Confidence vs. Cowardice

A buddy of mine recently talked about 4 things that make him more qualified than anyone else in his church to be pastor and set the direction for the church. Having served in a church where my bosses always, ALWAYS, pulled the spiritual authority/submission card, I have been hesitant to even think about this topic… there is just something about an insecure pastor pulling this card that makes me sick…

Anyway, my buddy was talking about why he should be confident as senior pastor of his church to set the direction and I could not help but see the merit in his reasoning. If nothing else it added credibility to the calling of God on a man, and the benefits of being faithful to that which God has called us to do. His four reasons to be confident were:

1. Education – if one has never invested in an education, there is an obvious lack of credibility. However, God has used many uneducated men for His glory. It does truly bother me when people are dogmatic towards pursuing or having an education, because most of the time preachers who do not feel it is needed are really to lazy to go out and get one.

2. Experience – Being able to look at your congregation and say, I’ve seen God come through before, let’s watch Him do it again not only inspires, it motivates a church to try big things for God.

3. Call of God – Before you cling to this reason to be bold, make sure you have a list of people who follow you who agree with what you see as God’s call upon your life. It is difficult to look at a young minister who chose to study instead of server during seminary and believe the have the call of God on their life as well. In other words, prove the call by serving God (like a James approach).

4. Call of your church – Every single person in the church should agree that only the pastor is called by the church to do that job. If someone wants to look over your shoulder and tell you have to properly fulfill your task, ask them who commissioned them to be the pastor… they should get the point although many never seem to understand.[

Hopefully, we pastors can humbly look at these four reasons to be bold and not lord it over the places we serve, but act confidently in the tasks God has called us to!