In the second episode of this two-part series, pastors Derek and Cliff discuss the specific responsibilities of pastoral ministry and offer and few illustrations from their own lives.
Transcript
Derek: Welcome to the With All Wisdom Podcast, where we are applying biblical truth to everyday life. My name is Derek Brown and I’m here today with Cliff McManis. We are both pastors and elders at Creekside Bible Church in Cupertino, California and professors of theology at the Cornerstone Bible College and seminary. And today we are in part two of our question, what do pastors do all day? But before we get back to part two of our topic, I want to point you to withallwisdom.org, where you will find a large and growing collection of resources all aimed at helping you grow in your walk with Jesus Christ. Let’s get back to our topic again. This is part two. You might want to go back to listen to part one. I’m going to draw out of part one to begin our time today as we are talking about pastoring. Cliff, you really helpfully gave us the overarching category of what the pastor is supposed to be doing.
A pastor is a shepherd. That’s what that word pastor means. We are shepherds of Christ’s flock. The flock belongs to Jesus. He is the chief shepherd. He’s the senior pastor, you might say, and he is the one who shepherds his flock and he chooses to do it through his under-shepherds. And so we are caring for Christ’s sheep. We are leading them; we are feeding them. The overarching category is that we are shepherds. And that was really helpful to clarify that. Now we want to step into today’s podcast and answer some specific questions about the pastor’s job description. What specifically does the New Testament call the pastor to do? And again, I would encourage you to listen to the last episode, because Cliff ended with some really good stuff, talking about what a pastor doesn’t do and who he’s not. And I think that’s helpful to clarify by way of contrast.
Well, now we’re going to talk positively about the pastor’s job description. And so I’m going to take us through a few of these. Cliff will chime in and then we’re going to get to find out what Cliff does all day. That’ll be exciting. And we’ll talk about some practical elements of pastoral life and lifestyle. So this is in no particular order, I don’t think, but it all fits under the heading of shepherding. What does a pastor do in terms of his shepherding of the church? Well, one of the things that Cliff mentioned is an important piece of shepherding is feeding the sheep. The sheep need to be fed the good food of God’s word on a consistent, regular basis—a regular diet, just like we need regular good food to keep up our physical health. So Christ’s sheep need regular good food to keep up their spiritual health, and that is one of the primary responsibilities of the shepherd that he cannot neglect.
If he neglects it, then his sheep will become anemic, weak, and susceptible to disease. And so teaching needs to be a primary focus of the pastor. And in that, one of the things he has to do is actually establish other teachers who are able to teach, because in a church you don’t want it just to be all up to you as a pastor—that’s unwise. In fact, Paul tells Timothy and Titus to establish elders, and establish a plurality of elders so that it’s not just the one pastor doing all of the work. And Paul says this in 2 Timothy 2:2. He says, “You, then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” And a large part of that is establishing. This is the second thing: establishing elders. So establishing faithful teachers. A pastor is responsible for establishing elders in the church. These elders are the ones who are the shepherds, the ones who oversee the ministries of the church, who oversee the church. So in establishing elders, we’re not establishing a separate class of servants in the church. These elders are shepherds—pastor, elder, overseer—all of these words that are used in the New Testament to describe the pastoral office, they all refer to that one person. They highlight different responsibilities. But an elder is a shepherd; an elder is a pastor. And so a pastor is responsible to establish a multiplicity and a plurality of elders to help shepherd the church. And frankly, as I’ve been a shepherd here at this church for going on nine years now and working with a plurality of elders, I can see firsthand God’s wisdom in establishing this way of doing things in the church. This structure—it’s not just one man leading and doing the ministry, that it’s actually a group of qualified men who lean on each other, who learn from each other, who hold each other accountable, who make decisions together and lead together.
And so that’s an important piece. But also as shepherds and elders, another important part of shepherding God’s flock and establishing the right leadership structure in the church is establishing deacons and appointing deacons to the work of the ministry—servants who have a formal role in the church and who fulfill certain tasks out of service to the elders so that the elders can fulfill their primary role as feeding the sheep. So shepherds need to establish leadership in the church. They need to establish formal servants in the church. Those are deacons. And you see this in 1 Timothy 3. Along with that, shepherds and pastors need to manage the church and oversee its ministries. This is mentioned in 1 Timothy 3. It’s kind of alluded to there, where it says that one of an elder’s qualifications is that he can manage his own home, because if he can’t do that, how can he manage the church or care for the church?
