Developing Your Survival Skills as a Pastor - four articles

Superman Pastors Are Bound to Fail

Many pastors have learned and practiced a deficient model of leadership in the last century: the Superman model. A Superman pastor sees every ministry as either his responsibility or the responsibility of the paid staff. He functions like a CEO, like a paid professional, like the minister. It's his role to do the church's work, and it's the congregation's role to reap the benefits of his expertise.

There are a few things in this model we can commend. First, it takes seriously the role of the pastor; he does not abdicate responsibility. Second, the Superman pastor takes seriously his accountability to God, his training, and his calling as he works hard to oversee the mission of the church. Ultimately, however, the failures of this ministry model are grave. Keep reading

How to Stop Being a People Pleasing Pastor or Leader

Here are a few thoughts to get you started.... Keep reading

4 Ways to Prevent Ministry Burnout

When I planted my first church in the inner city of Buffalo, N.Y., I was in addition to those duties a husband to Donna, an insulation installer (to support us) and a Pittsburgh seminary student who drove four hours to class.

Perhaps surprisingly, I was actually able to maintain all of those roles for a while. It wasn’t the rapidity of my activity that hurt me, but rather my lack of solid boundaries around my schedule, particularly at church.

The fact that I’m still in ministry today should tell you that I have learned some lessons along the way. I’m passionate about sharing those I have gleaned. Think of them as four fence posts that set up a defined boundary around a healthy ministry. Keep reading

Trapped: The Church Vocation Issue We Don't Talk About

I want to bring up something that church people don’t talk about very often. Why don’t we talk about it? I don’t know. Lots of reasons. I suspect the biggest reason is that talking about it would require us to take an honest look at the lives of our ministers. And I’m not sure we want to do that.

Church ministers do more than lead our Bible studies and our worship services. They do more than run the administrative parts of the church. Our ministers represent an idealized state of spirituality that we want to believe is possible for anyone. Maybe we haven’t achieved that state ourselves, but we like thinking that Brother Jones or Father McGee has gotten to the Promised Land. And maybe he can lead us there. Therefore anything that reminds us of the basic humanity of our ministers can be uncomfortable.

Here is the thing that we don't talk about.... Keep reading