By Chuck Lawless, Dean of the Billy Graham School of Missions and Evangelism at Southern Seminary
I served as a church pastor for 14 years, have now served for 12 years as a church consultant and have watched hundreds of students begin their local church ministries during my 14 years as a seminary professor. Based on my observations from these various vantage points, here’s what I would do if I wanted to “blow up” a church.
1. Begin my ministry as a teacher and refuse to be a learner. Seminary does this to us sometimes: we spend three or more years learning, and we are ready to use all of that knowledge in the first few weeks of a new ministry. What we fail to do is listen to the people, get to know them and understand their culture. Consequently, we are viewed more as an outsider than a pastor, and the fault most often lies with us.
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