And so part of our role as shepherds is overseeing the church’s ministries and managing the church. There are certain structural and functional things that have to be done well, and a pastor has to have some competency in this. One of the analogies that I’ve heard and that I think is really helpful is the trellis and the vine analogy. The vine is that beautiful green plant that you want to grow up and be very lush and flourish, but in order for it to grow, there needs to be a trellis that it can weave its way through and grow through, and it has some structure to it. Well, the church, the people, you want them to grow and to flourish spiritually. But in order to do that, there needs to be a little structure in place. There needs to be some structure in place. The structure is the main thing, but it does need to be in place. And pastors are responsible for overseeing and managing that and making sure that there are things in place that can help people get what they need in terms of teaching and counsel and accountability and fellowship. We need to oversee those.
I’ve already mentioned it, Cliff, and you’ve mentioned it. One of the main things that Paul over and over tells Timothy to do is to preach and teach the word of God constantly throughout both epistles. It’s teach these things, teach these things, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season. This is how the church is fed. This is how the people of God are fed—through the preaching and teaching of God’s word. What a blessing it has been in my life to be able to sit under. Now speaking of myself as just a church member in my past 24 years of being a Christian, what a blessing to my soul. To be able to sit under a competent, qualified pastor-teacher who’s able to accurately teach the word of God. To me, that has been just vital in my spiritual life and it is vital in the spiritual lives of all Christians.
And that’s the role of the pastors—to feed the flock the word of God. Along with this is, I think, an important ministry of counseling believers. So we teach in the public ministry, we teach from the pulpit, teach from the lectern in the classroom, whatever it might be. But you also want to have a personal shepherding of individual sheep. And this often comes in counseling the sheep, whether it’s in a small problem, a large problem, whatever it might be, where we want to counsel. Paul gives that task of counseling to the church. But within the church, you’re going to have qualified men of God who are able to accurately interpret the scripture and apply it well to people’s lives. And so pastors are often the ones who are able to do this effectively, and they should be doing it. They shouldn’t be hiding away from the people. There is a sense in which it’s easier to preach than it is to counsel, because with counseling you have got to deal with people. And it’s hard. And it’s messy.
Cliff: Sometimes I find teaching much easier than counseling.
Derek: But I think Jay Adams said that if you’re going to be a good teacher, you need to be a good counselor. You need to do counseling. And so I’ve tried to take that to heart.
Cliff: Well, that causes a question here. I have a list as well, and you’re listing everything on my list. So this is good. Specific things pastors should be doing. I also have that pastors should be providing counsel for their sheep. Just basic and fundamental, but we have other local churches that send people from their church to our church to get counsel. We’ve run into this a few times, and we’ll inquire with the people. So you go to another church? Yeah. Are you a member there? Yeah. You got pastors of that church? Yeah. Well, why aren’t you getting their counsel? And we’ve had people tell us that, well, our pastors don’t provide counsel by way of policy. I mean, the pastors will tell them that! We don’t do counseling here, so here we recommend you go to this church and get counsel from those pastors. So I really struggle with that. So yeah, what are your thoughts, Derek? Should a church and that has pastors be allowed to do that? To say by way of policy, oh, we don’t provide biblical counseling? Go somewhere else and get it?
Derek: Counseling is a ministry of the word. That’s a responsibility of pastors. So by saying we are going to actually outsource this to somebody else, what you’re saying is, I am not going to shepherd this sheep in a vital way, namely in the ministry of the word in counseling. So I don’t think that’s legitimate. I don’t think that’s legitimate—a pastor who is not willing to counsel and he’s outsourcing it to other churches. He’s basically saying, I’m not going to shepherd this person in a personal way.
Cliff: Yeah, I agree. I think it’s abdicating a fundamental responsibility that pastors are supposed to be doing. I like the way you phrased that. As pastors, if you sum it down, we have a ministry of the word. I mean, that’s the terminology of Acts 6, with Peter and the apostles. We can’t be distracted with things deacons can be doing because we’ve been entrusted with the ministry of the word, which is different than saying as pastors we’re supposed to be preaching. He didn’t say that.
Derek: That’s a good point.
Cliff: Because that’s only one element of the ministry of the work. Preaching to a large audience, one-on-one counsel, is also just as much a legitimate aspect of the ministry of the work. And pastors need to be doing that.
