A host pastor is the pastor of the church where something is being held. It might be a visiting preacher, an association meeting, an ordination, a revival, or a second congregation using the building. Host carries its ordinary meaning here: the person who receives the guests. In the documents where the term turns up, it describes who is hosting on a given day. It is not an ordained office with a fixed set of duties.
Where the term is actually used
Four settings account for most English-language use. The hosting stays constant. The event changes, and so does what the host pastor is expected to do.
| Setting | Who the host pastor is | What the source document has them do |
|---|---|---|
| A guest preacher in a Sunday service | The pastor who issued the invitation | Choose and invite the preacher. Set the rules on book sales. Decide lunch and the honorarium. Source: Joe McKeever, 2014 |
| An association session or a citywide revival | The pastor of the church the meeting is held in | Give the welcome. At the Asheville revival the host pastor is named in the notice and a separate evangelist preaches. Sources: Baptist Missionary Association of Mississippi, 2023 minutes, Baptist Ministers Union of Asheville and Vicinity |
| An ordination or an installation | The pastor of the church hosting the service | Give the welcome, before the processional hymn. Source: Northern Texas – Northern Louisiana Synod, ELCA, rubric for a service of ordination |
| A second congregation using the building | The pastor of the church whose building it is | Meet the guest pastor often. Carry the relationship rather than leaving it to lay leaders. Source: Ralph F. Wilson, How to Share Your Buildings without Losing Your Church |
One thing is worth separating out. The host in host pastor is the hospitality word. The host that means the communion bread is a different word with a different root, from Late Latin hostia. Merriam-Webster lists the two under separate entries (host).
The one duty the documents actually assign
In these documents the welcome is the one item a host pastor is handed by name. The Lutheran rubric puts it in the order of service: “The host pastor provides a welcome at the beginning of the liturgy, prior to the processional hymn.”
The Mississippi association recorded the same thing after the fact: “The welcome was given by host Pastor Shane Singleton.”
Past the welcome the sources stop agreeing. What a host pastor does is set by the event, not by the title.
It is not an office
Nobody is ordained a host pastor. There is no qualification for it and no term of appointment. No list of duties holds from one church to the next. A host pastor is a pastor who already holds an office somewhere, acting as host for the day.
Hospitality is not an extra duty bolted on. It is already in the list of qualifications for the office the person holds.
An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,
One church where it is a permanent title
There is an exception. Gereja Mawar Sharon is an Indonesian church that runs several campuses. It uses Host Pastor as a standing title for the pastor of a campus. Its East Surabaya campus opened in December 2024. Indonesian coverage of the first service named the senior pastors, then the campus leader by that title: “Host Pastor GMS Surabaya Timur, Pdt. Lianggono Tejo Bunarto.”
That is a different kind of use from the four above. It is a post someone holds every week. It is not a description of who happens to be hosting. Reports of that service are carried by Mercury FM and Jatim Update.
If you are hosting a preacher this Sunday
Five things the sources above put on the host, in the order they come up.
- The invitation is yours. McKeever describes the host pastor as the one praying about whom to invite: “The host pastor is praying for the Spirit to lead him on whom to invite.”
- Say what you expect before the day. McKeever tells guest preachers to ask about dress, length and the tone of the service when those are unclear. That makes you the one who has to know them.
- Settle the meal and the money early. The same article treats lunch and the honorarium as the host’s call, and tells guests not to read anything into how either is handled.
- Say whether book sales or promotions are allowed. In McKeever’s account, when a pastor says no to book-selling or trip-promotions, that decision stands. No explanation is owed.
- If this runs past one Sunday, put a standing meeting in the diary. Wilson’s rule for shared buildings is that the host pastor meets the guest pastor often, whether or not either of them feels the need.
What scripture says about receiving a visiting preacher
The title is not in the Bible. The practice is. John writes to Gaius about caring for travelling workers. They were strangers to him, and they took nothing from the people they were sent to.
Beloved, you are faithful in what you are doing for the brothers, and especially since they are strangers to you. They have testified to the church about your love. You will do well to send them on their way in a manner worthy of God. For they went out on behalf of the Name, accepting nothing from the Gentiles. Therefore we ought to support such men, so that we may be fellow workers for the truth.
Verse 8 makes that support owed rather than optional. The host pastor is the one who arranges it.