Pastoral Ministry

My filing system shows that I recently preached my 2000th sermon. This year I will complete 25 years of pastoral ministry. Praise God for His grace. I want to write down some of the things I have learned along the way. I think I’ll do it in 3-4 separate posts, including what I have learned about preaching, about ministry and churches, about people, and about God.

Here are some things I have learned about preaching, in no particular order.

Preparing and preaching a sermon is like having a baby. You labor over it for many hours, sometimes right up until the minute you start speaking, and then it is born. If you’ve prepared diligently, something good will come out. It isn’t always pretty, but it has potential.

From Paraklesis, a resource of Baptist Bible Seminary (Summer, 2014). Used by permission.

What exactly is the pastor’s job? Some churches expect their pastor to speak 20 times a month. Another church demands only three sermons each month. In some churches, the pastor cannot delegate the setting of the temperature on the thermostat. Different churches go to the other extreme and require the pastor to preach and do not let him do anything else.

One pastor took a survey of his church members to find out what their expectations were for how he spent his time. One person put down more hours than there are in a week for the pastor’s average work week.

While tradition plays a role in understanding what a pastor’s job description happens to be, it is the Bible that should prescribe the details of the pastor’s job. God has designed the office of pastor, elder, or overseer. If churches are out of balance or are missing some of what is needed, they will suffer loss in their ministry. The acronym POET is a helpful learning device for remembering what the Bible teaches about the pastor’s role in the local church.

When I was in college, a lot of my friends were preparing to go into “The Ministry.” Some were full of holy zeal for mission work, some had plans for pastoral ministry, and some were simply caught up in the whirlwind of surrender. The “Preacher Boys” dated and married the girls called to be “Pastors’ Wives” and we all dreamed of future service.

Somehow when the dust had settled, I found myself married to one of those “Preacher Boys” despite no pressing need to be a “Pastor’s Wife” or to be in vocational ministry. Our first years together were spent finishing up school, going through the process of ordination, and eventually launching out into “The Ministry.” But nearly a decade and a half later, I’ve learned a few things. And most of them bear no resemblance to what I thought I knew.

I was reminded of this today when I read this piece from Jared Wilson about watching one of his parishioners waste away in hospice. Wilson is a popular blogger and author, but he spends most of his time in the trenches as a pastor, and this piece particularly captures the realities of ministry. The pain, the heartbreak, the inexplicable hope of the gospel. The joy of watching people triumph over death through the power of Christ.

We didn’t talk about these things in college.

From Voice, Jul/Aug 2013. Used by permission. Read Part 1 and Part 2.

Though we may understand the characteristics of the small church, ministry is not static, but dynamic. It is not conducted in a sterile test tube isolated from the winds of culture. Instead, we find that the culture in which we live intertwines with the programs we conduct. As a result, the trends that blow across the cultural landscape infiltrate the cracks of the church and affect the ministry and flow of the congregation. Some of these trends are positive, resulting in new opportunities to reach people for Christ. Others undermine the foundation of the church and, if not confronted with a biblical response, assault the stability of the ministry. Still others are neutral, having in themselves no moral or spiritual implications, but radically affect the manner in which the church conducts its ministry.