Installed Pastor

Definition and Meaning

Installation (Korean wiim, 委任) means "entrusting." An installed pastor is a minister who has become the senior pastor of a particular church after the congregation has resolved in its congregational meeting to issue a call (the procedure by which a church formally invites a minister), and the presbytery has approved the call and conducted an installation service. The term is used chiefly in the church constitutions of Presbyterian denominations.

Barring special circumstances, an installed pastor serves without a fixed term until the mandatory retirement age. By contrast, a senior pastor who has not been installed serves for a fixed term and must obtain the presbytery's approval again when that term expires. Depending on the denomination, such a minister is called a temporary pastor, a stated pastor (literally, a pastor who holds and carries out the office), or simply a senior pastor.

Biblical and Historical Background

The title "installed pastor" does not appear in Scripture. However, passages recording how the church appointed leaders and entrusted them with their office are cited in support of the practice. Acts 14:23 records that elders were ordained in every church and that the apostles "commended them to the Lord," and Titus 1:5 records the instruction to "ordain elders in every city."

Installation as an institution arose from the Presbyterian tradition of church government. In this tradition, the authority to establish and dissolve the relationship between a pastor and a church rests not with the local congregation but with the presbytery. Accordingly, the presbytery is responsible both for installing a pastor in a church and for dissolving that installation. Korean Presbyterianism inherited this system, and its constitutions distinguish between installed pastors and temporary pastors.

Practice in the Korean Church

• Presbyterian churches: Many Presbyterian denominations, including the Presbyterian Church in Korea (HapDong) and the Presbyterian Church of Korea (TongHap), are reported to permit the installation of a pastor only in an organized church, that is, one in which a session has been constituted. The installed pastor serves as moderator of the session and continues in office until the retirement age of 70. A pastor of an unorganized church without a session, or a pastor not yet installed, serves as a temporary (stated) pastor for a fixed term, which may be extended with the presbytery's approval. The length of extensions and the titles used differ among denominations and have changed with constitutional revisions. In many Presbyterian denominations, a pastor who has served a single church for twenty years or more may, upon retirement, be honored as pastor emeritus by resolution of the congregational meeting.
• Methodist churches: The Korean Methodist Church follows a system in which the bishop appoints pastors to churches. It therefore has no Presbyterian-style system of installed pastors.
• Baptist and congregationally governed churches: The local church calls its minister directly. There is no procedure of installation by a higher judicatory (a governing body above the local church).

While the position of installed pastor offers stability, the process of calling a pastor can give rise to conflict within a church. The debate over hereditary succession in churches, which concerns the passing of the senior pastorate to a pastor's children, is also discussed in connection with the calling of installed pastors.