How Pastors Should Lead - The Gospel Coalition

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Paul Tripp

Am I willing to ask myself the question, is there something else that I’ve been after? Is there a buzz that I’ve been looking for that I thought would satisfy my heart, that I’m not getting, or is it enough for me, that Jesus loves me? Is it enough for me that he’s given me gifts? Is it enough for me that I get to get up, whether it’s three people or 3000 people, and speak the truth of the gospel? And I think there are many moments in ministry where I would have had to say to myself, No, it’s not enough.

Matt Smethurst

Welcome back, friends to the everyday pastor. A podcast from the gospel Coalition on the nuts and bolts of ministry. I’m Matt smitherst and I’m Luke Duncan, and today we’re going to be talking about the pastor as leader. And to help us do that, we’ve invited our friend Paul Tripp, or if you’re reading one of his books, Paul David Tripp, to the show. Paul has served as a pastor and is best known for his writing and speaking ministry. Many of you will be familiar with his books on marriage and parenting and his daily devotionals such as new morning mercies and everyday gospel. But in terms of our topic for today, Paul has written two books in particular, in 2012 dangerous calling the unique challenges of pastoral ministry, and in 2020 a sequel of sorts titled lead, 12 gospel principles for leadership in the church. And we’re excited to learn from Paul and to think with him about what God’s word has to say about pastoral leadership. Paul, welcome to the podcast.

Paul Tripp

Thank you. It’s wonderful to be with you, Paul. We’ll

Matt Smethurst

just start here. Why is the topic of leadership in pastoral ministry so close to your heart?

Paul Tripp

Well, I I love the church. I’m a pastor by heart. Everything I do in my speaking and writing ministry is to strengthen the church, other than my relationship with Jesus, God’s two best gifts to me are His Word and His Church. And I can’t think of what my life would have been like without His Word and His Church. So my my heart is in the church, and because of that, I care about the men that God has called to lead his church. I was a pastor for many years. I know the ebb and flow of pastoral ministry. I know the joys and the heartaches. I know those moments where you feel like you can’t continue. I, in fact, I tried to resign once, and it didn’t work. So my heart has always been there for pastors. I think the most important thing I’m doing right now, it’s not what I’m known for is I have six young pastors that I mentor individually. This is really what my life is about. Is thinking about the local church, what the local church needs, and because of that, for pastors, let me say one other thing, dangerous calling and lead is part of a trilogy I’m working on, the third book right now, called Restore, and it’s how to respond to a pastor who has lost his way.

Matt Smethurst

How far into that project are you?

Paul Tripp

Eight chapters in Wow, I’m

Matt Smethurst

sure that’s been difficult to write. Yeah, it’s been,

Paul Tripp

it’s been hard. The Well, a commented that these chapters have taken me longer than normal.

Matt Smethurst

And Paul, in your writing on this topic, you focus a lot on not just the health of the leader, but on his leadership community. So for example, you suggest that quote ministry leadership at its core, is about a community of leaders practicing together the presence of the Lord. Can you elaborate on what you mean and how in particular, a group of elders in a church can foster such a culture? Well, let

Paul Tripp

me, let me put it in, in my way of thinking if, if Christ is the head of his body, and he is then everything else is just body. A pastor is a member of the Body of Christ with God given gifts and a God given calling, but he needs everything that every other member of the Body of Christ needs. And it’s interesting to me, for example, in Ephesians, after Paul has done this wonderful job of laying out the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, his first application of what it means to live out the Gospel is to relationships. Be completely humble, be gentle, bear with one another in love. Why is that? Because those relationships are essential to the continuing work that God wants to do. To in our lives. So a pastor needs to be part of the essential sanctifying ministry of the Body of Christ. Your seminary degree and your pastoral calling does not mean that you are capable of living in isolation the the Christianity of the New Testament is entirely relational, and so a pastor needs to be surrounded by that kind of gospel community, transparent, humble, encouraging, exhortational. And if he, if he doesn’t have that, whether he knows it or not, he’s a man in spiritual danger, because God’s norm is that that body would be used to continue his work of grace in all of our lives, including pastors.

Matt Smethurst

Yeah, it’s such a good word that we try to remind our fellow pastors from time to time on this very podcast is that a shepherd is first and foremost a sheep. And I even think of First Thessalonians five, where Paul talks about honoring those, esteeming those who are over you and among you in the Lord and danger sets in when we emphasize the over at the expense of the among or the among at the expense of the over both are both are needed. And I think thinking wisely and well about this idea of leadership in ministry. LIG, you’ve not only served as a pastor for a long time, but you’re also in the work of training pastors now, in your experience, what are some of the key differences between godly pastors who excel at leading and godly pastors who struggle to lead? Well, a couple

