The Effective Pastor: To Church and Community

By Dr. J.R. Buskey

The Effective Pastor to Church and Community by Dr. J.R. Buskey, is designed specifically for the pastor of a smaller church. It's a no-filler, quick-to-read, how-to guide with timeless practical advice distilled from 50+ years of "in-the-trenches" church planting, pastoral leadership, preaching, teaching, and care & counseling. This little book is your compass to successful family life & ministry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Jun 3, 2022

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INTRODUCTION

This work is written with 54 years of experience in the ministry, and 34 were as a pastor. I want to share some of the things I found helpful in being a more effective shepherd of the people under my care as pastor.

My pastoral experience included a rural student charge in Kentucky; a rural church in Upstate New York; two suburban churches in the Syracuse, New York, area, pioneering a church, and serving one village church in Southwest Florida. These churches ranged from under 60 members to a multi-staff ministry serving several hundred families.

I want to share some of what I learned about the following areas of ministry: personal and family life; premarital counseling; wedding rehearsals; the funeral service; grief ministry; pastoral counseling; pastoral preaching and teaching; pastoral visits; ministering to the sick and shut-ins; administration and developing leadership; organizing time; community involvement; ministry outside the local church; and, finally, hobbies and recreation.

I believe that pastoral ministry is the highest calling in God's Kingdom. I think that if all the other four-fold ministries somehow ceased to exist, the Church may be wounded, but if the local church ceased to exist, Christianity would not survive a generation.

It is through God's organized people, both Old and New Testaments, that His written Word came to us. It is through the local church that the Christian faith has been promoted and sustained. The Church is the only institution that Jesus founded.

The pastor is the primary key to the life of a local church. Being a pastor is the greatest responsibility God can give any person, for they can build up & heal or tear down and destroy. The health of a local church is in the hands of pastoral leadership. I believe there is no greater responsibility or higher calling. The demands are beyond one's talent, gifting, or strength. It is only fulfilled by Divine calling, grace, and strength—praise God, this He has promised. I am one of many living testimonies of that marvelous grace. I could not imagine a greater life fulfillment than having been a pastor.

PREFACE

At this writing, I have been in ministry for 54 years, 34 as a pastor. I began with a student pastorate. Then, upon graduation from Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, in 1957, my wife and I moved to Upstate New York and, for twenty-one years, pastored United Methodist Churches.

In 1978 I founded an independent church and served it until 1987.

In addition to being a pastor for thirty-four years, I have served as a director of a ministerial fellowship; established a two-year training school for ministry in Izhevsk, Russia; and served as professor-at-large for the Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee.

I retired in 2002.

As I had the opportunity to travel and teach in seminaries and Bible schools, many have asked me if I had put in writing the practical things I was teaching regarding pastoral ministry. When I replied, No, many urged me to write this handbook. Since retiring and teaching at numerous pastors' conferences and schools, there has been the same request.

I have hesitated to begin this project for three reasons. One, I don't like to write; two, several such handbooks have been written by well-known pastors; and three, I had no publisher.

I am beginning this project because one person, in particular, Don Mondell, kept urging, insisting, and nagging that I write this book. Without his constant urging, this work would not have been written.

Also, I want to thank Chyllene McLaughin, who gave her talent and time to edit this manuscript, and Dr.Ilya Okhotnikov, who has spent hours helping me with my computer.

The sources for this work are gleaned from the successes and failures of experience.

My prayer is that some pastor may read this and be diverted from falling into the same holes as I did.

CHAPTER I

A Pastor Knows His People

PERSONAL NOTE: Please allow me to use he in the generic for both men and women for ease in writing. I appreciate that there are many effective woman pastors.

Jn 10:14, I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Following Jesus' example, may you be good shepherds of God's people that are under your care. Jesus said, I am the Good Shepherd, He also said, Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. Peter admonishes pastors to be good shepherds of God's flock.

This raises the question, how can a pastor be a good shepherd to the flock if one does not know the people in one's fellowship? One may ask how a pastor of several hundred families can know each one personally? I will make some suggestions regarding the larger church fellowship later, but because a high majority of churches in the US are under 150, I write to the majority first.

Pastoring a Congregation Under 150

If a pastor does not know the people, one cannot be an effective minister. One can be a