What Do You Want to Be When You Grow Up? A Word to Young Wannabe Pastors
Dear Young Seminarian,
Have you thought about your future? Of course you have, you think. You are in seminary, or headed to seminary, or just finished seminary. You are hoping for a pastoral position, or looking for one, or maybe even in one.
But what do you want to be?
Do you want to be a pastor? Or do you want to pastor?
At first, glance that may seem like a strange question. But it actually flows from an old, perhaps cheesy, thing that was making its way around college back in the day. It was a little statement about relationships and dating, and people who were “in love” with being “in love” rather than being “in love” with a person.
Now, dear seminarian who has learned to exegete Greek and Hebrew (at least you better have learned to if you have a seminary degree), don’t over exegete the words “in love.” I am not really sure what they mean myself, and I am pretty sure that these words are the cause of a lot of broken marriages and broken hearts.
But the point of the little saying was about people who wanted to be in a relationship. They were less concerned about who the relationship was with. They were looking for a feeling, not a person. They were “in love” with the idea of being married; they were not in love with the person themselves.
So I fear it is with many young pastors. They are wanting to be a pastor; they are not necessarily wanting to pastor. They have constructed a little house of pastoral ministry in their minds, and having graduated, they want to live in that house. In fact, they feel entitled to live in that house. They long for the days when the books are neatly arranged on the shelves, the boxes with class notes are finally in file cabinets, color-coded and alphabetized. They love the idea of preparing messages, and reading things over which there will be no quiz.
But they are dreadfully fearful of actually pastoring, that is to say, shepherding people. Sheep are sometimes dirty, no offense to our woolly friends who eat grass in the meadows. They make a lot of noise, again, no offense to our woolly friends who can surely drown out conversations in the evening coolness with their incessant braying. They have certain odors about them. And quite frankly, sometimes they bite causing significant pain, and often lasting damage.
But what shall we do? Shall we inhabit the office of pastor with the hopes of tending the sheep from afar, and only at set times? Shall we love the trappings of chief undershepherd while attempting to avoid the traps that surely await those who have been called more to a work than an office?
On the other hand, sheep can be tremendously delightful. Encouraging. Joy-inducing and thanks-producing. Those who volunteer to to work alongside can bring untold encouragement. They make the work easier and the burden lighter. But you will never know until you shepherd them.
My dear friend, if all you want to do is be a pastor, please think carefully before taking a position at a church. You will surely have the accolades of some, along with a certain amount of respect both in the church and in the community. People will admire you for your position, and they will often treat you well. But God has not called you to simply be a pastor. He has called you to pastor.
It’s a fine distinction, to be sure. Perhaps too fine for you at this point. But while seminary is still out for the summer, and perhaps for good, do a quick study on the word for “pastor” in the New Testament. It’s the Greek word poimaino (though if you need the transliteration, you’re not done with seminary yet). In the New Testament, it is used in reference to the church just a few times.
In Ephesians 4:8, it is noun referring to a gift of Christ to the church.
In the other occurrences (Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:2), it is a verb. It is something you do.
And that, my friend, is why I say, God has called you to pastor—to do something for church of God which he has purchased with his own blood (Acts 20:28), for the flock of God among you (1 Peter 5:2).
Yes, you are a gift to God’s people. That’s the point of Ephesians 4:8. But it is not a gift that is wrapped neatly waiting breathless young tots to open you up. It is a work in which you open yourself up, for the glory of God and the good of others.
There is one other, unexpected, use of the word shepherd. It usually doesn’t show up in most discussions of pastoral theology, though it probably should show up. It is found in the book of Jude, who is well-known for his excoriating language addressed to false teachers. It is a brutal assessment and condemnation of pastor-wannabes, those impostors who “shepherd themselves” (Jude 12). Yes, it’s actually there in the text. These are men who pretend to be leaders in the church, but rather than pastoring people, they pastor themselves. They tend to their own needs at the expense of those for whom Christ died.
The images that surround this statement in Jude 12 make it quite clear that Jude is not referring to pastors who, in the words of Spurgeon, take seriously “The Minister’s Self-Watch” (chapter 1 in Lectures to My Students, something that should be required reading for every pastor each year, more often if necessary).
No, these are strong words of condemnation for those who turned the work of ministry inward, and used the flock of God for their own gain, rather than giving of themselves for the flock of God.
