Tips for Young(er) Pastors
Recently I was asked to share some best practices for those in their first decade of pastoral ministry.
Here are talking points of that advice:
1. EMBRACE THE IDENTITY YOU’VE BEEN GIVEN, NOT THE ONE YOU HAVE TO EARN.
Pastoral ministry exposes under-formed identity
There’s pressure to live up to your avatar of a pastor or be the pastor you think others want you to be
The press of opposition and difficulty will test what you believe about yourself
Use the time to find contentment in the face that you are made by God, loved by Christ, and indwelt with the Spirit, and that is enough.
2. CULTIVATE LOVE FOR GOD.
Learn how you draw near to God;
Fight to believe that apart from Him you can do nothing;
Give yourself to prayer, silence, and contemplation;
Allow times of perceived distance from God to train you to know how to pursue Him in tough times;
Focus on being a pastor (character) before doing the work of a pastor (ministry);
Watch times when your ministry platform outpaces your character and be willing to step back or slow down to give your heart time to catch up.
3. CONSUME YOUR BIBLE.
The Scripture is your primary tool as a pastor.
You have to know it and the best way to know it is to read it – use your first decade to read through the Bible several times at varying paces and in different orders.
Pursue training venues that help you learn to handle the Bible well in sermons.
Practice using the Bible in informal ways through counseling where you have to call Scripture to mind in the moment and without preparation.
Memorize extended sections of Scripture.
Think about memorizing approximately 50 key passages that you know you will want to/need to use in counseling and care. As you memorize, practice using these passages in live care situations or encouragement to church members.
4. ACKNOWLEDGE THE BREVITY OF LIFE AND THE URGENCY OF THE WORK BUT DON’T RUSH.
It is true that life is a vapor and there’s a pressing need for pastors.
BUT pastoral ministry is a long game.
It’s much more important that you stay in the work for decades than that you have a church by the time you are 26.
Much of the wisdom and experience needed to lead well is simply out of reach for the average 20-something.
Don’t allow the press to “do something great for God” drive you to rush the hard work of character development and training.
If you do step into pastoral ministry at a young age, you need to do so with a team around you.
The hope for pastoral ministry doesn’t depend on you so chill out.
Better to hit 40 healthy, holy, and with a wife who likes you, than to rise quickly in your 20s and flame out by the time you’ve actually got the wisdom to lead.
5. LEARN TO LOVE GOD’S PROVIDENCE.
It is good and wise to make plans about future ministry.
But I can guarantee you that you will not end up where you think you will.
In 3 or 4 decades you’ll look back at all of these little “coincidences” that shaped where you ended up in ministry – little conversations, emails, friendships.
These are all examples of God’s providence to get you where He wants you.
This could lead you to hyper-focus on all of the little details.
OR it could give you a ton of freedom to enjoy the fact that God is in charge of your life and He’s going to get you where He wants you, when He wants you there.
If you learn to love providence, you will be better positioned to help others see God’s providence in their lives.
6. TAKE TIME TO GROW IN YOUR SKIN, WHICH WILL MEAN DYING TO THE FEAR OF MAN.
Expect the first decade of pastoral ministry to feel like a middle school dance – you will feel awkward and exposed.
You will spend several years copying pastors you admire or trying to be like the avatar of a pastor you have in your mind.
You’ll need help to learn who you are, what your voice sounds like, and how you are best equipped to lead.
The only way to learn these things is to try and fail – you can’t prepare for some of the exposing nature of the work ahead of time.
Fear of man is THE issue, especially for new pastors leading older members or mature Christians.
You will be tempted to give yourself a thumbs up / thumbs down on the basis of whether everyone likes you, if someone is mad at you, how many people showed up, who said something nice after your sermon, etc. This will kill you in ministry.
Repent of your people pleasing rather than assuming it will just go away.
7. AVOID SABOTAGING LATER MINISTRY NOW.
The main areas are unhealthy marriage, debt, or blowing up your first church and having scars from broken relationships.
You can dig yourself out of these holes, but you shouldn’t have to.
The shadow of these bad decisions will haunt you in later ministry and may hinder your ability to consider certain ministry vocations.
Do the hard things now like slowing down in seminary, not taking an underpaying pastoral role, getting a marketplace job to pay off debt, going to marriage counseling, etc. in order to get healthy.
Don’t allow your internal sense of keeping up with others pastors your age drive you to make bad decisions.
8. DETERMINE HOW TO GET AND STAY HEALTHY IN MARRIAGE.
Your marriage is the most important sermon you’ve got – botch it and you are done.
