• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
Client Portal Login →

The Center for Healthy Churches & PneuMatrix

Church and Pastor Consultants and Coaching

  • About
    • Our Team
    • Consulting
    • Center for Healthy Churches
      • CHC-PMX Partnership
    • PneuMatrix
      • CHC-PMX Partnership
      • Designing for the New Norm
      • Mission Study
    • Engaging Our Services
    • Testimonies
  • Services
    • Pastor Transitions
    • Vision Development
    • Conflict Transformation
    • Coaching and Training
    • Outreach Strategy
    • Mission Study
    • Designing for the New Norm
  • Pastor Transitions
    • Plan A Healthy Transition
    • Hire An Interim Pastor
    • Search Assistance
  • Church Polarization
    • For Such A Time As This
  • Topics & Resources
    • Blog
    • Newsletters
    • Books & Guides
      • The Ultimate Guide to Congregation Transitions
      • Animal Farm
      • 10 Suggestions for Welcoming a New Pastor
      • The Challenge of Managing Decline for the American Church
    • Webinar Archives
    • News Releases
    • Consultants Resources
  • Contact

May 23 2012 | By: Bill Wilson*

So, you want to be a minister?

The landscape of hiring and managing staff is rapidly changing for congregations. What are the implications for the men and women who desire to serve in those congregations? What does this dawning of a new era in congregational life mean for those who feel called to a life in ministry? Specifically, what can a man or woman who wants to serve God in the context of local church ministry expect with regard to finding a job, keeping a job, and enjoying a job?

Recently, our son graduated from divinity school. The world he faces is very different from the one I entered in 1980. It is rapidly changing and difficult to navigate. When I think about my advice to him at the beginning of his life in ministry, it goes something like this:

  1. Living out of a sense of call is more important than ever. If you are not deeply and divinely called to the life of a minister, you will quickly find that the aggravation, financial arrangements, and general work environment will quickly dissuade you from any romantic notions about making the ministry a career. Even with a strong dose of call, many of us find it is difficult to live out that call in the current culture.
  2. Prepare to be underwhelmed by the free call process that is standard in many protestant traditions. Economic priorities dictate that very few people remain who devote their full time to placement concerns. That leaves a patchwork network that is heavy on relationships and short on logic. It will probably drive you crazy.
  3. Take care of your spiritual life. What is at the heart of you matters more than any other single factor when thinking about a life in ministry. You must cultivate a profound sense of connection to Christ, the scripture, and the leadership of the Spirit. That is the rock upon which to build your life. Resist the lure of a ministerial life built on the sand of methodology or metrics or trying to please others.
  4. Take care of all of you. Your family, your body and your mind matter to God and to your life in the church. Spend quality time with them, take time off, eat well, rest, exercise, read, think, go to concerts and movies, play. In short, live an abundant life.
  5. Have a life outside the church. I hope you will always have hobbies, friends, interests and experiences that transcend the boundaries of the local church. You will be a better minister and person if you do.
  6. What is your “escape hatch”? That’s what one friend calls your avocation. That is, the thing you would do if your primary vocation were taken away from you. Think about that and prepare for that.
  7. Remember that your congregants really want to know two basic things: Do you love God and can you love them? Spend most of your time focused on these two things. The majority of that will happen between Sundays, by the way.
  8. Can you spell entrepreneur? Can you be an entrepreneur? I hope so. The life of a minister in the future will require it.
  9. Remember, EQ (emotional intelligence) usually trumps IQ.
  10. Learn multiple skills. The chances are that you will be asked to do a multitude of jobs, whatever your title may be. Expect it and embrace it. No whining. The era of specialists is closing, and the most valuable clergy will be those who love the whole church, not just their silo.
  11. Consider what you will do when you find it necessary to be bi-vocational. This is going to be the standard experience for many in your generation.
  12. Take an interest in anything that teaches you how to be a more effective leader. That is the skill congregations and organizations are yearning for. Read about it. Think about it. Watch good leaders in any field and learn what makes them effective. Learn from the failures as well, for they will teach you invaluable lessons. Study Jesus the leader. He’s the finest model available.
  13. Pay attention when professors, books, articles or conferences speak to the leadership required to lead the transition from programmatic models toward missional models. You’ll be glad you did.
  14. Live simply. Salaries for ministers have never been high, and they may have peaked. The future looks lean in terms of pay and benefits.

For every ministerial author who writes eloquently about leaving church, there are thousands of women and men who serve congregations diligently and faithfully across a lifetime. Remember, for all the pain and aggravation, the life of a minister is the finest and highest calling one could hope for. Your grandfather loved every day of his life in ministry. Your dad can say the same thing with enthusiasm. I pray the same will true for you.


Creative Commons License
BillWilsonCCH by Bill Wilson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at www.healthychurch.org

Categorized: Clergy, Healthy Ministry Tagged: call, clergy, emotional intelligence, minister

Avatar photo

About Bill Wilson*

Dr. William “Bill” Wilson founded The Center for Healthy Churches in January of 2014. This followed his service as President of the Center for Congregational Health at Wake Forest Baptist Health since 2009. Previously he was Pastor of First Baptist Church of Dalton, Georgia, where he served since 2003. He brings over 33 years of local church ministry experience to the Center, having served as pastor in two churches in Virginia (Farmville BC and FBC Waynesboro) and on a church staff in South Carolina. Bill has led each of the churches he has served into a time of significant growth and exp... Learn More »

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Search

Recent Posts

  • Beyond the Resume: Evaluating Emotional, Spiritual, and Missional Intelligence in Pastor Searches
  • Begin with Prayer: How Discernment Shapes Healthy Transitions
  • When Search Teams Miss the Mark
  • 10 Ways to Support Emotional Health in a Pastoral Transition
  • The Spiritual Practice of Listening

Categories

Sign Up For Our Newsletter

Footer

  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Center for Healthy Churches

Cleantalk Pixel