ken wilson online

Good pastors are about empowering people to do the Jesus stuff.  So there is a great need for pastors who can learn to trust others to do things better than themselves.  Clericalism, the view that pastors are the Christian professionals who can do Christianity better than anyone else is boo-honkey.

But it’s my belief that many pastors have been too passive in their leadership.  We’ve allowed ourselves to be cow-towed by other voices within the wider Christian community.  We let them take the lead because they have the biggest media megaphones, or the biggest mailing lists or they have somehow gained the ear of many people.  Which is fine.  It’s good to have a mix of voices in any movement.  But we’ve given too much of our pastoral leadership task away to some voices.
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As a young pastor many years ago, I couldn’t help but look around for pastors to be like.  Oh I know we can’t be like anyone but ourselves, but part of that process involves admiring certain others if for no other reason than to encourage the best in our ourselves.  Let me suggest someone for you to admire, young pastor: try Tri Robinson on for size.  Tri just did a post in the Huffington Post titled, Please Forgive Us.

Tri pastors the Vineyard Church in Boise Idaho.  Idaho is the most conservative state in the union.  It’s not blue, it’s not purple, it’s deep red.  And Tri by culture, temperament and conviction is a pretty conservative guy, theologically, and I’m guessing–though he doesn’t wear it on his sleeve–politically.  Yet he has the boldness, the conviction and the humility to do a guest column in the Huffington Post, that paragon of the liberal media, titled, Please Forgive Us.
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