Pastor Coty Pinckney challenged his church in a sermon from 2 Corinthians,”Who Should Lead?”
But suppose that God changes those plans and a few months from now you have to search for a new senior pastor. What criteria would you use in the selection process?
A lot of churches will look with favor on:
- A man whose church has grown dramatically during his pastorate
- A man who has conducted a successful building campaign
- A man with a pleasant personality and an attractive family
- A man who is self-confident, and presents himself well.
What criteria would you use? How important would it be that this man is:
- A man who is willing to administer discipline at the right time?
- A man who fights with the spiritual weapon of the Word of God
- A man committed to building up the body, locally and around the world
- A man called and commended by God.
My friends, God’s servant leaders are not professionals. Yet most churches look for professionals for their pastors. Most churches use professional criteria when judging one pastoral candidate against another.
Permit me to read a lengthy quote from John Piper:
We pastors are being killed by the professionalizing of the pastoral ministry. . . . Professionalism has nothing to do with the essence and heart of the Christian ministry. The more professional we long to be, the more spiritual death we will leave in our wake. For there is no professional childlikeness (Matt. 18:3); there is no professional tenderheartedness (Eph. 4:32); there is no professional panting after God (Ps. 42:1).
But our first business is to pant after God in prayer. Our business is to weep over our sins (James 4:9). Is there professional weeping? Our business is to strain forward to the holiness of Christ and the prize of the upward call of God (Phil. 3:14); to pummel our bodies and subdue them lest we be cast away (1 Cor. 9:27); to deny ourselves and take up the blood-spattered cross daily (Luke 9:23). How do you carry a cross professionally? . . .
We are to be filled not with wine but with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). We are God- besotted lovers of Christ. How can you be drunk with Jesus professionally? Then, wonder of wonders, we were given the gospel treasure to carry in clay pots to show that the transcendent power belongs to God (2 Cor. 4:7). Is there a way to be a professional clay pot? . . .
Brothers, we are not professionals! We are outcasts. We are aliens and exiles in the world (1 Pet. 2:11). Our citizenship is in heaven, and we wait with eager expectation for the Lord (Phil. 3:20). You cannot professionalize the love for His appearing without killing it. And it is being killed. . . .
The world sets the agenda of the professional man; God sets the agenda of the spiritual man. The strong wine of Jesus Christ explodes the wineskins of professionalism. There is an infinite difference between the pastor whose heart is set on being a professional and the pastor whose heart is set on being the aroma of Christ, the fragrance of death to some and eternal life to others (2 Cor. 2:15-16).
God, deliver us from the professionalizers! . . . God, give us tears for our sins. Forgive us for being so shallow in prayer, so thin in our grasp of holy verities, so content amid perishing neighbors, so empty of passion and earnestness in all our conversation. Restore to us the childlike joy of our salvation. Frighten us with the awesome holiness and power of Him who can cast both soul and body into hell (Matt. 10:28). Cause us to hold to the cross with fear and trembling as our hope-filled and offensive tree of life. Grant us nothing, absolutely nothing, the way the world views it. May Christ be all in all (Col. 3:11).
Banish professionalism from our midst, O God, and in its place put passionate prayer, poverty of spirit, hunger for God, rigorous study of holy things, white-hot devotion to Jesus Christ, utter indifference to all material gain, and unremitting labor to rescue the perishing, perfect the saints, and glorify our sovereign Lord.
Knowing God through His Word ... Day by Day 