In a world over-stuffed with information, articles and books and podcasts and more, a concise look into the means by which pastors carry out their duties is a necessary travel stop for refreshment and encouragement. Rather than doing a deep dive into olympic pool of information in search for an answer on “how-to” pastor, I invite you to take a dip in the calm waters of this epistolary lake, and come out taking a deep breath of fresh air with the felt warmth of the sun on your skin. May you, pastor, be able to take a step away from the ocean of info, and follow this simple, brief, and clear summary of the Bible’s “how-to” do pastoral ministry. So, rather than simply adding to the mass of information, I hope this serves as a brief reminder that will you read from time to time, especially when you are in the thick of pastoral ministry and need quick and simple encouragement to keep pressing on.
The biblical methods, I believe, by which a pastor may faithfully carry out his duties as a pastor, may be summed up with three phrases: lead in a single direction; obey a simple command ; and aim at a sanctifying goal. Let’s look at each of these in turn.
Lead in a Single Direction
“Follow me, as I follow Christ.”
This should go without saying, but pastors must be Christians. A Christian is someone who, by God’s regenerating grace, follows Christ with whole-hearted devotion empowered by the Holy Spirit. This reality is true of every Christian. This means that, before ever becoming a pastor, the Christian who serves as pastor over a church is first and foremost a Christian. His identity is rooted “in Christ”, not “in pastoring.” Therefore, the foremost factor which drives a pastor out of bed in the morning is not the desire to pastor, but the desire to rejoice in the Lord and follow Jesus.
Jesus Himself, in Luke 10:20, taught his disciples to not rejoice in their accomplishments, but rather in what God has accomplished for them in Christ. “Don’t rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven” (CSB). Jesus’ disciples rejoice first and foremost in the salvation that has been freely granted them in Christ. This free salvation motivates Christians to follow Jesus with whole-hearted devotion.
That salvation is what motivated the apostle Paul to lay down his rights and proclaim Christ to all men “so that they may be saved” (1 Cor 10:23-33). And it is in that context, the context of being captured by God’s salvation in Christ, that led Paul to pen these words, “Follow me as I follow Christ” (MEV). As an apostle and therefore leader of the 1st century churches, following Jesus was Paul’s entire life direction. Another way to put it, Paul could lead the church because he followed closely at the heels of Jesus. Which is why the first step, the first “method”, of pastoral ministry is to lead in a single direction. That direction is Christward. Every pastor must be a living example of what it means to follow Jesus with whole-hearted devotion. The pastor’s identity is, first and foremost, Christian.
This identity means that the pastor must have a clear focus on his own progress in sanctification. This progress is exactly what Paul emphasized to young Timothy when instructing Timothy how to conduct himself as a pastor in Ephesus. Paul told Timothy, “Don’t let anyone despise your youth, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.” He also charged Timothy to “practice these things; be committed to them, so that your progress may be evident to all. Pay close attention to your life and your teaching; persevere in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers” (1 Tim. 4:12, 15-16, CSB). Paul, who, as we saw in the 1 Corinthians passage, laid aside his rights for the salvation of the churches, knew that his growth in godliness would have a direct impact on the outcome of the church. In other words, the apostle Paul knew that the primary method of a successful ministry was to lead in the single direction of growing in Christlikeness. And Paul passed this principle on to his apprentice Timothy. Lead in the single direction of following Christ, he told Timothy, “for in doing this you will save both yourself and your hearers.”
Additionaly, Jesus gave this same exhortation to the seven churches of Asia Minor. The apostle John sent a message from Jesus to those seven churches which has been recorded and passed down to us in the book of Revelation. In Revelation chapters 2-3 we read Jesus’ exhortations to the “angels” of those churches, which I interpret as the pastors of those churches. If my interpretation is correct, Jesus’ exhortations are primarily directed to the pastors of those churches and not to the whole congregation. In effect, the fate of those churches depended upon whether or not their pastors would head Christ’s calls of repentance. In sum, the fate of those churched hinged on whether or not their pastors would lead in a single direction, the direction of whole-hearted devotion to Christ.
Obey a Simple Command
“Feed my sheep.”
“If you can’t do, teach.” Have you ever heard that cliche? It carries with it the assumption that those who do not have the skill to do “actual” work can always settle for teaching others how to do the work. After all, no one expects Andy Reid, head coach of the Kansas City Chiefs, to be able to do the work of throwing a football 60 yards downfield. However, Reid can coach someone like the Chief’s quarterback Patrick Mahomes to do so. Thus the phrase, “If you can’t do, teach.”
I believe, however, that the “if you can’t do, teach” cliche belittles occupations whose primary function is teaching. For one thing, what does that communicate to those who work as teachers at every level of education, from elementary to post-graduate schools. For teachers, teaching is the “do-ing” of their jobs. Likewise, the same is true for pastors.
