12 “How To’s” Pastors Wish Someone Had Taught Them

If you went to business school or worked in any management position for at least 2 years, you’d learn #1, #2, #3, #5, #8, #9, and #11. Learning how to prioritize and manage your time—something you should have already learned in college / seminary–would solve #4 and #10.

As for #12, you don’t need to learn how to know when it’s time to leave. You need to learn how to be faithful in a difficult ministry context. Too many pastors jump ship when their “vision” gets questioned or challenged. Too many pastors jump ship when they encounter opposition to their leadership or experience hurt in ministry. You want people to respect and follow your leadership? Learn how to be faithful (1 Cor 4:1-2).

[T Howard]

If you went to business school or worked in any management position for at least 2 years, you’d learn #1, #2, #3, #5, #8, #9, and #11. Learning how to prioritize and manage your time—something you should have already learned in college / seminary–would solve #4 and #10.

In defense of the author, though, those things you say one learns at a business school or in management are precisely those things mostly left out of seminary training. I’ve often thought things like these ought to be taught (somehow) in seminary. In my day, we didn’t get this stuff and mostly didn’t get much instruction on where to dig it up. It was more learn on the job, and rely on experience outside of seminary, to pick any of it up.

I’m also not so sure prioritizing and time-management are learned by college/seminary graduates by the time they graduate … though that is probably not the fault of the college/seminary. At least, certainly not by all…

Speaking of time management, I better get back to what I am supposed to be doing!

Don,

Seminaries can’t be all things to all people. Let’s say a seminary does want to add more business-related classes for their students to help combat this list. Which theological / biblical language classes do they cut to make that happen? Many seminaries are already reducing or eliminating their biblical language requirements.

No, my perspective has been and continues to be that if a young man feels called to pastoral ministry, he needs to skip the undergrad bible degree and get a marketable degree (e.g. business, education, engineering, humanities, etc.). He can then attend seminary to get the theological / biblical languages training he needs for pastoral ministry. The undergrad degree, however, will provide a good set of basic tools he can use in service to ministry.

There are some guys who believe their theological degree automatically makes them experts in non-profit accounting and tax law, in HR-related matters, in people leadership, or in counseling. It doesn’t. If they don’t have resources within their own congregation to help them in these areas, they need to outsource this to other organizations who have expertise in these areas.

As a first step, I would get the church a subscription to resources like Church Law & Tax or reach out to Stewardship Services Foundation. If you have additional questions, find a good non-profit tax attorney or CPA in your area. The money spent with these individuals is a good investment. A couple of the churches I attended in the past believed they could figure out all the tax / accounting issues in-house, and the pastor refused to spend God’s money on getting legal and tax advice. As a result, all the f/t associate pastors were given 1099s and treated like independent contractors, and the pastor claimed 100% of his salary as housing allowance. Good luck with that.

As for learning about people management and leadership, I would recommend sitting down with anyone in your congregation who is or was a company executive or people manager. They can usually help you with hiring / firing / hr issues and questions, leading a meeting, and budgeting. Again, the problem I’ve seen is that a young pastor will come into a congregation and feel he has to prove he is a strong leader. This usually results in being too insecure or proud to admit he needs help or has a weakness in these areas.

One young pastor I know came into his new church and within a few years complained that people weren’t following his leadership and left. In speaking with a few of the congregants who happened to be retired company executives, they said the young pastor repeatedly made the same leadership mistakes in how he led the congregation through changes he wanted to implement. When they would go to him and speak to him about his leadership, he was dismissive and accused them of being unwilling to submit.

So, in my mind, it’s less about what pastors wished someone had taught them and more about what pastors are willing and humble enough to learn from others.

1. It’s often a buzzword that a wanna-be hip pastor likes to use

Often but not always and it doesn’t have to be. I am not a fan of buzzwords and prefer not to use them but if a church doesn’t know what to do, someone is failing aren’t they? I wonder if we too often get angst-y over words and miss the bigger picture. Even if the “vision” is “Let’s keep doing what we have done for the past hundred years,” it needs to be communicated effectively and consistently or people will forget or misunderstand or try to change because they don’t know what the vision is. I can’t help but think a lot of churches lost their moorings theologically and philosophically because the vision was not communicated. As a result, the people didn’t know the whys and wherefores and started drifting.

2. The vision for God’s church is not the prerogative of one man.

It probably is rarely the vision of one man. But God has called one man to lead in many cases, even if there is an elder plurality. All of the talk of elder plurality has always struck me as a little odd. No matter how “plural” you are, the guy who speaks the most is going to be the leader. Even if a church claims equal elders, one will always be a little more equal than another. It’s the nature of being an overseer. But even at that, it is probably typical that one person will raise an issue and others will come on board. Then one guy will take responsibility to communicate it. I don’t see the biblical basis for objecting to one man doing that.