Contrast this with the heart of Paul in 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12 who, with the heart of a mother imparted not just the gospel but his own self for the good of the people. And with the heart of a father, he was exhorting and encouraging and imploring them to walk in a manner worthy of the God who calls you into His own kingdom and glory.
With the heart of Paul we must charge into the battle for souls. We dare not sit idly by, preparing homiletical masterpieces, while the sheep wander aimlessly for lack of a shepherd.
Rather with the tenderness of a mother and the firmness of a father, we pastor people because that is what we have been called to do.
If that’s not what you want to do, then find a job, be faithful in church, and love people. But don’t be a pastor unless you want to pastor.
Larry Bio
Larry is married to Jan and has three children. He has served as pastor of Grace Baptist Church in River Rouge, MI since 1999. He is a graduate of Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary and is currently pursuing a DMin from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He blogs at Stuff Out Loud.
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I wish I’d seen this back when I was in Seminary. Pastoring is - and are usually portrayed as - two different things…the exciting preaching side that everyone wants and then the not so exciting administrative and counseling side that is 95% of the minister’s timesheet (I’m including sermon prep in the non-preaching side).
Thanks, Larry, for a good post!
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
Some church leaders would propose that pastoral care is not the primary role of a pastor. Those pastors who spend most of their time with pastoral care are actually hurting their church. According to these individuals, shepherding imagery used in the OT and NT describes leadership more than pastoral care.
[Aubrey Malphurs] As I work with various leaders, I’ve come across a fundamental assumption on which some base their pastoral paradigm. It’s the assumption that the primary and foremost role of the pastor is to provide pastoral care for the congregation—to take care of the sheep. This expectation includes such hands-on care as visitation in the hospital and at home, counseling, and care during a crisis. I challenge this assumption both biblically (exegetically) and practically. I believe that while pastoral care is a function of the pastorate, it’s not the primary or the foremost role of the pastor. The primary responsibility of the pastor is to lead the congregation, which includes such things as teaching the Scriptures, propagating the mission, casting a vision, strategizing to accomplish the church’s mission, and protecting the sheep from false teaching.
Malphurs, Aubrey. Nuts and Bolts of Church Planting, The: A Guide for Starting Any Kind of Church. Baker Publishing Group, 2011.
I disagree with Aubrey - It’s just not possible to look at the shepherd motif’s from either testament or for that matter to look at the at least 16 different “tasks” that a pastor is given to do and to say he can do it without getting in and around and amongst “the sheep.” It is true that pastors must be careful not to become so involved in the ebb and flow of the sheep that they cannot spend the necessary time in sermon and lesson preparation to feed the sheep doctrine and teaching. But there are just too many passages that speak to the individual relationship between a pastor and those in his congregation to suggest that there can be this “non-touch” leadership of the pastor. If you are spending 20 to 30 hrs a week per sermon - you probably have no business in the pastorate because you are probably neglecting your own soul - the spiritual, emotional and other needs of your own family and children, let alone the massive demands of leading, mentoring and working with other leaders in the congregation. I will say this - the longer a pastor is in a ministry and the longer he can train up those in the diakonate as well as the prebuteroi - then sure he can pass on those shepherding responsibilities to fellow shepherds - but that takes a significant period of time. No - a pastor can share much of his bishop tasks to the deacons - he can share some of the presbuteroi tasks to the other elders - but there will be times - typically regularly that God’s children need to hear from their pastor - the one that teaches and leads the congregation. To say a lead pastor doesn’t have to do that is in my opinion creating an office we just don’t see in the New Testament. The words of Christ are instructive, “Peter do you love me - feed my sheep.” Notice he doesn’t say - Peter - be an exceptional “administrator!” No he says “feed them!” Shepherd them! There is no way that only happens as we organize, administrate and then teach/preach from the pulpit. Sheep hear and know the voice of the shepherd.
To see more of my rant - check out my chapter on the lead pastor in “The Pyramid and the Box” just published by Resource Publications - a wing of Wipf and Stock publishers.
Thx
Straight Ahead!
jt
Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;
I like the point of the article, and I applaud it. The tone, however, is insufferably arrogant and snobby; the author gives the impression he is like a proud, aristocratic father speaking to a particularly earnest but dim-witted child. Larry’s advice for “wannabe pastors” might be taken more seriously if he dispensed his advice with a bit more grace.
