4. The world has come to us via travel and the Internet.
That’s a good thing, in the sense that we can now take the gospel to the world by crossing the street or hitting the “send” button. On the other hand, meeting and knowing good people who follow other faiths has caused many church members to question the exclusivity of the gospel.
5. Church members respected the pastoral position more back then.
I was 20 years old when I started pastoring. I had not yet finished my undergraduate degree. I was hardly prepared to be a pastor, but folks respected me simply because of the position I held. I’m not sure that folks hold the position that highly today.
6. What culture now accepts is rapidly changing.
More than three decades ago, most of us would never have dreamed that we’d face the cultural issues we face today. Few of us would’ve thought that our culture would someday legalize acts that Christians classify as sin.
7. We’re reaping the results of decades of poor discipleship.
Discipleship wasn’t strong back then, either, but we’ve now laid on top of that weak foundation 30+ more years of poorly grounding believers. That means we’re often pastoring long-term believers who are really still babies in Christ.
What are your thoughts on pastoring?
This article on pastoring originally appeared here.
