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11 Pastors You Need to Know

7. I’m encouraged by the pastor whose personal walk with God is more important to him than his public reputation.

Pastors will receive their fair share of criticism from self-righteous people who think they have been given the ministry of critique and criticism.

These Pharisees are often too spiritual for any pastor and spend their lives jumping from one church to the next, never satisfied, and always having a story or two to tell.

I’ve received my fair share, and I’m sorry for every pastor who faces such ill-aligned scrutiny. But it’s not an excuse to protect one’s reputation at the expense of his personal walk with God.

I’m encouraged by the pastor who is more concerned with the latter than the former.

8. I’m encouraged by the pastor who loves the whole body of Christ in its diversity and refuses to cater to special-interest groups in the church he serves.

Churches will always be filled with people who have special interests. Calvinists, Arminians, home-schoolers, family-integrated folks, charismatic gift seekers, KJV-onlyists and hosts of other interests permeate the church universal.

But the pastor who recognizes the foolishness of catering to the group who pays the bills or makes the most noise, and has the courage to oppose such pressure, gets kudos in my book.

I’m encouraged by the pastor who appreciates the diversity in the body of Christ and yet continues to seek the unity of the body for the glory of God and the advancement of his kingdom.

9. I’m encouraged by the pastor who understands the gospel and its efficacy in all of life—both in conversion and social justice.

The fundamentalist/modernist debate of the 20th century really provoked this disparity. Of course, there were larger issues—like the deity of Christ—at stake.

But the fight caused a breach in the church that opened the door to the 21st century with the prospect of the gospel’s work of conversions in one corner and the prospect of the gospel’s work in social justice in the other.

I’m encouraged by the pastor who sees the gospel is both/and, not either/or.