An average preacher can be made great through a healthy marriage, but a great orator can be undermined through an unhealthy marriage.
You are not the person she married, and she is not the person you married, so you need to learn how to sync up with her at this stage in marriage.
Pastoral ministry changes you and it will change her (for good and bad), so you better establish a good foundation.
Great to have some marriage mentors in pastoral ministry who can help you navigate the complexity.
You both need friends with whom you can be honest.
Take time and be wiling to spend money to do what’s necessary to create time together.
Early in ministry and with young kids, recruit the church to serve you by giving help for date nights (they will often love to do this).
Don’t be afraid of counseling and go before you think you need it.
9. ANTICIPATE SUFFERING.
You are going to suffer, and you will suffer in unique ways as a pastor.
Some of this will be unavoidable, but a good majority of it will be bad decisions and mistakes you make.
You are young so you are going to blow it.
Own it when you do and get back on your feet.
People are meaner than you think, and you’ll have some really tough relationships to work through.
The burden of seeing others suffer and many doing foolish things that you’ve warned them to avoid is impossible to prepare for. It’s a big weight, especially for the lead pastor.
Most pastors I know who endure have 2 or 3 really big, life-altering forms of suffering in the first two decades of ministry (sickness in a child, cancer, traumatic death of a parent, huge turmoil in church).
You’ll either become a curmudgeon and isolate yourself, fake it and pretend like everything is okay, or work to persevere through these legitimately hard things.
If you stay the course, you will be a better pastor on the back side of suffering.
10. WORK HARD.
Pastoral ministry is almost entirely a self-starter vocation.
You can hide and be lazy if you want to.
The only way to avoid this is to see your work as done unto the Lord and develop the habits of excellent work.
Do more than is expected.
When you are given a task, especially by your pastor, try to do 10% more than they expect.
Show up early and stay late for church related events.
If there’s a dropped ball, figure out how to pick it up even if it’s not yours.
Time with family and rest are important, but perhaps the modern pendulum moved too far from the workaholic pastor to the lazy pastor of today. Resist laziness and push yourself to over-perform.
11. BUILD HEALTHY RELATIONSHIPS.
Much of the work you do for the rest of your life will run on the rails of the relationships that you establish right now.
Make calls, send texts, share encouragement.
Go out of your way to help others.
Talk directly to people when they frustrate you.
Learn to square up after conflict (not something Christians do well typically) and avoid holding a grudge.
Own your part of conflict, identify the sin, and be willing to say you are sorry.
12. PUT TOOLS IN YOUR TOOLBOX.
In your 20s, think about having a big, empty toolbox and you are trying to load that box with all the tools you will need for the rest of your life.
These tools will consist of your handling of the Bible.
You’ll also need tools related to spiritual care.
Find a mentor who can help you learn how to help those going through hard things, grieving, prepping for a funeral, awaiting a big surgery or medical diagnosis, dealing with suicide, walking with a rebellious teenager, etc.
Every time you learn something new, find a filing system that you can draw from later.
Work to not start from scratch when you face new issues in the future.
13. INVITE TRUSTED PEOPLE TO SPEAK INTO YOUR BLIND SPOTS.
Assume truthfulness in feedback.
Ask, because many people will assume you don’t want feedback, or they won’t know how to give it.
Many pastors aren’t super approachable for others to give constructive feedback.
You’ll want people to speak honestly into your preaching, but you don’t want to care what everyone thinks.
Consider giving space for others to evaluate your preaching in constructive ways, such as a sermon evaluation form, they fill out and submit.
Make sure that your other pastors have a place to give feedback.
Think “eat the fish, leave the bones” – there’s probably something in all feedback that we can learn and grow from.
Your wife will get better at giving feedback, but early on and in the first decade of marriage, she’s probably not the best/only person to share concerns with you.
14. EXPERIMENT WITH YOUR GIFTS.
We may think we know what we are good at, but we often don’t know completely.
Think green light, yellow light, red light:
Green Light – I can do this well without thinking about it (unconscious competency); it just comes natural to me.
Yellow Light – I can do this and make other people think that I love doing it or naturally do it well, but it requires work for me, or I don’t love doing it or it really drains my battery.
Red Light – I stink at this and will need someone else around me to handle these areas.
Use your early ministry life to refine this area because the cost to you or living in your yellow or red-light areas will grow as you get older.
You will not be able to live solely in your green light early in ministry – older pastors can do this, but you can’t yet. You’ll have to spend a good bit of your time in yellow light areas early in ministry.
But even if you have to work outside of your gifts for a while, use early ministry to refine your understanding of who you are so you can specialize more as you get older.
