In your church, dear pastor, how do you go about finding a role that works? That’s the question I’m addressing in this series of blog posts. I am drawing on my own experiences when I began my ministry within the church as an assistant pastor. I’m hoping that through my experiences, I can offer you some encouragement and suggestions.
I’ve been describing the first church where I served as an assistant pastor.
I remember one conversation with a church leader who was knocking the “fundamentalists” for preaching so often against smoking. “Though no one mentions it here,” he continued, “I can only think of one or two who attend who smoke. And, I don’t recall ever seeing a cigarette butt on the floor of the church, the vestibule, front stairs, or even in the parking lot.”
His point was that outsiders were not likely to take advantage of this open-minded silence on the matter. I had never seen a cigarette butt in these places either. My point was: their very absence was not symbolic of the outsider’s respect, but of his or her disdain for our exclusiveness.
Transferring to downtown Chicago after little more than a year, I became assistant pastor of a ministry “known around the world” where, at that time, there was no senior pastor. The auditorium alone seated over four thousand. And, though the church had been declining, there was still an average attendance of close to nine hundred on Sunday morning.
A strong tendency existed for the people to go back to “the good old days,” when even the balcony was filled and “the best speakers from around the world” stood in the pulpit. Their great craving was that someday a strong-voiced “deliverer” would come and boldly lead them back to yesterday! They were not interest in making plans, even of a temporary nature, until “Moses” appeared on the scene.
In addressing the issue of how a pastor goes about finding a role that works, I’m painting a picture for you of my own experiences at the start of my ministry in the church. I’m doing this, so I can lay the foundation for some very practical suggestions that I have to help you in your place of service to Christ and His Kingdom. I will continue to address this issue in the next few blog posts. Please plan to come back to this blog and read more.
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