- How to conduct a wedding, funeral, or baptism service
- How to form a church budget, manage the budget, or underwrite the budget
- How to lead a board meeting, recruit volunteers, raise money, hire & fire staff
- How to structure ministries for children or teenagers, missions, or small groups
- How to handle difficult people
- Basic business practices to keep a church legal
- Leadership principles (especially as the church grows larger)
- How to handle conflict
- Construction and building project management
- Human resources, salary structure, employee training, and how to conduct performance evaluations
- How to set goals and objectives
- How to preach in an engaging manner
- How to protect my marriage while trying to fix other people’s marriage
- How to be a good father when my time is often stretched with other people’s children
These skills I had to learn in the filed, in the school of hard knocks, under the leadership of other successful pastors. They know the 'real world' of ministry - not the lofty naive one.
Most seminary instructors have never actually pastored a church, or, if they did, couldn’t wait to get out of the pulpit and into the classroom. As such, they prefer to teach Biblical theology (or their theories of what ministry is supposed to be like) rather than what is actually needed in the field. The end result of such training is over-educated pastors today who do not know how to effectively lead a church – they were never taught how.
That’s why CONFERENCES are better than classrooms, and SEMINARS are better than seminaries – they are led by real church leaders who lead on the front lines. From them you will actually learn something that is useful.
That’s why CONFERENCES are better than classrooms, and SEMINARS are better than seminaries – they are led by real church leaders who lead on the front lines. From them you will actually learn something that is useful.
1 comment:
Nothing like OJT !
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