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A Room Crowded With Voices

  • larry95lion
  • Feb 10, 2021
  • 2 min read

One of the many new challenges to being a pastor in today's culture consists of the many voices in the room. Everyone seems to have an opinion about who you are to be as a pastor and exactly what you are to be doing.

What I mean is this:

- The guy who now has a full-time job writing for some agency in your denomination will try and convince you in his latest article that you need to be a "market place pastor" or a "co-vocational pastor" so that you can better share the gospel in your community. He neglects to tell you that he left a wonderful full-time pastor job at a large church just a few years earlier. Never once did he consider serving behind the deli counter at the local grocery store in order to be more evangelistic.

- The leadership expert who is a professor at some seminary is imploring you to spend more time developing leaders in your ministry if you truly want to be like Jesus. Meanwhile, you just finished a podcast where some megachurch pastor that you like reminds pastors that they must be spending at least 20 hours a week in their "inner sanctum of study and sermon prep".

- Some in your congregation want more teachings in the form of devotionals and bible studies while your denominational leader is imploring you to volunteer more time with community leaders in order to increase your church's influence.

The voices can become overwhelming and if we're not careful we can wear ourselves out trying to please everyone or become depressed when we find that there actually is not pot of gold at the end of everyone else's rainbow.

So is there a way to focus? Is there a way to tune out the unnecessary voices and find your "true north" in a sea of rolling waves begging for our attention? I don't know if there is a perfect way, but here are a few ideas I've utilized.


  • As an introvert I become overwhelmed and tend to go somewhere to find solace and silence.

  • Determine God's priorities based upon your giftings and run with that.

  • Listen to voices that are invested in you, voices that are more concerned about you as a child of God rather than an employee of the kingdom.


As a parent of teens I know how strong the pull of peer pressure can be. I'm constantly coaching my own to not get bogged-down into worrying about what others think of you, especially if they don't know you or care to know you. That's not to say that all those voices out there don't have good things to say...just start by focusing on the voices that you know care about you.



 
 
 

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