41 years ago I was just beginning my first pastoral ministry at a small church plant in Florida. Looking back on that experience, I would do some things differently while trying some new ways of doing church leadership. Here's what I would change or add.
I would pray more and invite others to pray more. While doing that I would teach others to pray. As someone said, prayer is not preparation for ministry, it is the ministry. However, today I know more about what I should be praying and how to pray. I also know that learning how and when to pray is a life-long learning process.
I would spend more time on building my relationship with my wife and family. This would require setting better and firmer boundaries between church work and husband/family work. My family needed me to be a better husband and father rather than a better pastor to the church and community.
I would major on making disciples and developing leaders. I began church ministry by trying to be the leader when what I hadn't yet learned that the church needs multiple leaders who develop other leaders.
I would quit trying to get the church to do church by emphasizing programs that do church. Instead I would help the church learn how to be the church as it advanced the Kingdom of God in the community and the world. I now know the church is designed by God to be the church on mission 24/7 until Jesus returns.
I would focus less on ministering to others and more on building redemptive relationships with others. I'm still learning that people don't want programs near as much as they want meaningful and helpful relationships.
I would help the church to grow while being a simple church. Although Tom Rainer and Eric Geiger had not yet written the book, Simple Church, back then, their definition of a simple church holds true: "A simple church is a congregation designed around a straightforward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth."
I would seek out a mentor and a coach to help me navigate the course of the church through both smooth and rough waters. This would involve listening to other pastors who would use their wisdom to share the what and how of ministry, and ask good coaching questions to draw out of me what God was saying to me about life and ministry.
I would work out of my areas of giftedness and passion while not trying to do everything. As a counselor once told me, "You are not God."
In short, I would pray more, laugh more, relate more, celebrate more, disciple more, develop more leaders, listen more, spend more time with my wife and family, keep things simpler, and share the load of leadership with others.
If you were starting your ministry over, what would you do?
Photo by Nico Marks on Unsplash