Letter to a Young Pastor

Week 4, LA #5: Letter to a Young Pastor Paper

Dear Young Pastor:

You have picked a very noble and honorable profession and I thank you for serving God in this way. With this job comes a huge responsibility that you must not take lightly. The hours are a lot longer than most people think and the pay is not the best but it is a special calling.

It takes hours of thorough preparation to give a 35-minute message here on Sunday morning. Many of you in the congregation have no idea how much work is put into it. It's not a matter of standing up and sharing some things off the top of your head, things that occurred to you Saturday night or early Sunday morning. You can hear that kind of preaching in many places, but it is very evident that it is a shallow and superficial approach to Scripture.

The power of the Word of God is magnificently enhanced by the preaching of a pastor who has faithfully done his work and who is ministering in the power of the Spirit. This is what Paul urges upon young Timothy. "You are in a very strategic spot," he says to Timothy. "In this ungodly city with all its pagan vices, its immorality, its widespread superstition, blindness and darkness you are in the position of instructing the people of God to so believe the truth of God that their lives will make impact throughout the city and the surrounding area. There will be a noticeable lifting of the level of life; people will be healed and homes changed. All that is committed to you," Paul tells him.

C.H. Spurgeon once said, “It is the extreme of unwisdom for a young man fresh from college, or from another charge, to suffer himself to be earwigged by a clique, and to be bribed by kindness and flattery to become a partisan, and so to ruin himself with one-half of his people. Know nothing of parties and cliques, but be the pastor of all the flock, and care for all alike. Blessed are the peacemakers, and one sure way of peacemaking is to let the fire of contention alone. Neither fan it,...