Help! I’m A Young Pastor

The following is some advice I gave a young pastor after visiting with him for only a week. The church as around 300 attendees. They have several active elders and deacons. As I mention below they are all very well educated and leaders in their respective fields. In addition, there are at least two retired pastors in the church, one of which was the previous pastor. He was there for over 20 years.

Dear George,

Okay, here goes. these are my observations after being there less than a week. Also, they are in no particular order.

I think you have a great bunch of folks. Your elders and deacons (those I met and talked with) all seem to be solid, bright, aggressive, and godly (as far as I can tell). They also all seemed to be older than you, more formally educated than you, and wealthier than you. They all live in very nice homes, a few of them are nearing retirement and can afford to retire comfortably, etc. I’m guessing, because of the proximity, that you are living in a church provided home?

So, here’s the question. How do you minister to these folks when all these factors are real factors? Here’s what I think: First, you ignore the appearances. Yep, just pretend they don’t exist. Believe what God says about you and your position in the community. Be who he says you are.

“Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity” (1 Tim 4:12).

I would include all the things I said above including your youth. Here’s what I suggest and why. I suggest that you work on reading your Bible 2-3 times every year. Work hard to make yourself biblically literate in what might seem to you to be extreme. Second, work hard to read at least one extra-biblical book every week. Doug has been reading 2 each week since 1975. I read one a week or so when I’m paying attention. If you can read your Bible and another book regularly and often, this will raise your Biblical outlook and bearing several notches and will give you the umph to be an example in Word, conduct, love, spirit, and purity, to the flock that the Scripture calls young men in ministry to be.

Next, work on your family. Love your wife like a crazy man. Take her on dates, write her little notes and hide them all over the place for her to find. Bring her flowers (or plants if she prefers). Touch her a lot. Make making love an extension of how you treat her the rest of the time. In other words, make love to her all the time. Take her children on individual dates. Do things they like to do. Love them all in ways that will lead them to love what you love. If you love Jesus, you want them to love him too. You don’t want them to love him because you told them to, but because they love what you love because you love them. You want to be their hero. You want them to jump through a wall for you because you would jump through one for them. Talk them up, build them up, cheer them on—especially your wife. Tell her how beautiful she is and what’s beautiful about her. Do it also with your daughters. Women (and girls) always think they are ugly. I don’t know why (don’t they have mirrors?). Consequently, they need their man to tell them how wonderful they are and how beautiful. This will make them even more beautiful.

With regard to the church, always have some sort of Biblical exhortation ready to go and every time you get together in any kind of church setting, share the exhortation you’re ready with. So, at every elders’ meeting, you begin it with your exhortation. At every pot-luck, you share your exhortation. I think the church needs to hear the word presented and applied all the time. You want the flock of God to be God-oriented. You want them to always be asking, where is Jesus in all this? You want them to wonder, “how in the world am I going to add one more thing into my already busy Christian life.” And by Christian life they mean, I have to study my Bible so I can know God so I can give him glory and please him.

My biggest fear about higher church liturgy is that the symbols will cause the things symbolized to be lost in the symbolism. In other words, when some people go to a church with high liturgy (ours included), they go there to hide in that liturgy. It gives them the feeling of being spiritual without necessarily actually being spiritual. I noticed that all the songs and Bible reading in the service the day I was there was related to the sermon. I assume you do that every week. But, I also noticed that among the people I talked to afterward, none of them seemed to notice that connection. My thought at the time was that the service was very Bible lite. This was probably in contrast to our church. We have an exhortation at the beginning of the service, a sermon in the middle, and a communion exhortation before the Lord’s supper. This in addition to the songs and Bible reading. And the sermon is around 50 minutes long. So, we get three sermons in effect each Sunday.

When I was in seminary, one of the profs said, “Sermonettes make Christianettes.” I think that is true. If you want to have solid Bible-based Christian members of your church, you need to lead them by example (see above) and you also need to display Biblical fervor in every setting you can and this begins in your private life, then in your family, and next, in the worship service. Lots of Bible teaching and preaching.

This leads to how to turn the ship. First, you lead by example. You don’t try to rule over anyone. You don’t tell anyone what to do. You just change your own personal direction and then shine the new you on everyone. Let it flow out. Then, when you talk to folks you talk in terms of what they get to do or be. For example, I noticed that you did pretty much everything in the worship service. What if you suggested that the elders might be missing something by not being allowed to read Scripture or pray on Sundays? You might say to the whole session, “Would you all like to share in leading the congregation in the reading of the Bible in the worship service?” Or to an individual elder, “Would you be interested in leading the prayer time in the worship service?” This gives them the opportunity to serve and it appears that you think you have been ripping them off by not letting them serve and that you feel very badly about it.

I noticed also that you and your family did the set up for the visitor meal after church. Was that a normal thing? Or did you do it because you were there anyway? If it is normal, you need to stop doing that and that kind of thing. Do that by offering to let others serve in the church. You might have as a long-range plan to distinguish elder duties from deacon duties along spiritual vs material lines. Elders pray and meet with folks. Deacons do all the physical things that keep the church running.

When you bring things like this up to the session, you should do it as opportunities to serve God and one another in more effective and biblical ways. Do a lot of teaching on it in principial terms first and then, offer to begin applying what you’ve taught and what they’ve learned.

Take the long road. Most of this will take a little time. You need to be a different guy in everyone’s eyes. I heard you’re working on a master’s degree. That’s good. Let what you’re learning come out in your teaching, but not in a haughty overbearing way. They might be expecting that (it’s a little bit of the cage stage kind of thing). But let what you’re learning come out in your godliness, not in your know-it-allness.

Here’s an example of what it might look like. Suppose you learned that teaching the Word needs to be a stronger element in the life of the church (which is what I’m saying BTW). So, you teach that, without much application other than to suggest ways to be more Biblically oriented. You don’t say, “So this is what you should all be doing.” Or “We need to lengthen the sermon by 15 minutes and it starts next week.” But you lay it out there and let the elders and the congregation say, “You’ve been teaching on it for months, when are you finally going to implement what you’re saying?”

With regard to the tone of the session, you are the young guy. But you are the spiritual leader of the church (the pastor). You need to believe that. Believe it in your bones, and then let that belief flow out. Don’t lord it over them but be the leader. Even if you aren’t leading (we have a moderator, but Doug is clearly the center), let God create in you, through everything above, a bearing of authority so that when you do talk, people listen. Don’t be whiney. Instead, present everything as an opportunity to serve God and the people. And don’t forget that exhortation from the Word of God at every meeting. Just ask, “I learned something today from my Bible reading. Do you mind if at the beginning of the meeting I share what I learned?” Then share it. Keep it short 300-400 words. Keep it Biblical and not preachy. Do it until everyone expects it every time.

I hope this helps. Questions?