Redeeming Church Conflicts

Advice for Pastors and Seminary Students

Kevin DeYoung hits it out of the park with this post:

Advice for Theological Students and Young Pastors

The only clarification I would add is to remove the word “young” because it is so applicable to ALL pastors. I can’t tell you how many examples Dave and I have in our (still-in-process) book on “Redeeming Church Conflicts” that involve even seasoned pastors and could have been avoided (or dealt with much earlier and without the help of a conciliation team) if the pastors had followed even just a few of these 20 pieces of advice.

Here are my favorites from Pastor DeYoung’s list:

“2. Beware of closing your heart to people.

3. Be a pastor for the whole church, not just part of it (don’t be just one group’s champion).

4. Establish your priorities at the church early and clearly. I suggest: preach, pray, and people.

 

5. Work hard to foster deep spiritual fellowship with your closest leaders (e.g., staff, elders, deacons).

6. Don’t try to do too much too soon. Expect change to happen very slowly. Whenever possible, work for desired change by positive reinforcement, rather than by criticism.

11. If you are good at administration, don’t do too much. If you are bad, get someone to help you immediately.

12. Plan for prayer days.

20. God opposes the proud but gives grace to humble. Pray this into your soul before and after every sermon.”

Yessiree. If every pastor followed this advice, we conflicted church intervention service providers would (happily) be out of business. Read all 20 pieces of counsel here.