Derek: That’s right. Well, I say amen. And, actually, I found that my ministry—though counseling is really challenging—my ministry, I think, has been enhanced and my teaching, I trust, has been made better by needing to counsel and being in counseling scenarios with folks. It tenderizes your heart. It gives you insights into people’s lives so that your preaching becomes more concrete and not so abstract. And so, boy, I don’t know. I think going back to Jay Adams, I think he even said something like that. If you’re not counseling, you’re probably just not a great preacher, either. You’re probably overly abstract.
Cliff: Or you need more training.
Derek: Maybe.
Cliff: Or maybe you need more competent, qualified elders with you. But your church is definitely deficient. You can’t neglect that area of ministry.
Derek: Yeah, good point. Another thing that pastors need to be doing is preaching the gospel to unbelievers. Paul told Timothy to fulfill his work as an evangelist. And so that, in the context of that letter to Timothy, probably had primary reference to a pulpit ministry, a preaching ministry. But I don’t think it should be narrowed down to only that. In fact, I think a pastor should be someone who is regularly evangelizing the lost is, whether it’s his neighbors, his family members in whatever venue, so that he is able to model that for his people. But Paul did say to fulfill your work as an evangelist when he’s explaining his job description to Timothy. And so that’s another thing that we must do: preach the gospel to unbelievers. So on Sundays, one of my favorite parts of the sermon is opening up the gospel to people who are there who may not be believers. And I try to do that on a regular basis. Maybe I don’t always do it, but I do try to, at least, in order to fulfill that calling to be an evangelist. And it is a real privilege to be able to proclaim the gospel to unbelievers who are in your midst. And they should always be in your midst. The church is primarily for believers, but you hope that your members are bringing people to church, and you hope that unbelievers feel welcome enough to come in and just check things out. And you hope you have unbelievers in your midst so that you can preach the gospel to them. And it is a real joy to do that. Another thing that I came up with as I went through the pastoral epistles, a distinct thing that I made distinct from even preaching is maintaining sound doctrine.
And I got that from 1 Timothy 4:16, where Paul tells Timothy to watch his life in the teaching carefully. And then in chapter six, verse 20, he says, guard the good deposit. And you do this through teaching. But this actually kind of made me think of how we have a statement of faith and how we make sure that it’s regularly reviewed and make sure that it’s in accord with scripture. And we want our members to know it. And we believe that this statement of faith reflects what is taught in scripture. And we want to maintain sound doctrine. We want to remain in accord with that doctrinal statement, because we believe that doctrinal statement reflects what scripture teaches on various important topics. So I do see that as kind of a distinct part of the job description, though incorporated under teaching and preaching.
I think you mentioned this earlier in terms of examples, I said another part of our job description is as an example of godliness, which is convicting. I mean, that’s challenging, but I think that’s part of the job description. You have to be qualified to be a pastor. And part of that, as you mentioned, is character. And Paul tells Timothy to set an example to the flock. Another one is we have got to pray. That’s another big one. In 1 Timothy 2:1-5, Paul instructs Timothy how to pray and what to pray for. And the apostles in Act 6, they were to be about the ministry of the word of God in prayer. And I’m sure you’ve heard these stats that get put out every now and again about surveys that pastors have taken and how much they pray. And I remember one from years ago, being that most pastors pray less than five minutes a day. And I just remember hearing that thinking, oh boy, that’s not a good. And I’m not setting some time limit on what you should be praying, but if prayer is a priority of your pastoral ministry and part of your job description, we need to take it seriously. But that is one of them and an important part.
Cliff: It is. It’s essential. Praying for our people individually, praying with our people, which means you have got to be accessible as a pastor, and provide opportunities for them to pray on a regular basis. And then even James talks about reminding your people that they have got to be proactive as well and call the elders for prayer. We are not omniscient. Why didn’t you pray for me, pastor? Well, I didn’t know. That’s why you need to contact your elders and ask for prayer. Right?
Derek: That’s right. Then under a few ones that still fall under the shepherding part, I said a specific one is protection from wolves. And I get that from Acts 20:29-31, when Paul is exhorting the elders. And he’s saying that when I leave, there’s going to be some fierce wolves who come in, and you need to be ready for that. And if you look at some of the epistles, especially 2 Peter and even Jude, a pastor can have no tolerance for false teachers coming into the church, whether overtly or covertly. We need to always be on the lookout. In fact, on Sunday mornings when we pray together as an elder team, we ask God for wisdom to be able to discern what’s going on on a Sunday—to recognize who this person is, they aren’t saying good things, they’re teaching things that are contrary, or they’re trying to stir up things with other people. And that’s an important part of pastoral ministry, is protecting the sheep from wolves.
