April 2004 marked the one-year anniversary of my arrival at the church I serve in North Alabama.  This first year has been full of lessons learned and education by trial-and-error.  Following is a list of 10 things I have learned after 1 year as a solo pastor.

1.    My natural proclivity is to depend on schemes rather than the Savior.  This is not surprising, unfortunately.  We have all been looking to ourselves for ages.  But, expressed in a lack of prayer, zeal for programs, trust in methods, and too much time spent trying to organize and manufacture “success” (which is a relative term anyway), I’ve seen my worldly mindset manifest itself.  It is easy to think that if I organize it well enough I can guarantee the results I want.

2.    I’ve got to have biblical answers to instruct members.  This has been evident in many ways:

a.    Members are constantly asking me Bible questions about the most random stuff!  They think I am the walking “Bible Answer Man.”  And what I have learned is that, in large part, I must be.  Thank the Lord for reference books that I can turn to.  But I need to be well-versed enough to give decent answers to the most common questions.  Since seminary I have thought that I ought to keep a list of questions I have asked and I have been asked.  But I didn’t keep such a list.

b.    Most church members don’t think biblically.  Members may be passionate about missions or about a certain worship format.  And they may appear spiritually mature just because they have been in church all their lives and like Reformed doctrine.  But far too many don’t think biblically!  Far too many can list the five points of Calvinism but they don’t have biblical principles guiding the way they think.  And I didn’t really learn this until I conversed with them one-on-one, in an intense counseling session.  So I must know the Word!  It’s not enough just to be affable and relationally smooth; I need to teach people what the Bible says.

3.    If I don’t like people and confrontation, I’ve picked the wrong line of work.  The job of a shepherd is to shepherd the sheep.  This means, more often than I thought, pointing our sin in others and calling them to repentance.  And it has, at times, been a daily affair.  I would rather stay in my study and pour over books.  I would rather hire an assistant to do this difficult work.  But I am a shepherd.  And being a shepherd means feeding and caring for the sheep.  And this is not work that can be done without confrontation and spending lots of time with people.

4.    I have learned that no one likes their church!  It seems everybody is full of gripes and complaints because we don’t do this well or that well, or because the session is this way or that way.  First, most members have an unbiblical ecclesiology.  I am at fault for not teaching them how to think biblically about the church.  And second, we are a society of takers and not givers.  So when members don’t think they are receiving enough, they start looking down the road at other churches and dreams of greener grass fill their minds.  The only way they will stay at that church is if they stay aloof and uninvolved.  Otherwise, they will learn that church is not perfect either and their venture in church-shopping will begin again.

5.    Bill Gothard was right!  Well…sort of.  At least he was right on the money about the incredibly negative influence of anger, bitterness, and taking up of offenses.  I have been in sin by being angry and cold toward people in sin.  And my (former) members have been too easily ensnared and negligent in guarding their hearts.  The result of it all is a hard heart, the product of forgetting the gospel of grace.

6.    Stay-at-home-moms will be the ones who complain the most.  Not all SAH moms will complain, of course.  Some have been absolutely my most loyal and faithful members.  But working-outside-the-home men and women don’t have the time to come to everything and do everything – and they don’t want to add more to their plate.  But many SAH moms want to go and do and have things for their kids.  Add to that the possibility that they are not getting enough relational connection at home with their husbands and their expectations on the church go through the roof (of course, I say all this not really having many senior citizens in the church!).

7.    The “squeaky-wheel” is the one that gets greased.  And this is regrettable.  How is it that such a small minority can wield such a big influence?  I think a strong leader will not be lured away from his vision by a tiny but loud mob.  Don’t you sometimes want to see President Bush say something like, “I’m not answering any more questions about Senator Kennedy’s criticisms of me.  He’s an imbecile and what he says means nothing.  I don’t listen to him.  Next question.”  I long to be a man with that kind of passion and vision (but I don’t intend to think of any church members as imbeciles).

8.    I’m embarrassed to think I ever criticized or complained about any of my former churches and/or pastors.  Being a pastor and leading a church is a hard job.  And a quality church is extremely hard to find.  And I was in some wonderful churches!  Yet, I was still able to find some things to complain about.  Sure they were not perfect.  But man o’ man would I be a great, loyal, supportive assistant pastor now!

9.    Better preachers do not equate to better men.  With the use of technology I can get more information in less time for more dynamic sermons.  But by doing so I circumvent the development of my own heart.  Good illustrations, quotes, and catchy one-liners are only a click or two away.  A godly man and a passionate heart grows slowly, and only after much prayer, meditation, and wrestling with God.

10.    Visions of people standing in the aisles and ideas of full new member classes on a monthly basis will crush me.  I need to remember that God is doing a lot more in me than through me.  And my unrealistic expectations about church growth only reveal my own bad theology and unbiblical thinking.  I must have a bigger picture of God and be liberated from the success syndrome.

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TE Michael Brock is pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Florence, Alabama.

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