A pro quarterback better be able to throw a pass. A cardiologist must be able to interpret an EKG. These skills are essentials of their trades.
Pastoral ministry also has fundamentals. But in today's world, it's hard to stay focused on the pastoral essentials.
We met with four pastors in Madison, Wisconsin, to explore the pastoral essentials and the distractions that pull us away from our core calling: Bob Goodsell is campus pastor of the north site of Door Creek Church. Alex Gee, Jr. is pastor of Fountain of Life Church, a multi-ethnic church ministering in urban Madison. Matt Arndt is pastor of Bread of Life Anglican Church, a church plant started by Matt and his wife six years ago. Dale Chapin is pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in downtown Madison.
Everybody knows playing basketball has a short list of essentials-dribbling, passing, rebounding, shooting, and playing defense. What's your short list of essentials for pastoral ministry?
Bob Goodsell: Our senior pastor asked me the same question this week. My list includes preaching and teaching, vision casting, and equipping new leaders. When I was on staff with the Navigators, I used to tell pastors, "I know you have to marry, bury, and baptize, but don't forget to make a few disciples along the way."
Now that I'm a pastor, I have to tell myself the same thing. It's easy to forget to make disciples. That means evangelizing, establishing (immediate follow-up), equipping, and then enabling. This means giving believers a spiritual toolbox so they're equipped to grow in their faith and to share their faith with others.
Dale Chapin: I view ministry in the context of relationships. So, first and foremost, my relationship with God and with my wife needs to be in order. Next, I need to have clear and healthy relationships with our key church leaders. Finally, I need to develop good relationships with all of our mission partners. Mission drives so many of our priorities as a church. Locally we're involved in a ministry to international students. Globally, we have a strong relationship with the church in Rwanda.
Matt Arndt: I'd like to add one more—prayer. Because we're a small church plant that's still struggling to survive, we have to focus on prayer. I start every day by taking my dog on a "prayer walk." I have to hear from God every day. As a church we have scheduled times for prayer, but we're also acutely aware of our total dependence on God for our very existence.
Alex Gee, Jr.: I definitely resonate with these guys, but I want to mention something that's an essential for many of my fellow African-American pastors—our call to ministry includes being an advocate for the community. For instance, when the '92 riots broke out in L.A., the local radio station called me for a black pastor's perspective on the issue. Or more recently, the University of Wisconsin football coaches will call and say, "Some of our African-American guys are getting in trouble. Can you come and mentor them and lead a Bible study with them?" I meet regularly with Wisconsin's Department of Corrections and the Secretary of State, trying to chart a new course for incarceration and reentry issues. But I'm also advocating for individuals, like a young man—who isn't even part of our church—who got into legal trouble. I've been attending his hearings, trying to find employment for him, working with his parole officer so he can move back in with his wife.
It's just assumed that I'll be involved in things important to our community—the NAACP, Big Brothers and Big Sisters, the mayor's think tank, and the Urban League. I don't resent this. For African-American pastors, this advocacy role isn't optional. We're at the hub of our community. It's all bound up with our call to pastoral ministry.
So for you leadership isn't focused on a single congregation. It's leadership for an entire community.
Alex: Absolutely. Of course, I still have funerals to attend and deacons to lead and church people to disciple, but people outside the church are still influenced by their grandma who probably told them, "If you're ever in trouble, go to the church. Talk to the pastor." That hasn't changed. But there are also bigger issues impacting our community—incarceration and fatherlessness, for instance. I'm finding that my ministry involves discipling people by being a father to them. Sometimes being a pastor looks more like walking beside people as a spiritual parent.
Could each of you share a story about something that caused you to say, "Now, this is what ministry is all about. This is why I'm a pastor"?
Dale: A few years ago, I halfheartedly joined a pastors' group on a mission trip to Rwanda. When I told the church about the needs over there, for some reason the entire church grabbed onto that vision. So we started organizing more mission trips to Rwanda. After one of those trips, one of our members, an engineer, said, "None of the buildings have lights—except for dangerous kerosene lamps. That means the children can't do any homework after dark." So he started shopping around for solar lights.
I can lay out a neat strategic plan for where I want to go, but as a pastor, I also have to pay attention to what's going on at the edge of our vision.
Our congregation caught his passion and responded with a huge offering. At first we provided solar lights for the Rwandan children we support through World Vision. Recently we heard that World Vision is going to provide these lights for every child in Rwanda. We're a church of less than 400, so to our people take such huge steps of faith and to have that kind of impact … I couldn't be more pleased as a pastor.
