What makes a successful pastor in our world today? Is it having a Sirius radio channel? Multi-Campus Ministry? Anointed leadership? Having the largest congregation? Being recognized as a pioneer in some new style of ministry? To be honest with you that seems to be what is emphasized today because that is what many are seeking for. A personality that doesn't rock the boat to much who has a great music program and dresses cool in the pulpit. The dynamics of ministry have shifted in many cases from seeking the power of God to following trends that work at other places to help develop ministry that will be recognized today.
Since when did God look on the size of a congregation to determine the integrity and faithfulness of a pastor? I know some pastors who never pastored over a 100 people at a time that were great preachers, teachers, and leaders. In fact they had the skills and abilities of men in much higher positions and much larger churches. Yet these individuals were content to be where they were because God called them to be there. They were not worried about what other ministers or denominations thought of them. They just did what God called them to do, which was to pastor the flock He had given them regardless of any recognition they might ever receive.
We as a denomination have not changed much in our thinking over the past 100 years. We ministers almost always put the same group of leaders back in position over and over again because they pastor the largest churches or are the most well known. They just seem to rotate on and off year after year. Don't get me wrong. Some of these men have worked hard to increase their ministry for the Lord. Others were just in the right place at the right time or had somebody pushing them to get where they are. Very seldom do we see anyone ever elected that pastors a smaller church because in our eyes numbers translate success. But in God's eyes, do they really?
Time and time again God shows us in His Word that it's not always the largest, or greatest, or most charismatic thing that gets the job done. It's the one that is faithful in doing what He has called them to do regardless of position or placement. It's that bi-vocational pastor who made sacrifice after sacrifice to see God's calling fulfilled in his/her life. It's that retired minister who has very little to live on because he/she gave more than they ever saved to see the church prosper and to help meet the needs of people they pastored. It's that individual who left the security of a good career to be obedient to the call of God in a place where no one wanted to go because it wasn't big enough. God always was and still is searching for that person who will accept His calling to go and do His work wherever He sends them.
The average church size in America is very small considering our population and that number is dwindling every day. Sadly enough we just seem to shift members from church to church rather than reach the unsaved as we once did. Hey, that's not just a COG thing, it's in every denomination. What made us different when I was a teenager was not more programs or contemporary music or canned lights, but the supernatural power of God that flowed through our congregations. It was our Pastors who prayed for and sought after that move of the Spirit in those little mill towns and country places that nobody seems to think matter today-except the men and women of God called to go to those places and be shepherds of the flock.
I have nothing to gain by any of my posts because unless God heals me completely my days as a Pastor are over. Thankfully I can still preach some, but my days in a parsonage are behind me. Yet I can still say with a grateful heart how much I appreciate every man and woman who took those churches that were small and did everything they could to mold them into what God wanted them to be. Some moved their families into places too small to live in and yet were willing to do anything and everything the Lord wanted them to do in those towns and communities to which they were called. These are the most successful pastors in my eyes. They are not nobodies because they didn't have one of the big churches. It's because of them that most denominations still exist today for without them we would all be in disarray. Thank you for your dedication and service to the Lord.
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