Pastoral Leadership

Several decades ago as Jay Adams and men like him began writing on the topic of biblical counseling, conservative pastors gained a needed and necessary foothold in the area of the psyche (ψυχή), or care for the soul.

For a decade or so before the birth of what was called nouthetic counseling, conservative churchmen were buying the notion that you could not take the pastor anything dealing with the mind because he simply was not qualified. Thankfully, biblical counseling has restored the right appreciation for the pastor’s role of leadership in the area of mental, emotional and spiritual health vs. idea that only secular psychology can help in the various challenges of anthropology. 

A few years ago I noted in my book The Pyramid and the Box: The Decision-Making Process in a Local New Testament Church (Wipf & Stock, 2013), that I was seeing a couple of disturbing trends among ecclesiastical leaders, especially from my perspective as Western Coordinator for Institute of Biblical Leadership (IBL). Some pastors are self-deceived that they are something of a mediator of a theocracy, and in their mind, they are Theo!

Having reached, by the grace of God, the milestone of 25 years of pastoral ministry and 2000+ sermons, I am writing here a few things I have learned along the way. The first post was things I have learned about preaching.

My pastoral ministry has included serving in three different churches over a 25 year period. In the first I served as a youth pastor for 4 years. I served in the second as the senior pastor for 9 1/2 years and have been senior pastor at my current church for 11 1/2 years. Here are some things I have learned about ministry and churches. There are many observations that I could make. These are some that stand out to me, with minimal explanation. Each paragraph is a separate observation, in no particular order.