Solo Pastor: Understanding and Overcoming the Challenges of Leading a Church Alone

Product Information

How can a church balance faith and practice? This is one common problem in solo-pastor churches. Churches thrive on big vision (faith) but face the reality of limited resources (practice). Here are some insights and tips to consider. Become a prayer warrior. It’s striking to me that the apostles, as the first leaders of the first church, after their unique and matchless training at the hands of Christ himself, viewed prayer as a major part of their ministries – “…we will give ourselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word…” (Acts 6:1-4). This is not beneath you. It’s not a waste of your time: Christ himself has prayer as a major part or his current ministry, interceding for us at the right hand of the Father (Romans 8:34). Of course you’ll want to turn as many others into prayer warriors as you can, but don’t be bashful about letting your people know that you are one of them. Closer observation revealed that the real meeting began after the adjournment of the official meeting. It was there the same people, with coffee in hand, would weigh the matters introduced in the formal meeting, and by consensus, either validate the decisions of the formal meeting, or overrule them. His congregation considered the official meeting a polite concession to their pastor.”

Solo Pastors: Here Are The Rest Of Those Ways To Keep Your

Proverbs 29:18 reminds leaders, "Where there is no vision, the people are unrestrained." This passage can be translated as the people "run wild" or "get out of hand." Maybe you think I’m being overdramatic. “Being a solo pastor can’t be that hard,” you might say. But Jesus sent his disciples out in pairs for a reason. When the apostle Paul traveled on his missionary journeys, he took along people to help him. Jesus and Paul recognized the dangers of solo ministry. Ministry is supposed to be teamwork. If your pastor is flying solo, it’s important that you know these dangers too. Small CongregationIt seems that pastors make lousy groups for insurance companies. This might seem counter-intuitive: pastors ought to be the happiest, calmest, most stress-free persons on earth. On the contrary, the “job” – especially the job of the small church’s sole or solo leader – is regarded by many as one of the most stressful on earth. Here’s one line of evidence for this: health insurance. Twenty-some years ago I was in the process of helping my congregation join a denomination. One of the benefits we thought it would bring us was in providing health insurance for staff members. Before we could get inducted into the group, they had abandoned their health insurance program, permanently.

Solo pastors: 8 ways to make the most of limited resources

I’m fine with seeing pastors “leave the ministry” if they weren’t the right men to be serving in this way in the first place. But if leading a church is what God made you to do, I don’t want to see anything keep you from doing it.By contrast, multi-staff churches are like armies that value “loyalty, commitment, and risk.” People voluntarily enlist in those churches in response to the compelling vision of the lead pastor.