You don’t have to wear a HALO to be a HOLY PARSON

In the beginning of pastoral ministry there is commonly a sense of preparedness. Schools have educated us. Theologians have trained us. Church hierarchies have credentialed us. Therefore we are ready to demonstrate all the pious characteristics of pastoral sainthood. But who made us a saint? When did that happen?

Pastors and pirates, doctors and dictators, scholars and simpletons, are all made in the image of God but all are earth-bound creatures and as such are subject to all this world’s moral and spiritual gravity.

Pastoral robes and sanctified sanctuaries have little to offer in the making of pastors into superior specimens of humanity. Pastors are not awarded memberships to associations for the spiritually elite.

The successful pastor is concerned less with the polishing of his own halo and more with being clothed with divine authority to proclaim the good tidings of fallen man’s reconciliation to God.

Pastoral success can have many definitions, but it cannot easily be defined by personality and/or slick programming and it cannot hope to survive as eternal success when tethered to entrepreneurial and/or secular pursuits. Pastoral success is ministry to hurting people.

The Seven Essentials to Successful Pastoral Ministry are each joined inextricably to the seriousness with which the pastor/shepherd relates to God, God’s Word, and the people he/she has been called to serve. They are based upon the reasonable assumption that many other vital qualifications are resident in the life of the pastor. These essentials embody the essence of what every successful pastor knows and possesses. There are few, if any, known exceptions.

In addition to the Seven Essentials to Successful Pastoral Ministry consideration is given to Seven Highly Desirable Additional Qualities worthy of energetic and prayerful pursuit. May God go with us in the pursuing