ken wilson online

Advice to young pastors: to be a pastor in the context of the evangelical landscape is a privilege. By all  measures evangelical Christianity is the most vibrant form of faith in the United States. Evangelical Christians volunteer more, give more money to their churches and give more to non-church charities than any other group.  Nothing says “I love you” like time and cash.  Evangelicals get things done, so you could do worse than to be a pastor in an evangelical setting. But there’s also a cross to bear and your being truly evangelical requires that you bear it. You must be willing to face and confront religious hostility in the camp.
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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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