Tom Nelson: What the ‘Lost Shepherds’ of the Church Need To Flourish

Tom Nelson
Photo courtesy of Tom Nelson

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Tom Nelson is president of Made to Flourish, a network that seeks to empower pastors to lead churches that produce human flourishing for the common good. He has served as senior pastor of Christ Community Church in Kansas City for over 30 years. Tom is the author of several books, including “Work Matters” and “The Economics of Neighborly Love.” His latest is, “The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership.”

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Key Questions for Tom Nelson

-What are some common ways that pastors get lost when following their callings?

-What is the “secret sauce” to pastoral wholeness and effectiveness?

-What are the hallmarks of a pastor who is flourishing?

-What does it look like to be apprenticed to Jesus?

Key Quotes From Tom Nelson

“I do think these last three years have been really, really hard and we’ve had a free fall of uncertainty. It’s hard to lead in that.”

“We deal with lost sheep. But I think the inconvenient truth is there’s a lot of lost shepherds and we lose our way in many different ways.”

“I think many people lose their way in a visionary paradigm. Another one is the celebrity…when the camera kind of overtakes your reach.”

“I do see that in many pastors, their compass setting gets off, they get lost. It’s slow, incremental, and they end up in a really dark place.”

“God sovereignly chooses us. I think that’s really, really important…we don’t necessarily choose to be a leader. We don’t choose. We believe in God’s sovereign calling.”

“We need to embrace obscurity.”

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Jessica Lea
Jessica is a content editor for ChurchLeaders.com and the producer of The Stetzer ChurchLeaders Podcast. She has always had a passion for the written word and has been writing professionally for the past five years. When Jessica isn't writing, she enjoys West Coast Swing dancing, reading, and spending time with her friends and family.

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