6 Curious Habits of Pastors

I’m not by nature a provocateur, although this post may inadvertently provoke some. By nature and calling, I’m an encourager, so my motive is to help you reconsider some of the ministry habits we may have picked up from those who pastored before us.

On a long drive last week, my mind began to think about some of the awkward things I’ve seen pastors do that I’ve wondered about. I came up with six practices which I’ve turned into questions I’m hoping you can help me answer. Read More

In the case of the first practice I suspect that the pastors in question do not know why they raise their hands before baptizing someone by immersion. They have simply seen an older pastor do it and copied what he did. Perhaps the pastor who originated the practice raised his hands in prayer before immersing the baptismal candidate. It is one of those practices that may have made sense at the beginning but have lost their meaning over time. For example, a grandmother cut off the ends of the pork roast before she put it in the pan. Her daughter copied her and her granddaughter copied her mother. One day the grand daughter became curious as to why her mother did it. When she asked her mother, her mother told her that's what her mother did. The daughter asked her grandmother. Her grandmother laughed. "My pan was too small," she said. "So I cut off the ends of the roast to make it fit."