Training Pastors – The Church’s Responsibility
During my time in vocational ministry I have found much of the leadership material available for pastors to be profoundly unhelpful. However, this is not the case with Nine Marks Journal. A publication of Nine Marks Ministries, the journal is a monthly online resource that features articles, interviews, and book reviews. The theme of their latest issue deals with the task of raising up the next generation of pastors.
Tom Stellar, associate pastor at Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis writes:
“Why are the pastors at Bethlehem Baptist Church joyfully committed to pastoral mentoring? Our mission as a pastoral staff is to spread a passion for the supremacy of God in all things for the joy of all peoples through Jesus Christ. Therefore, we continually ask God to give us the vision, energy, and skill to accomplish this mission with the apprentices he gives us…
“Mentoring is a great privilege and a weighty responsibility that God has given us. It’s both relational and doctrinal. It’s both spontaneous and intentional. Mentoring isn’t primarily a program, it’s a relationship. It’s teaching by word and deed. Part of the weightiness of our responsibility is that we pastors should always be saying to our apprentices what Paul said: “The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you” (Phil. 4:9). Or elsewhere: “Be imitators of me, just as I also am of Christ” (1 Cor. 11:1).”
Read the entire issue HERE.