Another piece is making sure that our people are cared for, even physically. And I thought of widows in 1 Timothy 5:3 and following where Timothy is told, this is how you take care of widows in the church. And he’s very specific, very detailed, about how that’s supposed to look. And that’s just basic caring for people—caring for their needs. We want people to be fed spiritually, but we also want them to be cared for in ways and in cases where someone like a widow doesn’t have family to care for them, then we should be concerned about that and want them to be cared for. And then just summing it up, Hebrews 13 says, keeping watch over people’s souls. There’s an important spiritual element in all of this, and we’re watching over the souls of people, and we’ll be held accountable for that someday. We’ll have to give an account to the Lord for how we did that. So those are mine. Those are the job descriptions I came up with as I walked through the pastoral epistles. Any thoughts or anything that you want to add? Did I miss something?
Cliff: That’s good stuff. Crucial stuff. Well, those were great. Those were on my list. I would just add, and you just said this, another terminology, you said the same thing, but part of that teaching and preaching to our members is equipping the saints so that they might be able to do the work of the ministry. And help them identify and use their spiritual gifts. That’s absolutely key. And then also, we lead in worship as pastors, and we provide opportunities for our people to worship, to meet with God, which would include baptism and communion—the Lord’s table on a regular basis. And then the other one, whenever we’re training elders and I meet with maybe a prospective elder who has a desire to be an elder, I’ll ask him, so what does a pastor do? Why do you want to be an elder? And he’ll list these things that you’ve mentioned, Derek. And many times, this one is never mentioned—that if you become an elder, here’s what you’re going to be doing at our church. One of the things you’re going to be doing is being responsible for managing conflict in the church. Because that’s not fun.
Derek: That doesn’t sound fun.
Cliff: From Matthew 18. Managing conflict between two members that are squabbling or not getting along, or maybe you have to deal with church discipline or whatever. It just seems like we are always having to manage conflict at some level as pastors and elders in a church, because we do have, at our church, over 200 people. And they’re all sinners, including me.
Derek: There’s going to be conflict.
Cliff: There is going to be conflict. So that, I think, pretty much covers most of our responsibilities.
Derek: Good. Well, I want to segue now into asking you, Cliff, the personal, practical question. What do you do all day?
Cliff: Yeah. I think a frequent question I get, but I can never answer it very well, or I don’t even know how to answer it, is when somebody says on Sunday, so what do you got going this week as a pastor? One of our members at church asks me that almost every week. So what do you got going this week? And the reason I can’t answer is, I don’t know. No week is the same. It is different every single week. There are some routines that I have during the week. And from day to day, we’ve got staff meeting on Monday; I’ve got a Bible class I teach on Wednesday. So those kind of things. But in between, I’ve got a lot of plans I’d like to do. And then there’s stuff that comes your way, because as a pastor, if your focus is on the local church, and if you’re taking seriously shepherding the people that God has entrusted to your care, then you’re going to be accessible to those people. You’re not going to hide away in a closet, but you’re going to be available for the people. And that means they might even have your phone number or your email, and they might call you up and ask you for help—spontaneous help. So in a given week for me, the following things could happen in the same day or in the same week.
And these are recent events, and primarily, these are members of my church who will call or email or I’ll meet personally. And they’ll let me know that week, my spouse has cancer. And then another might say, I’m engaged. And they’re very excited. You talk about an emotional rollercoaster that you’re on, because these people—you love these people. You want to weep with those who weep. You want to rejoice with those who rejoice. So your emotions are just all over the place with your people that you love. My spouse has cancer; I’m engaged. We had a healthy baby. Then another couple in your congregation might say, we need marriage counseling. Or a mom that says, yeah, my 16-year-old is addicted to porn. Can you help pastor? Or I get a request from a member who wants me to write a reference letter for a school that they want to attend for their child—some Christian school. That takes time to write a reference letter. And can I write it with integrity? Then I might have to do an unexpected hospital visit that was not in my calendar, and now it’s occupying four to five hours of my time on Thursday, but it needs to be done.
