Is There a Doctor in the House?

Obviously, I find great satisfaction in examining the subtle nuances of the English language. Now that I have “accused” the church of being a business, I really need to attempt a clearer distinction between vocation and occupation (see Who Cares?) by introducing profession. It has helped me clarify the difference by understanding that occupations, for the most part, have customers, while professions have clients. This is particularly important to understand when it comes to defining just what kind of business the church is in. Certainly, to regard parishioners as customers just doesn’t sound quite right (although this is an increasing popular paradigm with today’s megachurches), and so the more sophisticated paradigm of professionalism treats them as clients of sorts. Customer-oriented occupations are more apt to lean toward experience-based apprenticeships while client-oriented professions tend to weed out unworthy candidates by selection based on academic achievement (I wish I had a nickel for every time I was told that if I required surgery I would want nothing less than a medical school graduate operating on me). As far as I can tell, it was following World War II that the United Methodist church shifted its focus from a vocational to a professional view of the ordained ministry, striving for its ministers to dwell in the same realm as doctors and lawyers rather than that of barbers and farmers. It is very similar to the same paradigm shift that took place in public education whereby “normal” teachers (such as my grandmother) were no longer thought of as being as qualified as those with college degrees. I can understand how this must have seemed progressive at the time, but I have always felt that something was lost when professional servanthood became the norm (not to mention an awkward oxymoron).