Don’t over exegete the word “arrogant,” however …
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
I didn’t read the tone that way. More of a voice of experience aimed at righting some wrong thinking.
There’s a pretty old debate about how one generation should talk to the next. One view says talk to them as equals. On the other hand, it’s arguably more respectful to refrain from pretending—respect them enough to tell them the truth which is that they really don’t know what they’re doing yet.
Looking back, I knew that theoretically. Eventually knew it experientially. I have yet to meet an experienced pastor who doesn’t acknowledge that he was pretty clueless in the early years.
Views expressed are always my own and not my employer's, my church's, my family's, my neighbors', or my pets'. The house plants have authorized me to speak for them, however, and they always agree with me.
[Joel Tetreau]I disagree with Aubrey - It’s just not possible to look at the shepherd motif’s from either testament or for that matter to look at the at least 16 different “tasks” that a pastor is given to do and to say he can do it without getting in and around and amongst “the sheep.” It is true that pastors must be careful not to become so involved in the ebb and flow of the sheep that they cannot spend the necessary time in sermon and lesson preparation to feed the sheep doctrine and teaching. But there are just too many passages that speak to the individual relationship between a pastor and those in his congregation to suggest that there can be this “non-touch” leadership of the pastor.
Joel, I don’t think Malphurs recommends a ‘non-touch’ leadership approach to pastoring. What he does recommend is a “lesser-touch-than-most-expect” approach to pastoring:
“The view that the pastor’s primary responsibility is pastoral care becomes a problem if the pastor of a church pours most of his time into pastoral care and little, if any, into other areas, such as communicating and encouraging the church to pursue Jesus’s mission for the church—the Great Commission. It is also wrong if people insist that the primary role of all pastors must be the pastoral care of the flock. My purpose in writing this article isn’t to diminish the importance of pastoral care but to put it in proper biblical perspective.”
[Joel Tetreau] If you are spending 20 to 30 hrs a week per sermon - you probably have no business in the pastorate because you are probably neglecting your own soul - the spiritual, emotional and other needs of your own family and children, let alone the massive demands of leading, mentoring and working with other leaders in the congregation.
Apparently, JMAC had no business in the pastorate when he came to Grace Community Church. If I remember correctly, he told the elders when he came that he wanted to spend 30 hrs a week on sermon prep and that they would need to handle most of the pastoral care.
Frankly, I agree with Malphurs that pastors and congregations who expect the pastor to spend a majority of his time with counseling and pastoral care will end up hurting the church. Malphurs provides several reasons why:
[Aubrey Malphurs] There are several practical reasons we must be careful about overemphasizing the pastoral care side of a pastor’s ministry.1. Research teaches us that some pastors who are strong in pastoral care tend to resist healthy, necessary growth in their churches, because if the church adds more people through evangelism or some other means, then it grows too big for the pastor to be able to care for all the people. This would put an unreasonable demand on his time. He asks, “How can I visit and care for all these people that I love? There aren’t enough hours in the day.” Thus, often unconsciously, he resists healthy growth and the church stays small in size and fails to reach lost people.
2. Some in the church, often the older members, expect the pastor to visit them, particularly when they’re in the hospital. If he fails to visit them for even a legitimate reason, they are often offended. This promotes the false idea that if the pastor doesn’t visit you, you haven’t been visited.
3. Others in the congregation may have gifts in the pastoral area (Eph. 4:11 applies to laypeople as well as pastoral leaders!) and often use these gifts when visiting some of these very same people in the hospital. However, still the same mistaken view prevails: if the pastor hasn’t visited me, then I haven’t been visited! This diminishes and even discourages this important ministry of the laity in the church.
4. Some ministries in the church are better at providing pastoral care than the pastor, who may not be gifted in this area. For example, one of the advantages of a small group ministry is that it provides hands-on pastoral care for its members. I recall visiting one of the ladies in my church who was in the hospital. When I arrived, I found several of the people in her small group there ministering to and caring for her. I suspect that I was more in their way than a help to her.
5. Finally, some churches are too large for the pastor to visit and offer pastoral care to all or even some of the members. So how can his role be primarily that of pastoral care? If it is, his congregation should demand that he visit everybody.
