmed the WCF (although changing the section on polity, of course), and who were truly Reformed ministers. To ignore their testimony and their theological acumen is to do them a disservice.
If you really want to get high-church, then go read Francis Turretin's
Institutes of Elenctic Theology on the matter. He is clear, and I constantly try to remind my Reformed brethren of this, that any view that would seek to limit the validity of the preaching of the Word
and the administration of the sacraments to a "properly ordained clergy" is saying nothing other than Roman Catholicism on the position, which he says the Reformed reject.
Turretin, Perkins, and Owen all allow for the gathering/building up of churches by
formally unordained men, where there is a lack of true churches or the church is in a state of disrepair. They do this by recognizing that Christ is the One who calls and ordains (appoints) a man to the work of the ministry by His Spirit, and that church bodies merely recognize this. If a church body fails to recognize this due to sloth, sinful politics, etc, or if there is no nearby authority available to the work, then these men would all give the go ahead to a formally unrecognized man laboring in the work of the ministry out of Christian duty and love.
Whether or not your situation falls under any portion of that umbrella, I will not presume to judge. However, basic historical integrity cannot so clearly limit the work of church planting and ministry in such black and white terms as is often done by those wanting to say otherwise.