Pastoral Leadership

Over the years, it has been my great privilege to spend time with older preachers. From them I have learned many valuable lessons: lessons which I put into practice daily in my ministry.

Sunday, June 2, 2019 was my final day as the pastor of the Cleveland Baptist Church. So on that Sunday evening, after forty-one years of ministry (12 years as an associate, 5 years as co-pastor, and nearly 24 years as the senior pastor) we passed the mantle of pastoral leadership to the next pastor.

If your schedule is anything like mine, from Thanksgiving to early June is booked. Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, starting off new school semesters, winter revival, stewardship emphasis, Easter, graduations…. It fills up pretty fast.

This week, Terrie and I celebrate thirty-three years of ministry at Lancaster Baptist Church with the Anniversary Sunday and host the Spiritual Leadership Conference. (And I hope you’re planning to join us!)

The story of Rehoboam in first Kings 12 seems increasingly relevant to independent Baptists in the 21st Century. Rehoboam, of course, was the son of Solomon and the one to whom the Proverbs had been written. He was given excellent advice and excellent training.

It has been said, “Leaders know the way, go the way, and show the way.”

While I agree with that statement, I have discovered that it only takes place if it happens intentionally. In other words, leaders don’t automatically know, go, and show the way—especially all at once and in a systematic way.

How then can leaders intentionally invest in their teams? Below are five ways, which I’m specifically applying to the ways a senior pastor can regularly develop his staff. But these could certainly be applied in a variety of settings.

One thing I have learned after inheriting a church building that is over thirty-five years old: don’t change something until you get an idea of why it was there. Sometimes, when I investigate why something was put up, I find it to be a matter of tradition, preference, or taking a shortcut (and okay to remove, improve, or replace). Other times, I discover that there was a reason something was put together the way it was; and I have no business trying to change it without compromising the entire structure of our building.

In life and ministry it is no different.

One of the first books I read in full-time ministry was In Search of Excellence by Tom Peters. Although it is specifically about excellence in business, I was captivated by the realization that if the secular world would care about excellence in the workplace, how much more should we care about excellence in ministry? I have been on a pursuit ever since to have a ministry that honors God.

We know that progress in the Christian life comes by looking to Jesus (Hebrews 12:1–3). Additionally, God has designed the Christian life so that others lead us in the faith. For instance, a Christian parent should model God’s love and point their child to Christ.

One of the great travesties of today’s contemporary church philosophy is a lack of spiritual conviction. Notice I did not say a lack of communicating spiritual conviction, for that’s not the greatest problem.

When I arrived at Bible Baptist Church a little over two years ago, we had a five acre piece of property, a spacious auditorium, lots of classrooms, and zero debt; but the roof was falling in, much of the property was in disrepair, and every classroom was filled with superfluous material, which made it impossible to use them for ministry.

On June 17, 2018, Harvest Baptist Temple of Medford, OR, celebrated forty-one years of ministry. It was also the day that the founding pastor, Dr. Bob Gass, entrusted the heritage and history of that ministry to me.

The heart-felt desire of every godly pastor is to do the work God has called him to do—preach the gospel, disciple new Christians, study God’s Word, prepare biblical messages, equip the church family for the work of the ministry, and serve as an undershepherd of God’s people.

Do you ever begin a new week with a pile on your desk? Scraps of notations from Sunday. Left over to dos from last week. Started projects. Unanswered emails. And on top of all of that, the needs and responsibilities of the coming week.

I don’t read a lot of blogs, but I use social media enough to notice an excess of what 2 Timothy 2:23 refers to as “foolish and unlearned questions.” The online world provides a perfect platform for these kinds of questions because there are so many willing participants.

It seems as if we are surrounded with appeals to do the work of God in a new and “better” way. If only we will cancel our evening services, abandon our confrontational soulwinning, throw out our standards, soften our preaching, replace godly music with sensual music, and avoid politically incorrect subjects such as abortion, homosexuality, and submission on the part of a wife to her husband, then we will begin to see our churches grow.

This is part two of this article. Please click here to read part one.

1. The Pastor Is to Have a Faith Worthy of Following

Remember them which have the rule over you…considering the end of their conversation—Hebrew 13:7

My wife and I began serving in full-time ministry in June of 1974. I had just graduated from Bible College, moved to a city where we knew no one, and at the age of twenty-four started an independent Baptist church with no one but our family. Forty-one years of pastoral ministry later, I stood before the congregation that I loved and at the age of sixty-five read my resignation letter.

Perhaps you’ve heard the phrase, “You must make time to come apart before you fall apart.” It refers to Mark 6:31 where Jesus told his disciples, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat.”

Being a pastor is a great privilege. The Bible tells us, “This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work” (1 Timothy 3:1). It is a good thing to desire to serve God as a pastor in His church. (God give us some men—young and older—who would have such a desire!) Yet, being a pastor carries with it great responsibility toward God’s people.