Dear younger pastor,
Please learn from one of my biggest mistakes. Please don’t rush.
I made this mistake in two significant ways in my own ministry.
First, I couldn’t wait to be a pastor. I rushed to seminary one year after I finished high school. I figured I could take my undergraduate degree later, and I did. I didn’t want to wait another four years before I started pastoring. In 1991, at the age of 24, I became solo pastor of a small church in West Toronto.
Think about that. I was the primary person responsible for preaching to 40-50 souls. I was responsible, more than at any other time, for setting the church’s direction. I was called into people’s lives in times of crisis. I presided at weddings and funerals. I counselled. And I was 24 years old, newly married, and childless.
Looking back, I’m amazed at the patience of the people in this church. I don’t know how many eye rolls they suppressed, but I suspect it’s more than I realized at the time. I did my best, but they deserved more.
I wish I had taken longer before rushing into this ministry. I wish I’d studied more. I wish I had taken the long route, serving under more mature pastors and learning everything I could from them. When I was young, I imagined those years would have been wasted. Now I see that they would have provided a stronger foundation for the decades of ministry still to come.
Learn from my mistake. Preparation time isn’t wasted. Take as long as you need to lay a solid foundation for your ministry.
But I also made this mistake in a second way. I rushed the changes I wanted to see within the church.
To be sure, when a new pastor begins a ministry, that itself is a change to the church. The congregation must learn the new pastor’s ways. Even if that pastor doesn’t change anything, his arrival at the church is a significant change.
I tried to be wise about introducing changes to the church. I knew that I had to earn trust and overcome cynicism. I also understood that things operated the way they did within the church for a reason. I tried to implement changes slowly.
But, inevitably, I grew impatient. Irritants about the way the church functioned drove me crazy. People dug in and resisted the small changes I wanted to introduce. Occasionally, they were slow to accept changes and quick to level criticism. Sometimes I expressed my impatience in unhelpful ways.
Later, I witnessed another pastor begin his ministry in a very unhealthy church. I knew significant changes were needed. I watched him love the people patiently. He chose his battles and left other things alone. Over the course of a decade, he loved that church to health. He made no rash changes; he didn’t strong-arm people into compliance; he wisely addressed the important issues as they came up, and waited to deal with the rest.
I wish I had been more like him. I wish I had determined to love the church first before trying to change it. Of course, sometimes change is forced upon us, but that’s a different thing from unnecessarily forcing change on the church.
I was in a rush, and the rush hurt me as well as those I pastored.
Learn from my mistakes. Take your time in your preparation for ministry. And take your time in making changes in the church. Take the long view, and lay a solid foundation for your own development and the health of the church you serve.
You and those you serve will be better for it.