And in the meantime, I’m doing prep—prep for baptism, preparing a new believer—that’s exciting. We’re having Bible study together, or getting ready for baptism. And then at the same time, I’m now doing counsel for one of our members who’s going through a divorce or just went through a divorce. And then I’m talking to a member who just notified me or the elders that they lost their job and they’re unemployed and they’re a dad, and they’re a husband, and they have to pay bills in this very expensive area. This is all just within one week. And then recently, I got this questions, Derek, I don’t know if you ever got these questions, but very recently, someone sent me another Covid video, and asked me what they should think about it. I did watch the video. I didn’t know what to think about it. But anyway, another question in the same week, somebody asked me—I’d never had this question before, and I thought it was interesting. This was just a couple days ago. Pastor, how do you get rid of an old Bible? What do you mean? Well, it’s just old and used and I got a new one, and it’s tattered and torn. And what’s the right way to get rid of it? They didn’t like my answer. I just said, well, throw it away. And they thought that was a shock. You can’t throw a Bible away, pastor, I expect more from you! And they were reading some article on some other Christian website that tells you how to deal with the Bible. You don’t just throw it away.
Well, I didn’t know. I would just throw it away. A burial ceremony. You can’t throw away the word of God. Anyway, so that was a real question. Someone asked me last week, pastor, are all sins the same? And then they were looking for some specific answer there. And then this one I routinely get and got it again from one of my members: what do you know about this church? Or one of our members moves out of the area and they’re looking for a church. What do you know about this church? Or they’re about to move to another state. What do you know about this church? And you’ve got to research for them. Anyway. So a lot of this is just unexpected. You can’t really plan for it. You’ve got to be open. You got to be flexible. You’re kind of on call 24/7 as a pastor. And then the beauty of me working with five other elders is, when I’m confronted with a lot of this stuff, I can ask my other elders for help. Or you might be gifted in an area where I’m not. Like some of our members might call and ask me for financial advice. And we have one of our elders who is very gifted in that area, and I’ll send them to him. Well, you need to talk to this elder. And he’s very good at that. He’ll help you and give you good counsel. So that’s the beauty of being able to take all this, because there’s only six of us and there’s 180 of our members, plus their families. We’re looking at up to 250 people that me and you and four other guys are expected to shepherd faithfully and with quality, and we need each other.
Derek: Yeah. I don’t know how to ask this. What’s the strangest thing that’s happened to you? Or just, you probably can’t think of the strangest, but what’s one of the strangest things that’s happened to you as a pastor in your experience? Have you had any very interesting, unexpected experiences as a pastor?
Cliff: Yes, actually, and you and I have talked about this. You and I and the elders have talked about it for whatever reason, being a pastor at a church, especially in this day and age, the way we actually do things. So we have our service on Sunday, and it’s an open service, which means we don’t lock the doors. We open all the doors and anybody off the street, any dangerous threat, any ex-con or murderer could come.
Derek: It’s true.
Cliff: And we will welcome them in. Come on in to the fellowship meal. And we don’t know anything about these people. And we do that every Sunday.
Derek: It is a walk of faith.
Cliff: It is a walk of faith. And I’ve done that as a pastor at several different churches. And we do that here in Cupertino, California. And we won’t stop doing it because it’s about the people. We’ve got a minister to get the gospel out. All are welcome, come just as you are, says the song. And they do.
Derek: And they do.
Cliff: And we find, and I can testify that after 33 years of ministry, that some of the weirdest, and even most dangerous and strangest people I have ever met have been people I have met at church.
Derek: And just in the nine years that I’ve been here, we’ve had some interesting folks visit on a Sunday. And some of them you determine, okay, you can stay. Some of them you have to ask to leave out of safety for the rest of the sheep. And I think that is a godly thing. We are not only concerned about the spiritual welfare of our people, but in church we want to make sure that they’re physically safe as well. And so we’ve had to ask people to leave.
Cliff: Yes. And we’ve had people say strange things and act strangely on campus. And we have to manage that and take care of that. We’ve had people at times make threats. I’ve been to the local police department and the local sheriff’s office—three different city police departments over the years—just being a pastor at this church, to get advice from detectives and sheriffs and police officers and counsel of, what are our legal rights as a church? What are we vulnerable for? How can we protect our people? What precautions should we put in place? They’ve been very helpful. Because, yes, we are responsible primarily for the care of the soul, but we also have to practically take care of our people and protect them.
Derek: Right. And you just mentioning that just now—going to the police office—were you ever told that in seminary, that you might have to go to the police office? I mean, there’s a lot of things that pastors are never told.
Cliff: No, I was never told. As a matter of fact, a lot of stuff that I do as a pastor now, I was not taught it in seminary.
Derek: I was even recently talking about this with another pastor. The variety in the pastoral life is quite remarkable. And so if you’re someone who really, really needs a very strict routine and the same things happening every single day, pastoral ministry will be very challenging. Because it is never the same, which actually is kind of exciting at times. And just the variety of people God brings in your life, and the variety of problems and issues and the variety of things that we can be involved in. It’s quite a privilege, honestly. And it’s been good to work with you and to work with the other pastors on our team. It’s been a blessing.
