Reading: Applying Chapter 6

APPLYING CHAPTER 6 

1. What would you say are the three most important things for you as a pastor to do? 

a. Why are these the most important? 

b. Does the way you spend your time and energy reflect these priorities? 

c. If not, what will you change? 

2. What do you believe are your main spiritual gifts? How does that answer affect your sense of what God is calling you to do as a pastor? 

3. Pretend that you are in charge of hiring a pastor for your church. 

a. Write out the job description as you understand it. 

b. Now write out the job description you think your church leaders would write. 

c. If your church or denomination has a written job description or list of responsibilities for pastors, take a look at that. 

d. If there’s a difference between any of these, pray about whether you might need to have some conversations. 

4. Look again at each item the book describes as part of your responsibility as pastor. For each one, ask yourself: How important do I think this is? How good am I at doing it? How could I get help to improve? 

a. Minister to God in praise and worship 

b. Hear from God 

c. Bring God’s message and love to the church 

d. Lead the church to follow God 

e. Introduce people to Jesus 

f. Counsel 

g. Visit the sick, imprisoned and grieving 

h. Help people learn to hear from Jesus for themselves

i. Help people do what Jesus is leading them to do 

j. Correct people as necessary 

5. Did the author leave anything out of the list of responsibilities? Did he include anything that should not be there? 

6. Look again at each item the book says is not your responsibility. For each one, ask yourself: Is this a problem for me? If so, what should I do about it? Or do I think the author is wrong about this? 

a. It’s not your job to make everybody happy 

b. It’s not your job to tell people what to do 

c. It’s not your job to do everything 

d. It’s not your job to be served 

7. Every pastor likes some aspects of ministry better than others. 

a. Which ones do you really enjoy? 

b. Which ones would you rather avoid? 

c. How can you make sure your preferences don’t cause you to overdo some ministries and short-change others?