PreacherTalk
Blog Posts
CORE COMPETENCIES OF A PASTOR
What are the core competencies that a pastor must have to be successful?
To answer that question, we need to distinguish between competencies and learning outcomes. Core competencies are general categories of applied knowledge that equip a person for life, while learning outcomes are specific objectives that define what a person can do upon completion of the training. The latter refers to the development of skills to perform certain tasks, while the former refers to the abilities needed across various life contexts.
I know this sounds like a boring blog opener, so how does this apply to pastoral training?
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IMMIGRATION, LEVITICUS 19:34 AND THE FOUR SPHERES DOCTRINE
The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson, recently defended the current practice of aggressive immigration enforcement with probably the best explanation I have read of a common evangelical position on immigration.[i] He argued that God ordained four spheres of authority: 1) the individual, 2) the family, 3) the church, and 4) government. It is a popular Christian argument. He, then, argued that God’s instructions regarding the treatment of immigrants in Leviticus 19:34 are addressed to individuals and only apply to individuals. Civil government does not have to obey Leviticus 19:34.
Is he right?
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THE GOAL OF PASTORAL TRAINING
We talk a lot about measurable outcomes in education today. What outcomes should the students achieve from the program they study? What, then, are the outcomes of pastoral training that will measure success? Seminary training has increasingly focused on transactional pragmatism to attract students to meet the needs of churches. The training is transactional because pastoral ministry emphasizes a transactional agreement between churches and pastors, the pastoral profession. It is pragmatic because the training equips pastors to do what churches want them to do. We train people to perform the functions of the pastoral profession.
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THE BLESSING PRINCIPLE
Christmas perfectly epitomizes the blessing principle. Elizabeth tells Mary, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb” (Luke 1:42). Mary, in her Magnificat, acknowledges that “generations will count me blessed” and praises God for blessing her so that, through her, God could bless the world (Luke 1:46-55). We give gifts to others at Christmas because God has given us the greatest gift of all. We honor others because God has honored us. Christmas reminds us that God’s blessing principle flows through Scripture.
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ARE YOU AN EDGELORD CHRISTIAN?
The word caught my eye. I was reading an interview between Russell Moore and Nicholas Carr in Christianity Today, when Moore used it. He wrote:
One of the things that I’ve noticed for some time now in evangelical Christianity is a group of young men who don’t seem to aspire to be preachers or pastors or even scholars in the way that previous generations would have aspired to those things. They want to be “edgelords” on the internet.[1]
What is an edgelord?
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