Jamieson The Path to Being a Pastor

A Guide for the Aspiring
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-4335-7668-3
Verlag: Crossway
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 192 Seiten

A man who's been transformed by Christ and desires to preach the gospel might say he feels called to be a pastor. This personal conviction, while heartfelt, doesn't acknowledge important, challenging steps necessary to be a qualified leader. So where should full-time ministry begin? In The Path to Being a Pastor, Bobby Jamieson explains why it's better to emphasize 'aspiration' over 'calling' as men pursue the office of elder and encourages readers to make sure they are pastorally gifted before considering the role. He shares from his own eleven-year experience preparing to be a pastor by walking potential leaders through different stages of ministry training, from practical steps-such as cultivating godly ambition and leadership, observing healthy churches, and mastering Scripture-to personal advice on building a strong family and succeeding in seminary. Emphasizing the importance of prayer, godly counsel, and immersion in the local church, Jamieson encourages men to ask Am I qualified? instead of Am I called? when considering a life in ministry.

Bobby Jamieson (PhD, University of Cambridge) is the senior pastor of Trinity Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He is the author of several books, including Everything Is Never Enough: Ecclesiastes' Surprising Path to Resilient Happiness, and coauthor of Biblical Reasoning: Christological and Trinitarian Rules for Exegesis. Jamieson and his wife have four children.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Jamieson, Bobby

Leseproben

3

Seek Wisdom

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight.

Proverbs 4:7

If a church ever calls you to be their pastor, your decision to accept will have effects that ricochet into eternity. If you teach and live faithfully, God will use your ministry as a means of salvation (1 Tim. 4:16). And on the last day, you will give an account for all those saints who called you to be their pastor, and whoever came into the fold under your watch (Heb. 13:17).

If you want to someday be in a position to make that decision, you need to start making a string of wise decisions. It should go without saying that wisdom is a prerequisite to being a pastor. “Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ” (Col. 1:28). But I am also saying that wisdom is crucial equipment for the whole process of preparing to pastor.

This chapter will have three parts. First, we will consider why wisdom is necessary on the path to being a pastor. Second, I will encourage you to seek counsel all along the path. Third, I will offer a grid for making wise vocational decisions.

Get Wisdom

What is wisdom? Wisdom is practical know-how that combines the fear of God with the knowledge of God, his commands, yourself and others, and how the world works. Wisdom is the skill of living with the grain of creation.1 Consider:

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge;

fools despise wisdom and instruction (Prov. 1:7)

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,

and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. (Prov. 9:10)

Whoever despises the word brings destruction on himself,

but he who reveres the commandment will be rewarded. (Prov. 13:13)

The purpose in a man’s heart is like deep water,

but a man of understanding will draw it out. (Prov. 20:5)

The prudent sees danger and hides himself,

but the simple go on and suffer for it. (Prov. 22:3)

Wisdom is crucial for the path to being a pastor because you need it both at the end and along the way. Wisdom is necessary for the end because if you lack wisdom, you will make a lousy pastor and should never be one. Shepherds lead sheep. They need to know what sheep need, where to find it, and how to guide them there.

You can give only what you have. You can export only what you produce. You can guide someone only through terrain you know, or when you can reliably interpret and apply the map.

But you don’t need wisdom only then; you need wisdom now. Sometimes pious, well-meaning Christians treat a subjective sense of divine guidance as a substitute for wisdom. It can seem more holy, more humble even, to say “God told me” or “God led me” than to say “I think this is a wise decision.” Yet nowhere in Scripture does God promise to relieve us of the burden of making decisions.2 Instead, he promises wisdom to those who ask (James 1:5).

Ask God to give you wisdom about whether and how to pursue being a pastor. Ask him for wisdom to understand what it takes to be a pastor. Ask God for wisdom to discern what gifts he has given you and how to hone them. Ask him for wisdom to know your faults and how to correct them. Ask him to fill you with wisdom so that, whether you ever pastor full-time or not, you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord and bear fruit in every good work (Col. 1:9–10).

Seek Counsel

How can you get wisdom? One important means is seeking counsel.

