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Top 10 Ministry Mistakes I Made My First Year

#8 Ignoring Accountability

Guess what, you are an idiot. You will not only be capable of not planning a rain alternative for the kickball tournament, you are also capable of fraud, adultery, and any other number of things that will cause you to be the lead on the local news. Sure, you may not ruin everything and end up in jail, and maybe no one will ever catch you in your sin. You might get lucky and just become distant from the important people in your life and live a lie.

I don’t think this has to follow the “accountability partner” model where you get together with someone at Starbucks, and you beat each other up, but there has to be people in your life asking you hard questions and not accepting your easy answers.

#9 Trashing Your Predecessor

As soon as a pastor leaves, the critics are quiet, and the supporters get megaphones. You are probably walking into a situation where you are immediately compared to the leader who came before you. It is also easy at this point to blame things on him/her. They aren’t here to defend themselves, and maybe you are accurate in your assessment.

Problems arise as soon as you open your mouth. Odds are the people on your team liked the previous leader, and with their absence, their memory of them has gotten better, not more accurate but more positive. It is also immature. Which is probably one of the critiques coming your way, so don’t reinforce it.

#10 Stop Learning Names

You get embarrassed when you forget their name a month in, or you realize you never learned it in the first place; either way, not asking is a bad idea. Learning names isn’t about being friendly or not being friendly but about understanding the importance of relational equity in ministry.

That great idea you have won’t get off the ground in that first year if you don’t have support. This may feel like playing church politics, because it is. Call it whatever you want, but this is how it works so you might as well build real relationships and redeem something that can be so ugly in the process.