I tend to see pastoral responsibility divided into three spheres - teaching, administrating, relationship building. Of these, I think there is strong biblical evidence to support the thesis that teaching is far and away the most important of the three. Indeed, Jesus says “feed my sheep.” That is done first and foremost in the teaching of God’s Word.
Why is it that my voice always seems to be loudest when I am saying the dumbest things?
To add to what I’ve already posted from Malphurs, I think the Biblical counseling movement is both a boon and a bane to pastoral ministry. It is a boon because it better equips the body of Christ to handle messy / thorny life issues. It is a bane because usually it’s the pastor who takes the classes and does most of the counseling. In other words, the pastor takes the classes and then finds himself spending more and more of his time in personal counseling situations. It would be better for the church and the pastor if the church paid for qualified men (i.e. other elders) and women in the congregation to take these classes and then provide this one-on-one counseling / discipleship. This would free up the preaching elder to spend his time with preaching and leading the congregation.
So there may be someone here at SI that loves and appreciates the ministry of Mac more than me - but I don’t know who that is. I love him in the Lord and I look up to his ministry and approach and am very grateful. There are two or three disagreements that I have with John - This is one of them. Every time in Shepherd’s conference - he or Phil stands and praises the 30 hours per sermon model - I grown - because that is horrible advice for a young pastor or a middle age pastor or an older pastor who has himself, maybe one or two other elder, pastor types - maybe 3 or 4 deacons - or 1 or 2 deacons. This is the vast majority of conservative evangelical and balanced fundamentalist men who pastor. And if that guy prep’s 30 hrs per sermon - he is failing elsewhere. It just is. As a leader at IBL I see this all the time guys who went to seminary and learned the 25 step exegetical Greek and Hebrew method and some seminary prof told him that he wasn’t doing God’s Word justice unless he spends 20 - 30 hrs in preparation for that one sermon - oh my word. This only works if all you do is study and you delegate everything and I mean everything to other leaders. Of course Mac can do that - God for him - God bless him - that’s wonderful……..but the vast majority of guys shepherding simply cannot do that because they don’t have the help a guy like Mac has.
Spend as much time as you can in the text - but you cannot ignore the “face-to-face” shepherding, the oversight of the larger ministry, the actually 20 + categories of “stuff’ the average lead pastor must do (I said 16 the other day - it’s actually like 24 - I’ll have to dig that out for you guys).
I will say that Grace Community is unusual - It’s my opinion that because GCC breaks down the congregation into smaller “groups” and each “group” is pastored by an elder on the elder team - I’m sure that congregation is getting pastoral care. Typically in these large churches - even with good men - the congregations are built around a singular personality - the guy in question is worshipped or followed in large part because he is outstanding at ……. whatever. So his church becomes something of a large gathering of “groupees.” But if you ask the question - is real body life taking place? In many occasions l- too many occasions it’s not. The ministry is a sharp and slick 501 c3 non-profit religious organization that calls itself a church - but really doesn’t act like a church. And you can have that and have the lead guy spend 30 hours a week in study.
A counter thought to a counter thought.
Straight Ahead!
jt
ps - it’s a problem when your own pastor doesn’t know you by name!
Dr. Joel Tetreau serves as Senior Pastor, Southeast Valley Bible Church (sevbc.org); Regional Coordinator for IBL West (iblministry.com), Board Member & friend for several different ministries;
Joel,
I agree that JMAC’s ministry today is hard, if not impossible, to replicate in the average 100 member congregation. That being said, JMAC made 30hr sermon prep a priority in his ministry at Grace from the very start, before he became JMAC, before he had the following, before his church was larger than the average church. For him it was a matter of priority. Did Grace suffer from his lack of pastoral care, probably to some degree. However, JMAC realized that pastoral care wasn’t the priority that many people thought it should be; biblical exposition was. He chose the more needful thing and delegated the rest to the men he had around him (which, if you remember, weren’t the best qualified).
It comes down to priorities and a willingness to train and delegate. Most churches and pastors of 100 member churches would be better served if the pastor spent less time in pastoral care and more time in proclamation and leading and equipping the church to make more and better disciples. Isn’t that what Ephesians 4:11-12 teach us? Pastors are to equip the members in the congregation so that the members can do the work of the ministry.
