My three biggest ministry mistakes
“Learn from the mistakes of others: You can't live long enough to make them all yourself.” Eleanor Roosevelt
Looking back over thirty-five years of ministry, I’ve made a few mistakes. (OK, more than just a few.) Thankfully, along the way, I learned from my mistakes and discovered how to be a better pastor. Here are my three biggest ministry mistakes and the lessons I’ve learned from them:
Mistake number one: Assuming it was my job to do all the preaching
It was only during my last few years of pastoral ministry that I enlisted a team of gifted and godly men to share in preaching. Some pastors love preaching so much that they resist sharing the pulpit with others. For both Biblical (Acts 14:23) and practical reasons, I believe that is a huge mistake. Once we mobilized a preaching team, we saw positive changes: our people benefited from the gifts and wisdom of numerous spiritual leaders, and I had more time than ever to pray and prepare my sermons. Counterintuitively, my preaching improved when I preached less frequently. I regret not being wise enough to do this earlier in my ministry!
Mistake number two: Thinking we obeyed the Great Commission because our church gave generously to missions and prayed regularly for missionaries
In the first church I served as pastor, we budgeted considerably more than 10% of our weekly offerings for missions. In addition, every year we collected an exceptionally large global missions offering. We prayed for missionaries and invited them to speak in our church. I discovered, however, that we had not fully obeyed the Great Commission until we began to send our people on mission. Once we began going on mission, our church was transformed: there was a heightened awareness of God’s activity in our church, our people had a new sense of excitement, and they developed a deeper comprehension of God’s heart for the nations. I’m forever grateful for learning this lesson: when a church mobilizes its people and goes on mission, God comes to them in a greater measure of His power!
Mistake number three: Underestimating the importance of hospitality
Scripture commands pastors to be hospitable (1 Timothy 3:2, Titus 1:8). I spent years in ministry before I discovered the reason why. While serving as the pastor of the International Baptist Church in Kiev, Ukraine, we had no permanent building to meet in and were forced to conduct meetings and Bible studies in our home. As we developed friendships with unbelievers in the warm atmosphere of our home, they were far more transparent about themselves and more open to the gospel. Unexpectedly, more people came to know Jesus at our kitchen table, or sitting on our living room sofa, than during our Sunday morning worship services in church! I’m so glad I finally learned why the Bible commands pastors to be hospitable!
Conclusion: Maybe in the future I’ll tell about other mistakes I’ve made. (I have plenty to write about.) But I hope that by sharing three of my biggest ministry mistakes, I have helped you not to repeat them!
Sam Taylor serves as the Boston area regional coordinator at the Baptist Convention of New England.
