(Tim) Pastor Stephen Baker serves on the pastoral staff of Church of the Good Shepherd while also serving as Dean of ClearNote Pastors College--a sister institution to Christ the Word's Reformed Evangelical Pastors College in Toledo. Here is the first in a series of posts by Stephen on the necessity of training pastors for holiness--not simply the performance of public duties.
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Playing a musical instrument requires hours and hours of private practice and study before it can be done in public. A man who has never touched an organ would be a fool if he thought he could publicly perform a Bach fugue on the first try. The same is true with playing basketball. One does not learn to play like Michael Jordan simply by watching from the stands. A surgeon does not perform intricate brain surgery without years of preparation. In all of these disciplines, there is a direct connection between the quality of the private preparation and the outcome of the public performance.
The same principle applies to the pastorate. A man who neglects the private duties of the ministry cannot expect to be fruitful in the public duties. Despite this clear reality, however, the emphasis in pastoral training at the seminary level is usually on the outward, public duties of the pastorate. In seminary, the vast majority of time and energy is devoted to making men capable shepherds, preachers, and counselors. But the emphasis in the New Testament is on making pastors holy men who meditate on the Word who do not shrink from suffering hardship. (To read the rest of Pastor Baker's post...)
