You Don’T Have to Wear a Halo to Be a Holy Parson: Seven Essentials for Successful Pastoral Ministry

By Everett Stenhouse

The Seven Essentials of Successful Pastoral Ministry is an invitation to look deep into the heart of the successful pastor who mounts the pulpit on the Lords Day to speak of the unsearchable riches of Christ.

It affords the reader opportunity to contemplate more than the contents of a sermon or the mechanics of preaching, but to carefully and prayerfully view the inner workings of the pastors soul. None would disagree with the suggestion that what a person is outruns, outspeaks, and outlasts what a person says.

The Chief Shepherd said it clearly: Out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. The good man [or woman] brings good things out of the good stored up in him. That good man can be the pastor. That pastor must be that good man.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Oct 28, 2011
• ISBN: 9781449728670

Everett Stenhouse

About the Author… Everett Stenhouse has traveled widely visiting and ministering in more than sixty-five countries. He has served his church as: Pastor, Evangelist, Missionary, District Youth President, District Superintendent, General Council Executive Presbyter, and General Council Assistant General Superintendent. He has been a featured speaker for five General Councils in the U.S., several foreign councils, forty-eight District Councils in the U.S. an Amway Convention, and numerous Ministers Institutes and Retreats. His writings have been published by several national and international newspapers, as well as a variety of periodicals including Today’s Evangel and the Catholic Digest.

Book preview

Copyright © 2011 Everett Stenhouse

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Scripture taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2010 Biblica. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

1-[phone]

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2868-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2866-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-2867-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011918122

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 10/25/2011

Contents

DEDICATION

Chapter One

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL BE MOTIVATED BY A DEEP LOVE FOR GOD

Chapter Two

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL DELIGHT IN A SINCERE LOVE FOR GOD’S WORD

Chapter Three

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL EXHIBIT A SINCERE LOVE FOR THE MINISTRY

Chapter Four

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL RADIATE A PASTORAL LOVE FOR PEOPLE

Chapter Five

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL DEMONSTRATE A LOYAL LOVE FOR THE CHURCH

Chapter Six

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL NOURISH A SENSITIVITY TO THE

HOLY SPIRIT

Chapter Seven

THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR WILL PRESERVE AND TREASURE A PERSONAL CHARACTER WORTHY OF GOD’S CALL

Appendage to the Essentials

SEVEN STRATEGIC AND HIGHLY DESIRABLE PASTORAL QUALITIES

DEDICATION

To my pastor/father

Who for more than six decades has shown me what a godly pastor looks like,

And to the many beautiful and tolerant people in the churches I have pastored, most of whom believed that I showed promise and possessed some similarities to an authentic pastor.

To those of a contrary opinion, thank you for your forbearance.

INTRODUCTION

Hallelujah! I’m a pastor! The creeds are memorized! My training is complete. All my theological ducks are in a row! My ordination certification card is tucked in my wallet! The halo is polished! I’m prepared to demonstrate all the pious characteristics of pastoral sainthood!

DON’T HANG YOUR SAINTHOOD SHINGLE OUT YET!

In observing the real me I am obliged to conclude that I am still a finite creature, subject to mistakes and failures, and God and I both know that I have not attained perfection. That is true, and none of that will change this side of the Celestial City. Pastors and pirates, doctors and dictators, scholars and simpletons are all made in the image of God, but all are earthbound creatures and subject to all of this world’s moral and spiritual gravity. The generic parson imagery for many of the unchurched is that boring good guy in the neighborhood who gets paid for being well-mannered and modeling halos. But we know the truth. We are well aware of the energy we have expended adjusting that sometimes wobbly and tilting halo. Pastoral robes and sanctified sanctuaries do not make us otherworldly or a superior specimen of humanity. We are not called to be the association of the spiritually elite. Rather we have been called to identify with fallen man in his unregenerate state. And knowing our own hearts as we do, we find that act of identification to be without great effort. We are simply the redeemed with a heavenly message of redemption.

The very first recorded sermon preached after the birth of the New Testament church was delivered by a man whose journey toward sainthood was a real roller coaster of successes and failures. Simon Peter seemed at times to be joined at the hip with vacillation to the extent that on one occasion he found himself cowering in the presence of a servant girl denying any acquaintance with Jesus. Peter is one of those Biblical personages who are bigger than life. When he is present he is very present. He seems to jump off almost every page in the Gospels. Did his halo ever tilt? With no teleprompters available, this man often seems to be up to his eyeballs in trouble with his speech. No disciple dared, as did Peter, to speak with rebuke to the Lord, and no disciple ever received a more severe tongue-lashing than he did.

PETER WAS, AS WE OFTEN ARE,

A STRUGGLING SAINT

Jesus said he would use this inconsistent trawler in the building of his church, but he was told by our Lord just four verses later in Matthew’s gospel that Peter, that rock, was not dissimilar to Satan, was a stumbling block, and that he should back off because his mind was overwhelming worldly. Now there’s a tilting halo, for sure! Talk about turning a sow’s ear into a silk purse! How did he ever come to be called St. Peter? The apostle Peter was what we all are—just a redeemed person, struggling to fulfill God’s will for his greatest potential. None of us should concern ourselves with the thought that in some distant future someone might place our likeness in the form of a statue on All-saints Avenue. Even if it does happen, it will not be true. We are traveling toward sainthood, but getting there is down the road some distance yet and seems always to be just out of our reach. Simon Peter never was able to grab the golden ring of sainthood in this subcelestial life, nor will we. We’ll just keep adjusting that tilting halo until we are awarded one that requires no batteries or adjustments.

ADDITIONALLY, WE ARE NOT CHARGED WITH BECOMING OMNISCIENT

Thankfully, pastors are not mandated to be repositories of infinite knowledge and immeasurable spiritual wisdom. It is not weakness to admit to not knowing everything about everything. To the contrary, it may well be an indication of emotional strength and confidence and can be quite liberating to reach the level of maturity where one can admit uncertainty in respect to something beyond the range of one’s knowledge. To be sure, a serious pastor will strive to adhere to a system of religious doctrines and high level ethical values. That is not to suggest that he knows all things, but we do have a mandate to search the Scriptures and to preach the gospel. Titus was instructed by the apostle Paul to teach what is in accord with sound doctrine (Titus 2:1).

However, a man of the cloth can memorize all of the church doctrines, creeds, and pious writ of the centuries and still not succeed as a pastor. We have all known pastors who were lightweights in ecclesiastical matters and unable at times to preach their way out of a wet paper sack—who were superexcellent pastors. We have also known the converse to be true. But, while no pastor can be expected to be omniscient, a good pastor will never cease to pursue a greater knowledge of God’s Word, nor will he slacken his pace to sharpen his skills in the pulpit. Unquestionably, one of the primary functions in pastoral ministry is to communicate knowledge effectively and inspirationally.

GOD REQUIRES NOTHING FROM US BUT OUR BEST

It is said that Queen Victoria and Prime Minister Lord Melbourne were riding in the same carriage returning from a Sunday morning church service when the queen remarked to the prime minister, There are not many good preachers. The prime minister, who was not known to have been enthusiastically religious, thought for a bit and replied, There are not many good anything. Lord Melbourne’s cynicism reflects a measure of truth. There