Thursday, August 29, 2013
No Regrets?!
Kruse quotes Thom Rainer. Here's the quote:
One could call that problem a lack of humility. It seems that when we look for pastors these days we look at education but not character. It seems that when we train pastors these days we educate them, but we d not form them. (OK this latter is true about most education.)
The good pastors I have known either came equipped with character, or they learned it really quickly while still doing assistant and associate work. The not-so-good ones either never learned or learned unquickly and forced their lack of maturity on an entire congregation.
This lies at the heart of why I can never trust a pastor a priori. I think most peope have a hard time trusting Christian leadership a priori.
I wonder how different the world might be if that simple fact were different?
maturiy pastors trust
I recently interviewed more than twenty pastors who had been in ministry for at least 25 years. All of these men were over 55 years old. A few of them were retired, but most of them were still active in full-time vocational ministry. ...
Lack of practical training for local church ministry. "I was not prepared for 80 percent of my day-to-day ministry after I graduated from seminary. ...
Overly concerned about critics. ...
Failure to exercise faith. ...
Not enough time with family. ...
Failure to understand basic business and finance issues. ...
Failure to share ministry. "Let me shoot straight. I had two complexes. The first was the
Superman complex. ... My second complex was the conflict avoider complex. ...
Failure to make friends. ...I have heard all of those so many times - to the point that they are almost cliche'. I think that fact proves a real point - people who want to be pastors don't listen. They have been told and told these things are issues for the profession and yet the issues are repeated by every pastor that ever gets a job. I would interpret this to mean that pastors re basically people that think they know more than anybody else, including people that have been pastors before them.
One could call that problem a lack of humility. It seems that when we look for pastors these days we look at education but not character. It seems that when we train pastors these days we educate them, but we d not form them. (OK this latter is true about most education.)
The good pastors I have known either came equipped with character, or they learned it really quickly while still doing assistant and associate work. The not-so-good ones either never learned or learned unquickly and forced their lack of maturity on an entire congregation.
This lies at the heart of why I can never trust a pastor a priori. I think most peope have a hard time trusting Christian leadership a priori.
I wonder how different the world might be if that simple fact were different?
maturiy pastors trust
