An ordained or licensed minister assigned to a church or district by the conference or mission committee and paid by the conference. Pastors are not considered regular officers of that church, but serve as the leader of the church and assist the officers in carrying out their duties. They have charge of the pulpit, are usually chairperson of the church board, ex officio members of any committee, but direct their church by influence rather than by any authority vested in them.
In the early days of the denomination, churches did not have pastors: the traveling preachers and evangelists visited on occasion, but the churches functioned under their local (lay) elders ( see Church Elder ).
Writing in the Review and Herald in 1883, W. H. Littlejohn, in his series of Church Manual articles, remarked that at that date the work of the Seventh-day Adventist minister was largely evangelistic. Only enough attention was given to the older churches to keep them in “good running order.”
The pastor’s special functions, duties, and responsibilities are described in the Seventh-day Adventist Minister’s Manual (1992). See also Minister .