[T Howard]To add to what I’ve already posted from Malphurs, I think the Biblical counseling movement is both a boon and a bane to pastoral ministry. It is a boon because it better equips the body of Christ to handle messy / thorny life issues. It is a bane because usually it’s the pastor who takes the classes and does most of the counseling. In other words, the pastor takes the classes and then finds himself spending more and more of his time in personal counseling situations. It would be better for the church and the pastor if the church paid for qualified men (i.e. other elders) and women in the congregation to take these classes and then provide this one-on-one counseling / discipleship. This would free up the preaching elder to spend his time with preaching and leading the congregation.
On Biblical counseling:
- I don’t have a statistic but I would surmise that the vast majority of counsellees are women. AND
- The Bible has an answer for that: “the older women … admonish the young women to love their husbands … [et cetera] ” (Titus 2:3-4)
- The vast majority of counseling is just Biblical “common sense”.
- Admittedly there are some who have a medical condition and probably should see a Christian psychiatrist. The wise counselor will quickly steer those cases appropriately
- Some pastors & some congregants want to give too much advice …. receive too much advice.
- Advice to any seminarian who studies Biblical counseling: 1.) Find that role in the Bible. Search real hard … it’s not there; 2.) Good luck making a living
- A personal anecdote. I’m far from normal …. never needed counseling!
I’ve taken three counseling classes in Seminary, and they’re really nothing more than applying theology to practical life. It’s about sanctification. It’s really good stuff. It’s really nothing more than helping people grow through applying Scripture to their life. You could probably replace the term “counseling” with “Pastoring” and be just fine. Jay Adam’s book A Theology of Christian Counseling is really nothing more than a practical theology book. Very good stuff.
Tyler is a pastor in Olympia, WA and works in State government.
[TylerR]I’ve taken three counseling classes in Seminary, and they’re really nothing more than applying theology to practical life. It’s about sanctification. It’s really good stuff. It’s really nothing more than helping people grow through applying Scripture to their life. You could probably replace the term “counseling” with “Pastoring” and be just fine. Jay Adam’s book A Theology of Christian Counseling is really nothing more than a practical theology book. Very good stuff.
I’m not sure the rate per credit hour but …. if those counseling classes were three hour classes and the rate per credit hour was $ 300. You paid $ 2,700 for what you could have gotten out of a $ 30 book! KaChing!
[Jim][TylerR]I’ve taken three counseling classes in Seminary, and they’re really nothing more than applying theology to practical life. It’s about sanctification. It’s really good stuff. It’s really nothing more than helping people grow through applying Scripture to their life. You could probably replace the term “counseling” with “Pastoring” and be just fine. Jay Adam’s book A Theology of Christian Counseling is really nothing more than a practical theology book. Very good stuff.
I’m not sure the rate per credit hour but …. if those counseling classes were three hour classes and the rate per credit hour was $ 300. You paid $ 2,700 for what you could have gotten out of a $ 30 book! KaChing!
But Jim, reading that $30 book won’t get him a M.Div (which is what I think TylerR is working on). So that $30 book might be good for you, but not good for TylerR.
JMac, I think, is the exception that proves the rule. BECAUSE he was willing to put such a high priority on exegesis early on, he was able to raise up godly elders at GCC to take some of the load off of his desk, he was able to turn his messages into his books (very few of his books are original - many of them are re-edited copies of sermons), and he’s been able to have the influence that he’s had. Exegesis and study are good, but if your church is as small as JMac’s was originally - he’s said that his church just happened to be in the right place at the right time to grow exponentially like it did - you can’t expect to rocket to the point where you can lock yourself away in a study because you’ve got dozens of people under you doing things like managing the property/plant, getting the bills paid, counseling, and dealing with the administrative minutiae.
I’m not saying that study is bad. Exegesis is HARD work. But if a seminarian - and I can say this as one who has graduated from one - thinks that Pastoring is largely sermon preparation and delivery, they’re in for a rude awakening in the real world. And that, I am fairly sure, was Larry’s entire point.
"Our task today is to tell people — who no longer know what sin is...no longer see themselves as sinners, and no longer have room for these categories — that Christ died for sins of which they do not think they’re guilty." - David Wells
@Jay: Who said “But Jim, reading that $30 book won’t get him a M.Div (which is what I think TylerR is working on). So that $30 book might be good for you, but not good for TylerR.”
From me: “Surely you can get an MDiv without 3 counseling classes!”
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