love your community
Community is one of the cornerstones of pastoral leadership. It is one of the main things that separates a pastor from an evangelist. And just because you may not officially have the title of “Pastor” in front of your name doesn’t mean you can’t pastor people.
Ingrain Yourself In Your Community
You have to go into your community and spend time there. Know what’s going on there. The demographics, the culture etc. Drive or walk the streets there and pray over the city and the people in it. Pray that the people there would be delivered from addiction and bondage, and that they would prosper. Ask God to break your heart for the people and give you favor in the community.
Be A Regular
A pastor is a person of influence and discipleship. Judi’s childhood pastor always said:
“If you want to have influence, be a regular.”
And that’s true! Be a regular. A known person in the community you serve in. Be a person who connects with the waiters and waitresses, the grocery store baggers and cart pushers, the burger joint drive-through workers, the toll-way attendants etc. And all it takes is a little bit more than the usual interaction. Call them by their names. Tell them yours. Ask them how their day is. It’s not difficult!
And whenever you have the opportunity:
Listen. Listen. Listen.
People should be comfortable around the pastor of a community, not scared that he might see their flaws and go tattle to God. This comes from just listening, and not trying to immediately fix every problem they tell you about. My goal shouldn’t be to make people more like me, but to lead people to a place where they can commune with Christ. And that doesn’t mean that they have to immediately get rid of all their problems and issues. Listening to a person builds trust with them.
Community is about talking and listening to people with purpose, not an agenda.
3 Comments
thank you, mark. thank you, thank you, thank you. pastoring a community is not at all about people management. it’s about taking each person by the hand, leading them to the hand of the Father, and knowing when to get out of the way. sometimes, like a little child, they will want to let go and run rampid, so we simply just take their hand again and lead them back to the Father until they can understand and trust His love. it’s not about crowd control.
amy´s last blog ..a few short thoughts
Twitter: themarkthomas
Agreed. As a music minister I know one of the most important concepts for any of the musicians/singers to grasp is that we have to simply Love the people, the worshippers in our church. We need to Love them to a place of communion with Christ through worship.
In this position it’s easy to get upset with church-goers who don’t “worship” but what I remind myself of is that these people don’t know how to worship! They’ve never been taught because The Church now relies on the light shows and crazy videos during the music to get us there instead of the worship pastors. Instead of worshipping, we now just nod along like we’re at a rock show in some dive bar.
Not sure why I got so off topic but it felt right, haha!
Mark Thomas´s last blog ..A Question For Anyone Who Wants To Answer
Twitter: holyheteroclite
Preach it!!
dave wainscott´s last blog ..God as Sound