Cliff: Let me just briefly summarize. So there’s all this spontaneity and the unexpected, but that’s made possible because I think you also have to have a continuity of routine in place. Because that provides the framework. So my routines are, I have—like you said earlier—I have a weekly schedule. A theoretical daily schedule, a monthly schedule, and then an annual calendar. And then I sync that with my wife and her personal schedule and the family schedule. And so we’re on the same page and she can be aware of what I’m doing in ministry and be sensitive to that. And then a daily routine. And I always want to have some kind of time in the word for myself, reading the Bible, and also private prayer time every day at some point. Praying for myself, confessing sin, and also praying for my family and saints in the church. Then we have weekly routines that are important, like our staff meeting where we get together on Mondays, and a monthly routine—those kinds of things. So those need to be in place. Those help you with structuring and ordering your life so you can be a faithful steward.
Derek: Yeah, that’s a good point. Because one of the things that you cannot allow—and this goes back to one of the things that we said earlier—one of the priorities of pastoral ministry is the feeding of the sheep, and teaching and preaching. And you have to maintain an orderly schedule because you can’t be tossed to and fro by the tyranny of the urgent, because you have to be able to sit down for extended periods of time to study and to prepare. Well, in order to teach well, you can’t teach well if you haven’t prepared well. And that requires scheduling time in your day on a regular basis, and having a structure that is regular. My best study time is in the mornings. And so that’s where I try to do my preparation. And if you’re not in control of your schedule at some level now, like you said, we’re on call and we’re open and we’re available. But the balance to that is creating some structure and creating some routine so that you can prepare adequately to teach and preach God’s word. You being a skilled teacher who can feed the sheep—it doesn’t come automatically.
Cliff: It doesn’t. And that’s a good point. So if I’m teaching on a Wednesday night, I have designated times, block times, where I am studying and I cannot be disturbed. Can’t be distracted. And then if I’m preaching on Sunday—same thing. You’ve got to guard that time and be a good steward. So yeah, there’s a balance.
Derek: Right. So we hope that our listeners have found some help in our discussion of pastoral ministry and just some practical elements of it of what the pastor’s job description is. We hope this has helped you understand what pastors do, what we’re responsible to do, what we do all day—which is a number of things, but it really does revolve around the shepherding of God’s flock. One thing that we didn’t get to that I want to at least highlight at the very end here is one of the things that I mentioned in part one that I see with some people. Typically, it can sometimes be Christians who say this and sometimes be believers, but there’s this idea that that pastors can tend to be lazy.
The pastoral lifestyle is kind of a cushy lifestyle. You control your schedule; nothing’s real rigorous. And that hunch has kind of been affirmed by some lazy pastors who just don’t do a whole lot, who don’t manage their time well, and who spend a lot of time in entertainment rather than what they should be doing in the job description that we described here. And I do want to point out that what scripture calls the pastor to be at basic is diligent. That the pastor, in terms of setting an example to the flock, one of the ways he should set an example is of a strong work ethic. So the study time—it’s rigorous, it’s hard work going over the text, over the research that’s required, and preparing the messages. It’s hard work in preparing for the counseling. It’s making time for having a well-ordered schedule so you can make time for the person who needs help at the hospital or needs a visit at the hospital, or who needs counseling or is sending these series of emails so that certain structures can be put in place. The pastor should be ready and willing to work hard. And if you’re not a hardworking pastor, I think you’ve really abdicated your role and you need to repent. The pastoral ministry should be a place where you’re expending high amounts of energy and effort for the good of the flock.
Cliff: Yeah. I’ve met some lazy pastors. I’ve known some lazy pastors, and my conclusion is lazy pastors don’t have enough accountability in their life.
Derek: Oh, yeah.
Cliff: Lacking accountability. But then you read James—what is it? James 3, which says, let not many of you be teachers. Right? Because theirs is the stricter judgment. So there is accountability coming if you’re not getting it now, because you can get away with being lazy only for a period of time. God will hold you accountable.
Derek: Yeah. Well, we hope this has been encouraging to you as you’ve listened in on how pastors are to conduct their ministries and what their job description from God really is. Thank you for listening. We encourage you to check out withallwisdom.org, where you’ll find resources all about the Christian life, touching on various cultural, theological, and personal, practical issues. Until next time, keep seeking the Lord in his word.