Slideshow image

On Sunday Pastor Danny began walking us through “A theology of pastoral ministry.”  At the end of this sermon, we were challenged to consider our own expectations regarding the role of pastor.  Expectations regarding a pastor can be numerous and varied but ultimately Scripture needs to be our guide.

Here are a few of the expectations I have been presented with when talking to churches looking for a pastor.

  • The pastor must be able to play a musical instrument and be willing to play for us each Sunday.
  • The pastor must have a wife who can play the piano.
  • We need a pastor who is great at maintaining the church building (mowing, furniture refurbishment, cleaning, etc.)
  • The pastor will need to serve as our Christian school administrator/principal.
  • Our next pastor needs to have great charisma and draw a crowd on a Sunday morning.
  • The pastor needs to be a big supporter of (insert local ministry here) and actively serve in it.
  • We only want a pastor who is vocally against Calvinism (or some other doctrine).
  • That was a good sermon but if you come be our pastor you will have to agree to only use the King James Version going forward.
  • The pastor must see doing the work of an evangelist as his primary focus.  
  • We expect the pastor to spend 80% of his time visiting church member in their homes. 

Every one of the above expectations are genuine expectations either communicated verbally or in the written pastoral job description, yet each of the expectations would be difficult to defend using Scripture. Maybe our expectations of what a pastor should do are not the same as the list above but we each have our own list.  It is amazing how traditions, circumstances, and our presuppositions can impact our expectations. We accumulate all sorts of expectations concerning how a pastor should dress, how he should speak, what he should drive, how he should spend his time, and many other expectations.

Join me in taking a moment to make a mental list of the various expectations we have regarding what a pastor should do.   Now that we have our lists, can we support each expectation with Scripture?  Christ is the head of the church, and He alone sets the expectations.  “And He (Christ) is the head of the body, the church.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” (Colossians 1:18)