The Presbyter's Page
Electronic Edition – January 2005
Section 12 - LA
District UPCI
Donald Bryan - Presbyter
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Walking on Egg Shells and Other Hobbies of the Busy Pastor
How do you balance your convictions between pleasing God and pleasing your people? I’ve found three principles that help me in my role as pastor.
1.
Pastors walk the fine line between being a leader and being a friend. Jesus was called the Friend of sinners. He also called His disciples friends. Friendship is important. Pastors need friends, too. I don’t necessarily hold to the adage that
pastors shouldn’t get too close to their people. After all, how can you develop close relationships and minister
to your congregation without developing friendships?
At the same time, I must realize that a shepherd is more than a friend –
he must be a leader as well. The
walking-on-eggs syndrome begins when one in leadership must cross friends’
opinions. This is not necessarily bad,
though. While taking an opposing view,
if the pastor does so in the right spirit, friendships can bear it and even
benefit from the process. People
usually respect a shepherd who leads according to his convictions without
respect to persons.
2.
Pastors must be able to distinguish between the trivial and the
important. In my experience as a pastor
and a presbyter, I have seen many ministry casualties from the
bull-in-the-china-shop approach – the opposite of walking on eggs. Some preachers have an attitude of “I’m
going to do what I want, and if they don’t like it, they can lump it,” to prove
their authority.
Ask yourself, “Are my convictions and principles strongly based on
Scripture, or are they my opinions based on culture, custom, or personality?” Why become a martyr over the color of foyer
wallpaper or the brand of coffee pot to buy?
Will this matter 10 years from now?
Save your big guns for the battles that really count. Don’t compromise in matters of doctrine or
essential holy living. Compromise in
many circumstances in church life is not evil.
Learning to distinguish between the trivial and the important will cut
down on the broken china of people’s feelings.
3.
As a pastor, be transparent enough to admit when you have made a
mistake, but be careful not to make too many of them. We
are living in a skeptical age. People
have had it with phoniness in the pulpit.
It is no threat to your role to make a mistake occasionally if you are
willing to own up to it and say, “I was wrong.” People will admire your honesty and place confidence in your
leadership. To make too many of them,
however, will jeopardize your integrity and thwart your call. Many mistakes can be avoided by involvement
of others in decision-making.
Committees are helpful, and sometimes just an informal poll of people’s
opinions can avoid deedless misunderstandings.
On the other hand, too many autocratic decisions are a mistake. Seek a balance somewhere in between. Keep in mind that longevity in a given
pastorate may be tied to the pastor’s ability to minimize mistakes. A new pastor must realize that he is on
trial to some extent. His investments
in people’s lives are a little like deposits in a bank. After many years of ministry in a church, he
has many deposits to draw upon if he makes a mistake. Walking on eggs is a messy, stressful, time-consuming hobby. Frankly, I’m too busy to do it very
often. I pray for wisdom to follow His
principles and avoid it unless it’s absolutely necessary. How about you?
It takes a quality pastor to
grow a church. Several factors are very
important in the life of a growth pastor.
A number of these are listed below:
1.
A growth pastor must be a committed Christian.
2.
A growth pastor must be committed to the Word and prayer.
3.
A growth pastor must experience a God-given call to ministry. People will not tend to ride through the rough times
without a call.
4.
A growth pastor must have a passion for the ministry. There must be a desire to win each person to
Christ. There has to be a desire to
serve with excellence.
5.
A growth pastor must understand that the call of God is not to
privilege but to service. Jesus understood clearly that
leaders earn the right to lead by serving.
A servant leader ministers to the needs of others.
6.
A growth pastor must love the people they serve. You can’t pastor people you don’t love. They will not permit you to do so. You may preach to them but they will not
allow you to pastor them, and there is a difference. People in a church will generally only follow a leader who they
know loves them. The people can be very
gracious and forgiving with a pastor who cares.
7.
Understand and appreciate the culture of the community. Culture is not right or wrong.
It just is. The pastor who
elects to fight the culture will lose.
8.
A growth pastor must have reasonable people skills. This may be one of the most important skills on the
list. Simply stated, the pastor must practice
the Golden Rule and treat people the way they want to be treated. Abused people become bitter.
9.
A growth pastor must have a teachable spirit. Ministry
and life is in such a state of flux that pastors must be open to new
directions.
10. A growth pastor must have a
good work ethic. The pastor must be a
self-starter, reasonably organized, and have the capacity to turn away from
time wasters to stay focused on ministry.
There are many good claims on the pastor’s time that are not the best
claims or what the pastor had been hired to do. Many good organizations and causes claim time that take away from
the pastor’s primary task.
11. A growth pastor must work at
the right things. I know some pastors who have
worked hard but never saw growth in their churches because they weren’t working
at the right things. There are basic
factors which impact growth in a church.
These must move front and center.
12. A growth pastor must be a
reasonable communicator. Leaders must be able to
articulate if people are to follow. It
helps if the pastor can preach effectively.
Quality preaching will assist in the retention of people. However, I have known some people who were
able to hold churches together and even grow them in spite of poor preaching
skills.
13. A growth pastor must be a
visionary. The pastor has to be able to
dream dreams. The pastor must be able
to look at their church and picture it as being more than what it is. A dream must be a challenge.
14. A growth pastor must be psychologically stable. Virtually any personality type can grow
a church.
15. Growth pastors must take
care of their family responsibilities. The pastor must feel a sense
of responsibility for his spouse and children.
16. A growth pastor must be
responsible financially. The pastor must tithe if the
people are expected to do so. Many
pastors lose credibility in a community because of poor financial
practices.
Albert Einstein once made a wonderful point about
his theory of relativity. Einstein
realized what more leaders need to discover:
that a major breakthrough can launch an organization from good to great;
so great leaders always push for that breakthrough.
Breakthroughs occur
when we continually:
1.
Meet needs (which allows us to stay in the arena)
2.
Improve ourselves and our team; and
3.
Succeed. It’s a fact that there
is no success like success.
Pushing for a
breakthrough generates a leader’s best friend – momentum. Momentum makes your work or your mission
easier to accomplish than anything else.
Momentum is the great
exaggerator for both the good and the bad.
When you have no momentum, things look worse than they really are. And when you have momentum, it makes things
look better than they ever seemed to be.
So you’ve got to push for the breakthrough –from build-up to
breakthrough, from good to great. Good
is build-up; great is breakthrough.
But there’s a
temptation that comes with a breakthrough and the momentum that comes with it –
the temptation to ease up and celebrate the victory. You just kind of want to sit back and say, “Wow! Aren’t we good?” It just feels good to know you’ve achieved something.
When you have a
breakthrough, that’s when you spend more time, more energy and more money. Once you have that ball rolling, the
compounding effect is so huge you don’t ever want that ball to stop. Instead, the time to ease up is when things
have slowed down. When you don’t have a
breakthrough – when the train already has stopped – get off and take a
rest. You weren’t going anywhere
anyway! But once the train gets going
again, don’t get off. When you’ve got
momentum and the breakthrough, it’s dangerous to jump off. You could hurt yourself. You could hurt your organization.
So, if you want to
go from good leadership to great leadership, keep pushing toward a
breakthrough. And when momentum
arrives, either because you are near the goal or because you’ve broken through,
don’t ease up. That’s when you push the
pedal to the metal.
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