[Larry]

1. It’s often a buzzword that a wanna-be hip pastor likes to use

Often but not always and it doesn’t have to be. I am not a fan of buzzwords and prefer not to use them but if a church doesn’t know what to do, someone is failing aren’t they? I wonder if we too often get angst-y over words and miss the bigger picture. Even if the “vision” is “Let’s keep doing what we have done for the past hundred years,” it needs to be communicated effectively and consistently or people will forget or misunderstand or try to change because they don’t know what the vision is. I can’t help but think a lot of churches lost their moorings theologically and philosophically because the vision was not communicated. As a result, the people didn’t know the whys and wherefores and started drifting.

I think you’re confusing vision and mission here. The mission of the church should never change if its properly rooted in Scripture. It sets forward what the church does, how it does it, and, sometimes, why it does it. The vision statement describes the future-facing goals and ambitions of your church. The vision statement can change depending on internal or external factors. Adherence to the mission statement is what keeps the church from scope creep or losing its mooring.

[Larry]

2. The vision for God’s church is not the prerogative of one man.

It probably is rarely the vision of one man. But God has called one man to lead in many cases, even if there is an elder plurality. All of the talk of elder plurality has always struck me as a little odd. No matter how “plural” you are, the guy who speaks the most is going to be the leader. Even if a church claims equal elders, one will always be a little more equal than another. It’s the nature of being an overseer. But even at that, it is probably typical that one person will raise an issue and others will come on board. Then one guy will take responsibility to communicate it. I don’t see the biblical basis for objecting to one man doing that.

Here is where I would disagree. God has not called just one man to lead the church if he is operating within a biblical plurality. All the elders are called to lead the church. However, for a variety of reasons, many elders within the plurality abdicate their responsibility to lead and are content to establish a ceo / board of advisors model. Biblical elders are not advisors to the “senior pastor”; they are pastors themselves who share equal authority and responsibility to lead God’s church.

That said, there is functional, gift-based diversity within the eldership team. Not all elders are equal in giftedness, effectiveness, influence, time availability, experience, verbal skills, leadership ability, or biblical knowledge. Those who are gifted, trained, and experienced in a certain area will naturally stand out among the other elders.

Of course, the teaching elder (or the guy who does most of the preaching) will be seen as having the most influence over the congregation, but that doesn’t mean he is the only elder with the prerogative to determine the future plans for the church. That should be discussed and agreed upon amongst the eldership team, and one elder should not try to blackmail the other elders by spiritualizing his “vision.”

To use a buzz word!

As for Tom’s last, I’d say I’m mostly in agreement. I realize that seminaries and such aren’t set up to teach such things, and probably couldn’t be. I guess it might be better to say that once a guy gets into the ministry, if his heart is right, he will want to know these things and will wish he was better at them.

and one thing on Larry’s last… In my experience it isn’t the one who talks the most who necessarily emerges as the leader. Often it is the one who isn’t always talking. I’m with you, though, in opposition to the multiple elder thing. I don’t like what I’ve seen in rule by committee, and wherever it succeeds, it is because one of the committee has the leadership skills that produces results

[T Howard]

Aaron,

If vision casting is just long-term planning, why then is it the responsibility / prerogative of the senior pastor instead of the elder board to come up with the long-term plan for the church?

Why do guys call themselves “vision casters”? They have the spiritual gift of long-term planning?

Hmmm.

I really didn’t pick up any distinction between pastor and elders in the article. A pastor is an elder, and an elder is a pastor, so I don’t know why long-term planning/vision would belong to only one of them—other than, it’s very common for the elders of a church to identify one among their number as the leader or one of them as the ‘pastor of vision’ etc. Which is practical.

But ‘vision’ is a bit more than long-term planning. It mostly overlaps with that but it’s long term planning with an idea of what the church can become. “Vision” has the connotation of a lofty ideal. Maybe one never to be reached but to be continually pursued… but maybe reached. So there’s definitely a “bigness” to it, though it wouldn’t have to be a headcount sort of bigness.

In my experience, thriving organizations of all kinds benefit greatly from ‘vision.’ It’s a human thing, though, more than a church thing. But I see it has having a “church version” because church also = humans (though also more than humans).

(Worth noting, too, that in many congregations there is only one elder. And even in multiple-elder congregations, there’s often a large gap between one elder and all the others in terms of experience, training, and giftedness. He functions as de facto leader even if he isn’t the official leader.)