ken wilson online

Here’s a myth about pastoring that will crush you if you mistake it for truth: when a pastor is doing his or her job, the church will be calm. Like any myth, this one endures because it distorts a truth: that good pastoring helps a church manage conflict, tension, and turmoil better than bad pastoring. (And that bad pastoring can generate enormous turmoil in a church.)  The myth hides the reality that we pastor now in an age of very high anxiety, owing to a rapid pace of change all around us.
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Young pastor, prepare thyself for the not-so-local church. You grew up, perhaps, in a local church, or you were drawn to pastoral ministry through your experience in a local church (if not, get thee to one pronto, unless you plan to give away what you haven’t experienced). You may have been to seminary and taken classes on leadership in the local church–teaching, managing budgets, working with boards, and all that. These leadership classed may have been based on the assumption that the local church is led by local leaders. But the local church has changed, and it has changed rapidly and dramatically. It’s not so local anymore. And that means that you, pastor, aspiring or actual, are not in the same position of leadership that pastors once were. You will find within the local church, the powerful influence of leaders you don’t know and will never meet, some of whom you admire at a distance, others who make your skin crawl, and here’s the kicker, most of whom work at cross purposes with each other.
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