BO WAGNER PASTOR
I have now reached an epic tipping point: I have been pastoring for more years than I did not pastor. We started Cornerstone Baptist Church when I was twentyseven, and as I write this, I have this day been pastoring it for twenty-eight years.
I did not drink coffee when I started; now I do. Not much, mind you, but I am now up to three or four cups a week. I do not particularly care for it, but it does give me a muchneeded energy boost midway through an afternoon.
Pastoring is not for everyone. Unless God calls you to it, definitely do not do it. Among pastors, though, staying in one place for a very long time also seems to not be for everyone, though I rather suspect it should be for far more than actually do it. All that said, for any young pastors who desire to dig in and stay and see God do a great work over the long haul, I can, by this point, offer some helpful suggestions. This will not be exhaustive; it would take an encyclopedia-size writing for that. These are just a few things off the top of my now slightly graying head.
First off, make sure your wife is absolutely onboard before you ever go into the ministry at all. Trying to be a minister while married to a lady who does not wish to be a minister’s wife is, to be blunt, stupid, and a disaster waiting to happen. I could not have made it through the first year without Dana, let alone through twenty-eight years.
In that same vein, if you intend to make it a very long time in one place in the ministry, make sure that your wife and any children are always your first ministry and highest human priority. If you resign from your church, you will be replaced in a matter of weeks, just like in any other job situation. But if you lose your family, neither they nor you will ever truly get over it. So never let them feel for even a moment as if they are having to survive on whatever scraps of your time and attention are left over after all of your parishioners have gotten the best of you. Does that sound counterintuitive? I mean, we are talking about longevity in one place in ministry. But think about it; shattered families are the number one reason for people losing their ministries, and the devil knows that and will attack accordingly. So my advice stands: if you intend to make it a very long time in one place in the ministry, make sure that your wife and any children are always your first ministry and highest human priority.
You should also be very wise financially. We started a church, which means that we did without a lot, and for a very long time. And yet, God let us be very wise with our finances and let me develop ways to earn extra money, money which we saved and invested carefully. Our church is now fairly sizeable and able to take care of us pretty well, but over the course of these twenty-eight years up until the last few, there were quite a few times when I would have had no choice but to go elsewhere if not for that. Thankfully, during those times, we were able to keep plowing here because we could afford to do so.
Take a long view of things. Never let one low service, or even several low services, make you look toward greener pastures. If all the devil has to do to get you to quit is arrange for low crowds a few services in a row, you can pretty well count on people having vacations/car trouble/sickness/hurt feelings until you bail out. But if you will calm down and think in terms of years and decades, you will easily outlast such mischief.
Never let all of your happiness be wrapped up in the church. If it is, the devil only has to make you unhappy with that one thing to get you out. But if you are happy with serving in your church and with your family and with a hobby and with some friends and with your home/garden/workshop, if you diversify happiness, he can never take it all at once, and you can outlast many periods of darkness in ministry.
Don’t get bitter. Warnings against that are prolific in Scripture, and for good reason. Ministry comes complete with slights, offenses, and attacks. You have exactly one choice if you want to last: forgive, and be joyful instead of bitter. Bitterness will shorten not just your ministry but your life as well.
Refuse to allow stagnation in you or the church. The same-old-same-old for years on end is like rust that destroys what was once the strongest of steel. Dream, dare, do for the Lord. Sing new songs, build new things, reach out to new people, read new books, preach new messages. Never bore yourself out of a ministry or others out of your church. Doctrine must always be the same since it is dictated by Scripture. But do not equate everything with doctrine; God did not put paneling and slide projectors in Scripture along with soteriology and theology.
Travel. The proper name for a place you can never leave for any reason is “prison.” I have been in Mooresboro for twenty-eight years partly because I have also been in Trinidad and Tobago and Anguilla and Mexico and St. Lucia and Barbados and the Bahamas and the Grand Canyon and Tombstone and Carlsbad Caverns and many, many other amazing places.
Love. Love your people, irritations and all. Love them when they do right and when they do wrong. Love them when you want to strangle them. Love them, and they will likely love you back and make you never want to leave.
Bo Wagner is pastor of the Cornerstone Baptist Church of Mooresboro, NC, a widely traveled evangelist, and the author of several books. His books are available on Amazon and at www.wordofhismouth.com
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