Readings for today: Proverbs 19-20, 2 Corinthians 3
Recently I took a trip to Orlando to attend some denominational meetings. Part of the agenda was to discuss some of the common issues so many of our pastors and churches are facing during this season. According to the latest research from Barna, one third of pastors are considering leaving ministry due to the challenges of the past 18 months. A significant percentage are struggling with their mental health and well-being. Many more report feelings of exhaustion or being overwhelmed. Many are simply tired of being caught in the cross-fire of the decisions they’ve had to make that dwarf the normal conflicts of the church. Arguments over musical style, sacred space, or different programs have given way to outrage over COVID restrictions, ethnic tensions, ideological purity tests, and political debates. We see many of these same dynamics present in our own denomination and it’s causing us to ask some deep questions about how to prepare and train pastors for this brave and difficult new world.
Before we begin evaluating our training methods, however, we need to know what outcomes we’re shooting for. What’s our target? What qualities and characteristics make a pastor effective? What metrics can we use to measure pastoral excellence? Here’s where it gets very tricky. We’ve never actually done this before! We’ve never actually developed assessment tools to help us in this process. We’ve never set down benchmarks by which we can measure pastoral “success.” If anything, we’ve gone the opposite way. We consider such conversations anathema on some level because of how unbiblical they sound. But then we run into these words from the Apostle Paul today…
“Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you, or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:1-3)
Paul had a rocky relationship with the Corinthian church. He wrote no less than four letters - two of which we have in the New Testament - and probably more. Just a cursory reading of 1st and 2nd Corinthians reveal a host of problems. Factions. Sexual immorality. Class divides. Abuse of spiritual gifts. I imagine this church kept him up at night. Paul even shares how much he grieves over the pain he’s caused as he confronted them on their sin. “For I made up my mind not to make another painful visit to you. For if I cause you pain, who is there to make me glad but the one whom I have pained? And I wrote as I did, so that when I came I might not suffer pain from those who should have made me rejoice, for I felt sure of all of you, that my joy would be the joy of you all. For I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears, not to cause you pain but to let you know the abundant love that I have for you.” (2 Corinthians 2:1-4)
Clearly if one were to evaluate the effectiveness of Paul’s ministry in Corinth based on the surface level tensions that existed, one would have to conclude Paul wasn’t a very good pastor. But when one probes deeper, one sees the fruit of the gospel present in their midst. Despite the conflict, lives were being changed. People were coming to faith. Miraculous signs and wonders were being performed. God was on the move. Paul is so confident in what was happening in Corinth that he literally calls them his “letter of recommendation.” In other words, if anyone ever wanted to question the validity of his ministry, all Paul had to do was point to what was taking place in their church. It’s a powerful reminder to us all that no matter how challenging a season we may be going through, God can and still do His work through us if we are courageous enough to lean into the tension of the moment.
So back to my questions…what makes a pastor effective? What characteristics or qualities make for a “good” pastor? What metrics can we set to evaluate pastoral excellence? Surely at the top of that list has to be the number of lives being changed? The number of people being saved and the number of people growing more into the likeness of Christ? If we can’t point to living “letters of recommendation” like Paul then perhaps we need to take a good hard look in the mirror and ask ourselves if we truly are called to pastoral ministry.
Readings for tomorrow: Proverbs 21-22, 2 Corinthians 4