What is a Good Pastor?

Albin Institute consultant and author, Roy Oswald, has an exercise in his book Making Your Church More Inviting in which he poses choice points.  They are choices between the good and the best in terms of what will help a church grow.  For example, if a pastor has only time to do one what should he or she do

·         Visit more shut-ins or prepare a better sermon?

·         Attend a wedding reception or go on a retreat with a parish staff?

·         Call on prospective members or conduct a training session for church officers?

·         Visit a bereaved family or help two church officers resolve a conflict?

·         Make a hospital call on a fringe member or attend a continuing education event?

·         Give pastoral counseling to members or attend a planning event with officers?

·         Call on parishioners or recruit leaders for church event?

·         Attend an activity with parish youth or critique a meeting with a church officer?

This is not a both/and but an either/or choice that is posed.  It is posed for both the pastor and the congregation.  It’s a problem  if the pastor chooses one and the congregation chooses another (and don’t think this doesn’t really happen). 

Most of the time, unless they are familiar with delegation, the church opts for that choice which is comforting and shows the pastor as, well, pastoral.  We invest in “pastoral” the meaning of social, relational, person-centered.  These are good and important.  “Pastoral” can also have invested in it the meaning of leader, trainer, maker of tough decisions, pulpiteer.  Typically, however, we instantly think, at least this is what I have found in my experience, of pastors as those who call on members and get to the hospital.  If you do this well, you are a good pastor.  If the church doesn’t grow because you don’t multiply yourself and deputize others, that’s okay, you’re still a good pastor because you called on shut-ins and noticed everyone who was sick.  It’s an approach, and not a bad one, but one that sees member care more naturally rather than organizational development.  However, at the end of the day it really is going to take both for a church to succeed.  Let’s stretch the meaning of pastoral so that this happens.