The Problem with “Going Pro”

It Takes a Church: The Problem with “Going Pro” Tod Bolsinger

... Most of us who end in the pastorate do so because someone experienced our ministry skills and encouraged us to consider it as a vocation.  In short, most of us were about the best lay leaders in our churches, organizations or missions and somewhere along the way someone heard us teach, heard us pray, saw us at a bedside or were part of a successful ministry program that we headed up and they told us that we were so good, that we should “go pro.”  (And most often, was mostly about “preaching”.  If you could preach or teach the Bible better than most, then it was assumed that you were called to be a pastor.)

And so what did we do?  We headed off to “professional ministry school” (i.e. “seminary”) or took a job on a church staff with the assumption that now the only thing that was going to change was that we were going to be PAID to do what we used to do as a VOLUNTEER.  (And, really, what’s not to like about that?)  On top of that, once we got our “professional association card” (i.e. “ordination”) we then became the resident “pro” for all kinds of wonderful and meaningful family and community “religious events” (like weddings, baptisms, funerals, invocations and such).  For most of us, this seemed like it would be the best possible world.  Our friends and family were proud of us, our home churches affirmed us and we now got to be paid (ok, not much pay, really, but the “ego perks” were nice) and “freed” to “do ministry full-time.”  We were now expected to be the resident “pro”, the “star player”, the “free agent” who brought the “home team” great results.

But… there is one really big problem.  Being pastor really isn’t about being the star player.  It’s really about being a COACH.  When you get ordained, you don’t get on the playing field, you go to the bench.  You are not the “resident professional Christian” but the leader of a community of mission.

And that leadership calling is very, very different than most of us expected. ...

Comments

[David]

Michael,

You hit this one out of the ball park ! WoW. I think your SOoooo right. At least in my Church Life experience the Pastor becomes the star player when he should be the coach, encourager, instructer and play lots of other positions but not the star...I think Ed Steltzer said somthing like " if a system disempowers or demotivates that it is perhaps sinful..." I believe many Pastors get this wrong. Instead of building in lives it's easy to be the star and do things because no one can do it as good as they can, or as effective. Kinda like if it's not my idea then it's not good or if you don't think and act like me then you must be in sin...

I love this post and couldn't agree more.. Thank you for saying this.

[Michael W. Kruse]

David, this is actually a excerpt from Bolsinger. Although it exactly parallels stuff I've written about here in the past. I also added a comment to Bolsinger's post that goes a little deeper.

Glad you resonate with this post. I sure did!