Bob: When we started North Campus for Door Creek Church, I prayed for two things: (1) that we would be able to use the local school building for Sunday services, and (2) that I could coach football at the local high school. Well, God opened the door for the space even though the school had never allowed a church to rent space. God also opened the door for me to coach football there.
One of my fellow coaches was the cop assigned to that high school. We built a friendship and soon after that he accepted the Lord—even before we started services at the school. I had the privilege of baptizing him in the high school pool. A few months later I took him and two other new Christians through a one-to-one discipleship process. That, to me, is the essence of ministry.
Alex: We started an outreach to kids in our community, and a young boy came who was a handful. He had anger issues—mostly because his mom had missed most of his life. She grew up as a Christian but lost her way, fell in with the wrong crowd, got hooked on crack cocaine, and dropped out of the church.
When she first attended our church, she would audibly sob through the entire service. She recommitted her life to the Lord, got married, and started reconnecting with her son and her two daughters. She became a certified drug and alcohol counselor and a small group leader. She recently finished a lay pastors training course at our church, and now she has a strong sense of calling to ministry. Her turnaround started with that outreach to kids in our community.
Matt: A young guy from my former church's youth group, a squirrelly little kid, has joined our church family here. I've had the privilege of watching him grow into spiritual leadership. Now he's working with our youth group. Last week he presented me with the curriculum he wants to use with our youth. I've been waiting for him to take that kind of initiative in leadership, and now he's taken hold of it and moved forward. That's been gratifying.
So far we've talked about ministry essentials. What are the biggest distractions pulling you away from those essentials?
Dale: On a beautiful day like today, my Harley.
Alex: So that's why you've been checking your watch. (Laughter.)
Bob: Busyness is my biggest distraction—and that especially impacts my prayer life. I've taught classes on prayer, but I don't always follow through and pray. I know that when I dare to ask God, when I dare to wait on God, amazing things happen. That's how my ministry started on our north campus. That's how God opened all those doors in the first place. But then I get too busy to pray.
So I've started to pray like I did before I began this ministry. I'm walking through the neighborhoods and praying for people. I'm praying over the list of people who attend our services. I'm realizing that this needs to be my focus, because when I pray I know that ministry is God's business, not mine.
Alex: For me it would be the harsh realities of an urban context. We have people living on the edge, and they're afraid. They're afraid that welfare might get taken away. They're afraid about healthcare issues, or incarceration. How does the church step up? How do I as a pastor step up as a surrogate father? So at times you have to throw off what you thought you were going to do and attend to these blaring realities.
How do you make sure these realities become the context for applying the gospel, rather than just attention grabbers that pull you off track?
Alex: Very carefully. Take the issue of mass incarceration, for example. You have to connect that issue with the Bible and with your church's mission. Why are we even talking about this? Madison is leading the nation in the incarceration of black men. We're also leading the nation in the high school dropout rate. So there's a pipeline from dropout to prison. I might have had a five-year plan for discipleship and church programs and summer camps, but all of a sudden we have to factor in both mass incarceration and high school dropouts. So now we're looking at expanding our Sunday school and creating a four-year-old pre-K school for boys. We need volunteers to run these programs. We need financial assistance. And through this process I have to bring the congregation along.
Dale: Like Alex, I can lay out my neat vision and a strategic plan for where I want to go. But as a pastor, I also have to pay attention to what's going on at the edge of our vision. As we keep praying about the vision, we find that we're drawn to new areas of ministry that weren't in our original plan. At first, you start taking baby steps toward that new ministry, but then you realize that this unplanned ministry was just part of following Jesus.
Do you have an example of that?
Dale: We have a blossoming international student ministry that wasn't part of our original vision. It all started when a few international students saw Christ in one of our leaders. I realized, This guy is a leader. So we gave him some resources and set him loose to minister. It's become a central ministry in our church, but we were never intentional about it.
That's why as a pastor I have to leave room for what I call those "strange attractors"—new ministry opportunities that weren't part of our original plan.
Of course that involves having a listening heart. By that I mean spending time with God so that my whole life can be touched by his love. It also means listening to Scripture through the practice of lectio divina, letting the Bible soak into my life. By being open to Scripture and to the Spirit, I listen to where God has been and will be at work. I can't be a missional leader without having that kind of listening heart.
Matt, any distractions in your life?
Matt: Guys, I'm not sure how to talk about distractions in ministry without being real. This church plant was a true parachute drop—no resources, no people, just me and my wife dropped into Madison. So it's been an adventure. A while ago my wife and I met with Dale and his wife for dinner. I took Dale aside and said, "I think this is it, Dale. I don't see how this church plant is going to make it another month."