Where there is no guidance, a people falls,

but in an abundance of counselors there is safety. (Prov. 11:14)

By insolence comes nothing but strife,

but with those who take advice is wisdom. (Prov. 13:10)

Without counsel plans fail,

but with many advisers they succeed. (Prov. 15:22)

Plans are established by counsel;

by wise guidance wage war. (Prov. 20:18)

Seeking counsel is simple: find wise people and get them to share their wisdom with you. Especially important here are the pastors of your church. Ask them to apply their wisdom to you and your aspiration. Ask them whether they see any pastoral gifts in you, and how you can cultivate those gifts. Ask them how you can gain pastoral experience. Well ahead of any major decisions you might make, ask multiple wise, mature believers for counsel, especially pastors. And the more experience those counselors have doing what you hope to do, the more valuable their counsel is likely to be.

At no stage of aspiring to ministry is seeking counsel irrelevant. Do you have just a glimmering of desire to pastor? That’s a fine thing to tell your own pastor. Are you unsure about whether to apply to a promising but risky pastoral opportunity? Lean on counselors whose wisdom you trust—the more the better. Not for nothing does Proverbs twice urge us to hear out “an abundance of counselors” (Prov. 11:14; 24:6).

Don’t just ask; listen. Seeking counsel does not mean always agreeing with it. But if the counsel you receive never changes your mind or shapes a decision, I’m not sure it’s counsel you’re seeking. It might just be confirmation you’re after, confirmation of what you already want and think.

The goal of seeking counsel is not necessarily that your counselors will tell you what to do. For one thing, they won’t always agree with each other. And a good counselor is not one who will make the decision for you. The best counselors know the limits of their wisdom. As Gandalf says to Frodo, “Even the very wise cannot see all ends.”3 You could make a decision without gaining any wisdom, and you might gain wisdom without yet coming to a decision. A good counselor is one who will ask questions you have not yet asked, and identify variables you have not yet factored in. A good counselor will help you learn how to make a wise decision yourself.

Make Decisions

Over a decade ago, I was meeting regularly with a friend who was an experienced pastor to get his counsel about preparing well for pastoral ministry. At the time, this friend had served for several years as an associate pastor, but he had just been called to serve as the senior pastor of a church in another state, where he has now pastored for ten years. And, though he had not yet moved or begun his new role, my friend was already being peppered with questions from the members and staff of his new church. On one of our walks to get coffee, we were discussing how to discern whether one should be a senior pastor. He quipped, “Become a senior pastor if you want to preach all the time and get stuck making all the decisions.”

Now, this friend has a certain flair for pointed overstatement. He believes, as do I, in a plurality of elders, who together shepherd the church. He believes, as do I, in the value of sharing the pulpit in order to raise up other pastors and keep a church from being too dependent on the senior pastor. Still, the man had a point. Even in a church with a plurality of elders, the pastor who bears primary responsibility for the church’s preaching and public services will need to be comfortable making decision after decision after decision.

Making decisions comes with the territory of leading. Wise leaders seek counsel. Wise leaders aim for consensus and work patiently to persuade. Wise leaders know when to delay a decision. But every leader must make decisions. Every leader must make decisions that affect not just yourself but those you lead. To lead is to confront an endless volley of decisions, like hitting balls from a pitching machine that has no “off” switch.

Below, I have drawn my custom version of a grid for making vocational decisions. The basic structure consists of three variables: desire, ability, and opportunity. I can’t remember where I first encountered the original three-part grid.4 To adapt this grid to the aspiration to pastor, I have shaded in the triangle between the three points with “your local church.”

This grid can help you assess your aspiration to pastoral ministry. Desire is necessary but not sufficient. And it is crucial to question the object of your desire. What about being a pastor appeals to you? How clear is your picture of a pastor’s days and weeks?

Regarding ability, three crucial categories are character, content, and competence. Character: Do you meet the biblical qualifications for elders? What are your besetting sins? If everyone in your church followed your example, would the church become more holy or less? Content: How well do you know Scripture? How well can you answer doctrinal questions and dismantle errors? Are the wells of your mind deep enough for others to draw from? Competence: How well can you preach and teach God’s word, counsel others from God’s word, and lead people to become more conformed to Christ?

Opportunity looks different depending on what altitude you view it from. And good leaders tend to create opportunities rather than waiting for them. When you talk, do people listen? That’s an opportunity to teach. Yet your ability to create or even influence opportunities has firm limits. If you...