Dr. E.C. Fulcher, Jr.

Is the Pastor a Hireling or is He Called by God?

As a child, Dr. Fulcher could have never fathomed that he would be called to be a Pastor. He desired to play music for Pastors and live life. While he was growing up, Dr. Fulcher witnessed how congregations treated their pastors. They did not treat them with the respect due to the office of the Pastor. Congregations treated their pastors like hirelings, to be hired and fired at the whim of the cliques within their churches, as opposed to the Pastor being Called and Chosen by God to teach God’s people. But what did the congregation know?  They had not been taught the Truth.  Most people believe that they do not need a preacher to teach them about God.  They think that they can establish a one-on-one relationship by either reading the Bible on their own or sitting out in nature somewhere and watching the world go by. That would be nice, but it’s not the way that the Bible said it should happen.

As time went by, God made manifest to Dr. Fulcher that he was called by God to preach. Dr. Fulcher proceeded to take on a little church in Level, Maryland. This was a big job put in front of him. He would be dealing with people who had nothing to go on but tradition and what they thought. It would take time to preach that out of them and show them that God Calls whom He chooses to preach the Word.

One of the things he had learned during his years as an apprentice was that people had forgotten who and what a “real” Pastor really was.  Most people had never been taught that basic understanding in the first place.  Growing up in a Pentecostal Holiness Church, Dr. Fulcher was able to witness first-hand the compromise and hypocrisy that denigrated the role of the Pastor into something that it was never intended to be. Man’s traditions had made the Word of God non-effect.

Preaching is a prerequisite in the Bible. 1Cor. 1:21 says, “For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.”  And Romans 10:14 says, “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed? and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard? and how shall they hear without a preacher?”

The Bible also goes on to say in 1Peter 5:6, “Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time.”

What Dr. Fulcher had seen in his years serving under others was that most congregations did not want to humble themselves.  They considered the Pastor their servant and not them, his.  And because of that, the congregations placed themselves in a position where they could not be taught something that might upset their sensibilities.  They forgot that they were sheep.

How many people in the past, say 100 years even know what sheep are and what they do?  The modern industrialized era has removed most congregations from understanding exactly what their role in a church is.  Everyone wants to be a chief and no one wants to be an Indian.  Hundreds of years ago when people were closer to nature, most knew the role of shepherd to sheep. 

Sheep are dumb and in need of practically constant care.  If you don’t sheer them, their wool will grow so heavy that they won’t be able to stand up under the weight of their own coats.  They will not drink from moving water, they could be standing by a river and die of thirst. They do not forage for food.  They have to be led from pasture to pasture to eat.  And if they are led wrong, they will follow their leader over the edge of a cliff or the Judas goat into the slaughterhouse. 

When a congregation treats their Pastor like a hireling, the pastor cannot lead them beside the still waters as it states in Psalm 23:2 “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.” because he is in fear of his job.  If he tries to teach them something they do not like, they can (and do) fire him and hire someone else who preaches what they want to hear, not what they need to hear.  That is one of the reasons that Dr. Fulcher did not initiate church membership.  He has not been hired.  He is there to teach the Word regardless of whose feelings get hurt.  The Truth is what makes you free not your feelings.

Dr. Fulcher is not afraid to teach the Word of God… and those who do not wish to learn it the way he teaches it are always able to leave when they see fit, no one is made to stay.   Dr. Fulcher saw too many congregations who did not know how they were supposed to conduct themselves.  He saw too many congregations that were not of one mind and one accord.  He saw too many congregations that thought they were the boss and thought that they knew more than the Man of God.  He saw too many congregations that were out of order and unwilling to cast off their traditions and accept the Truth.  He saw too many congregations that were out of order and unwilling to change.  In Level, Maryland, what he found was a group of people that made up the core of a congregation that was willing to be taught and more importantly, to learn.

                                                Written by Eric B. Ruark and Tanya J. Tillman