Well, it still feels like we're still one month away from extinction. We have people come, they plug in and sometimes even become key leaders, but then they get frustrated with the lack of growth. We're in that small church Catch 22—we need critical mass to get going but we can't get going because we don't have enough critical mass.
So my distractions are much more internal. That's why I said earlier that I'd be dead without prayer.
So that discouragement is a distraction.
Matt: Yes, but at the same time, we're into our sixth year now. And every time I feel we're not going to survive, I say, "Okay, God, this has been your work, but if this is the week to quit, let me know." But then every time God has shown up and said, "No, I'm here. I'm in this. And it's not time to quit." But all of this is certainly a distraction.
Alex: Matt, I think we've all been there. Whenever I lose key leaders, it's a double-whammy: you take a hit to your budget but it's also a personal loss because you've invested in them.
Bob: I can relate. I remember reading this morning something that helped me. Paul wrote about our "endurance inspired by hope in Christ." At times I have to ask myself, Where is my hope? Because we all get tired and we can lose hope.
Personal development is a ministry essential. I don't want to pastor my whole life and miss my essential calling as a human being. If we unravel, we're going to take a lot of people with us.
Dale: I'm going to say something really personal here, Matt. The thing that I admire about you is that you were willing to enter a tough place and hang in there. When I lose a major leader, it hurts, but it's not a matter of life or death. When you lose a leader, it feels like the foundations shake. But you've inspired me because you chose a heck of a place to minister, and you absolutely have to entrust your gut to God.
Matt: Thanks. Actually, God has done a lot to get me ready to live in this place of uncertainty about my ministry. Not long ago I had two kidney transplants, and after the first one I coded, almost died on the table. So, yeah, I have all kinds of pressures—the church, a mortgage, two kids in college—but I also have a deep sense from God that it's all going to be okay.
Matt, you've articulated something that every pastor feels at times: Am I going to make it? Or will this blow up and become the biggest disaster of my life?
Alex: And we're not very nice to each other in this area. If you walk into the average pastors' conference, what are the first two questions we ask each other? What's your attendance? What's your budget? We ask that because then we can put each other into a category. Then I can decide if I want to exchange business cards with you or try to steal your worship pastor. We should be asking: How's your family? What's your prayer life like? How's your call these days?
So if pastors' conferences don't provide the context for personal support, what does? If personal growth and support are pastoral essentials, where do you go to find them?
Alex: I've become convinced that if I don't fully wrestle with my "personal demons"—like my parents' divorce and my father's absence from my life—they will affect my leadership. For years I assumed that when I became a dad and a pastor it would erase all the bad tapes about my own fatherlessness. But that's not what happened. I writing a book about how my wife and I lost two children at birth. But I couldn't finish it. I had a breakdown. That book revealed my own fatherlessness wounds. As a pastor, I was doing all the right ministry stuff, but the grief and loss from my father's absence was killing me.
Once I realized how messed up I was, I started talking to some friends about what was going on in my life. I put together a team of accountability and support. We talked and shared. Some guys could relate to my specific issues. Other guys would say, "You know, my dad was around, but he had a mistress or a stash of magazines on the side, so he wasn't really there for us either."
Personal development is a ministry essential. By personal development I don't just mean learning ministry skills, like how to communicate the vision. I'm addressing questions like, How do you put your own life back together? How do you put your marriage back together? We can get so caught up in other people's lives that when we retire from the ministry we're sad and unfulfilled. That's my fear. I don't want to pastor my whole life and miss my essential calling as a human being. So we have to continue working on ourselves. If we unravel, if we come apart, we're going to take a lot of people with us.
Dale: I have different issues than Alex, but I can relate to the need to deal with my own issues. I shared the story about lights for Rwanda, but initially I had no desire to go to Rwanda. One of my daughters spent a year studying in Zimbabwe. During her time there, somebody raped her. And I'd be damned if I was going to return to Africa. It took a couple years before I decided that that's exactly why I must go back to Africa.
So during my first trip with World Vision, they had all the pastors sit in a big circle and explain why they had come to Rwanda. I cried as I told my story. I basically said, "I'm not here to be a part of your mission. My heart's not here to serve. I'm here to seek God and find healing." But it was out of that experience, from facing my own pain, that God birthed a vision for our entire church, a vision that is now touching hundreds of African children.
Bob Goodsell is campus pastor of the north site of Door Creek Church.
Alex Gee, Jr. is pastor of Fountain of Life Church, a multi-ethnic church ministering in urban Madison.
Matt Arndt is pastor of Bread of Life Anglican Church, a church plant started by Matt and his wife six years ago.
Dale Chapin is pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in downtown Madison.
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