Ten Tips for Becoming a Better Pastor
Some of the readers of this blog are pastors or aspiring pastors. In the interest of honing the pastoral craft, I wanted to offer ten tips for becoming a better pastor. Readers should not infer from this any hubris on my part. Like baseball, Christian ministry relies on the wisdom of experience. Even a minor-leaguer pitcher who’s still working out his own kinks can help the local Little-League star learn how to throw a curveball. If he doesn’t, he’s betraying the tradition.These ten tips are intended for men who are currently pastors and seeking to become better ones. Those who aspire toward ministry but aren’t “in it” yet need a different list. But that’s another post.So: ten tips for becoming a better pastor, in no particular order. I’ll list all ten in this post and then elucidate each one in the posts to follow.
- Separate your identity from your vocation
- Listen and read widely, but develop your own voice
- Become a wordsmith
- Spend less time on sermon prep
- Do more pastoral counseling
- Seek out a good debate – not to win, but to learn
- Be a prophet, not a parrot
- Saturate yourself in the primary sources
- Protect your schedule to allow solitude, reflection, and prayer
- Pay attention to what’s upstream