The pastor is someone whose primary work is teaching. Take the Apostle Peter, for instance. After Peter denied his Lord three times, he was restored by Jesus who further commissioned Peter to teach. That teaching commission is recorded for us in John 21:15-17.
“When they had eaten breakfast, Jesus asked Simon Peter, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these? ” “Yes, Lord,” he said to him, “you know that I love you.” “Feed my lambs,” he told him. A second time he asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? ” “Yes, Lord,” he said to him, “you know that I love you.” “Shepherd my sheep,” he told him. He asked him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me? ” Peter was grieved that he asked him the third time, “Do you love me? ” He said, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” “Feed my sheep,” Jesus said. “(CSB)
Jesus restored Peter and commissioned him to the weighty task of “feeding” God’s sheep. Some may argue that these verses contain two commands, “feed” and “shepherd.” But since the command to shepherd the sheep is sandwiched between two commands to feed the sheep, I believe that what Jesus is saying is that feeding is the means by which one shepherds. A fed sheep is a shepherded sheep. So we have to ask, what does it mean to feed the sheep? I believe that feeding God’s sheep means teaching them the word of God. I believe Peter understood it this way, too.
In the book of Acts records snapshots of Peter fulfilling his commission to feed/shepherd Jesus’ sheep. What did that look like? It looked, primarily, like teaching. Teaching was Peter’s “doing.” In fact, when an opportunity came up for Peter to “do” something else, he refused. “It would not be right for us to give up preaching the word of God to wait on tables… But we will dvote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (Acts 6:2, 4). The ministry of the word, i.e. teaching, was the means by which Peter accomplished his call to shepherd and feed Jesus’ sheep.
The same “doing” was true for the Apostle Paul. As he wrote to the Corinthian church, “For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel” (1 Cor. 1:17). Teaching and preaching was the primary means by which Paul accomplished his work. Not only did Paul see teaching as the means by which he would accomplish his ministry, but it is also the means by which he expected others to fulfill the pastoral ministry. For example, he charges Timothy, “Command and teach these things… give your attention to public reading, exhortation, and teaching” (1 Timothy 4:11-13).
So then, the second method from Scripture by which a pastor may fulfill the work of ministry is by obeying a simple command: feed my sheep. This now leads us to the final method of faithfully administering the duties of a pastor.
Aim at a Sanctifying Goal
“Present everyone mature in Christ.”
If the above two phrases are truly biblical phrases that capture the methods of faithful pastoral ministry, then what are the life and teaching of the pastor meant to accomplish? Put another way, we must answer the question, “so what?” What is the main purpose for which the pastor leads in a single direction and obeys a simple command? It cannot be to entertain the church, nor to organize the church, for those goals are too trivial and minimal. Instead, I believe the answer is summed up well by the Apostle Paul in Colossians 1:28, wherein Paul explains the purpose of his ministry. He writes, “We proclaim him, warning and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” The goal behind all of Paul’s instruction was to present everyone mature in Christ. In simple terms, to help people grow into mature Christians. Mature christian living is the goal of pastoral ministry. This is why I summarize the final method for pastoral ministry with the phrase, “Aim at a sancticfying goal.”
Just as the goal of the pastor’s own life is to mature as a Christian, or as I stated as the first method, to lead in a single direction, so too the pastor’s teaching must aim at helping Christians grow into mature disciples of Jesus Christ. That is the goal for which the pastor obeys the simple command to feed Christ’s sheep. Even Jesus commanded his apostles to aim at this sanctifying goal in the famous Great Commission, “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe evetyhing I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20).
Not only was this Jesus’ command, we also find that it was the apostolic practice. For example, the Apostle Paul aimed at this goal while living among the Ephesian Christians. “You know that I did not avoid proclaiming to you anything that was profitable or from teaching you publicly and from house to house. I testified to both Jews and Greeks about repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus” (Acts 20:20-21). All of Paul’s teaching, whether in public or private, was aimed at producing repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus. Even his teachings about marriage, singleness, and widowed were aimed “to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord” (1 Cor. 7:35, ESV). So in everything, the pastor aims at the sanctifying goal of producing mature disciples of Jesus Christ.
This sanctifying goal cannot be reached in isolation, however. As the old saying goes, it takes a village. Which is why the Apostle Paul, in a parallel passage to Colossians 1:28, teaches that the sanctifying goal will never be reached unless every member of the church works together to attain mature Christian living.
“And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, equipping the saints for the work of ministry, to build up the body of Christ, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God’s Son, growing into maturity with a stature measured by Christ’s fullness. Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning with cleverness in the techniques of deceit. But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head — Christ. From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building up itself in love by the proper working of each individual part.” — Ephesians 4:11-16, CSB
So, pastor, may you fulfill your ministry as you lead in a single direction, obey a simple command, and aim at a sanctifying goal. May the Lord do so mightily in your midst. Amen.
Sound Teaching, Sound Living 