Ligon Duncan

of thoughts, Matt, and especially in light of what you’ve just been talking about with Paul, I think all every pastor that’s probably listening would crave an environment of encouragement and gospel support and feedback like Paul just described. My guess is a lot of folks listening to us are saying that is not the setting that I am in in ministry. Very often, as a pastor, you inherit a leadership structure, and you inherit a leadership culture, and you inherit leadership personalities that are that, all of which are completely beyond your control, and you have to, you have to go into that setting as a pastor, I was just talking to a young man who is A marvelous pastor, marvelous preacher, and really a good leader who has been reached out to by a congregation who wants to the search committee of that congregation wants him to come and serve as a minister. And one of the things I said to him is, if you go you need to understand that you are going in into a strife ridden leadership culture there, and that you could do a really good job and still have a pound of flesh extracted. So I think, I think one of the things we have to deal with is leadership cultures around us that aren’t healthy, and be aware that those things don’t change overnight. One tip I would just say to guys is you do need to discern what the leadership culture of a church is as you are going in, and everybody’s just a little bit different, and the more aware of that you are, the better. And very often, the search committee that is reaching out to you is not identical to the leadership culture that you’re actually going to be listening for the rest of your ministry there. And you really, you know, the search committee say, Oh, we want a pastor that does x, y and z, and then you find out that the elders of the church do not want X, Y and Z, and you don’t work with the search committee, you work with the elders. So knowing that is really important, but a couple of things come to mind. I’ll get back to your question. Finally, Matt, one is, I think, I think it’s really important that we do talk about leadership for pastors. A lot of people say, Oh, that’s so corporate and business and American and such. But here’s, here’s the thing I’ve I’ve seen a lot of folks in ministry who, who their ministry has been wrecked because of bad leadership. And sometimes it’s insecurity, sometimes it’s pride, sometimes, you know, it’s wanting to get my way, sometimes it’s envy. Sometimes it’s anger. I’ve seen inappropriate anger in leadership wreck people’s ministry, and so I do think it’s very important for. Are folks going into ministry to be self aware, what are my strengths and what are my weaknesses? What are my limitations? What What am I good at in leadership? There’s some principles that you can learn. I just think pastors need to care about this, because so often the controversies that pastors will deal with in the context of a local church will have nothing to do with their doctrinal proclamation, but will have everything to do with different sets of priorities and agendas and ways of processing things that exist between the leadership of a particular setting. I’ve often thought that I get credited for being a better leader than I am because I’m surrounded by people that are really good at leadership and and can carry me along in places where I don’t have the gifts or the wisdom to know what to do in certain places. And I’ve often, I’ve often seen guys that I thought you’re, you’re a really good leader, but you’re in a context where the leadership culture around you isn’t health, isn’t healthy, and consequently you’re getting beat up because of that. So those are just a few thoughts. Matt,

Paul Tripp

so, so one of the things, one of the things that means, is that part of what you need to do is as a pastor, is assess the culture that surrounds you. Do we have a culture that is going to result in a spiritually healthy church and pastoral longevity and fruitfulness? And what do we need to do to get ourselves to that place? I think many young men go into pastoral ministry, accept a position, and they’re just culturally unaware. It’s just not what they’re thinking about, and they don’t have any idea of how formative that culture will be on their ministry and on their church. And so having that awareness and asking yourself the question, okay, what’s the health of this culture, and where does this leadership culture need a change in order to have a spiritually healthy church that’s accomplishing its Gospel Mission and pastoral longevity, because the key to fruitfulness is longevity. Fruit doesn’t happen overnight. If it’s a revolving door, you’re not going to have much fruitfulness in that situation, and often the reasons of a revolving door is because of the dysfunction of the leadership culture around a gifted young man. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker

Well,

Matt Smethurst

obviously, being in a church for a period of time you inevitably, for better or worse, are gonna learn what culture you’ve stepped into. What advice Paul, would you give to a prospective pastor, someone who’s candidate at a church, considering a church? How can that brother figure out what kind of leadership culture there is?

Paul Tripp

Well, I would suggest don’t just spend time with the search committee. Spend time with leadership in that church. Wilson, get to know him, yeah, and ask the good questions that you need to ask. Don’t be afraid of asking those questions, because your pastoral future is going to be, uh, influenced by these, these people.

Matt Smethurst

And before we think a little more about practical elements of pastoral leadership. Paul, you already alluded to this when you mentioned Ephesians four, but let’s just first help our listeners think about the relationship between the gospel and leadership, because I imagine that talk of, say, gospel leadership could seem just like, well, we we affix gospel as an adjective to any word. So what, what is the relationship Paul between a healthy understanding of gospel grace and how well positioned someone is going to be to lead?

Paul Tripp

Well, you know, I think if I go back to Ephesians four. It seems that Paul is saying that the gospel is not just an entrance into relationship with God and my ticket to eternity, but it’s meant to be a lens that I look at everything in life from. It’s meant to be an identity that I live out every day. It’s meant to be something that’s formative of my lifestyle, and that’s why you have the second part of Ephesians, where the gospel is applied to every dimension of normal human life. And so leadership first in the church is not about you. Management strategy. It’s about, does this person who’s going to lead us in Gospel Mission actually, does he have the commitment to live out that gospel in his own life? That becomes very specific, do I treat the people on staff with gentleness and love and humility and thankfulness. I have a team of about 18 people who surround me help me do what I what I do. I think my job is to live out the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those people in the way that I respond to them, the way they treat to them, in my gratitude from them, my willingness to say they’re smarter than I am. I don’t need to be in control of everything. Those are all gospel things I love. What it says in Colossians, 312, 17, about the nature of our relationships, but the metaphor is to put on Christ. You know, it’s a clothing metaphor. Clothe yourself in the in the attitude, in the spirit, in the character of Jesus, as you move out then and respond to one another. That’s the kind of leader I want mean it. It is shocking to me that we have so many stories of arrogant, bully, controlling leaders, as if that’s the definition of leadership rather than Christ likeness that lays down your life on behalf of others. That doesn’t mean you don’t have initiatives. That doesn’t mean you you you don’t ask people to do things, but there’s a character that surrounds that that makes that beautiful and gorgeous and deepens relationships and deepens ministry effectiveness. I want to say one other thing. I think it’s my job as a ministry leader to be a good steward of the gifts of the people that are working with me. It’s not their it’s not just that they’re slaves to my gifts, but they’re God gifted people. I want to see those gifts flourish. I want to push them forward so that their gifts flourish as well. So I’m looking for a leader whose heart is formed by the gospel, and because of that, it it shapes the way it responds to all the joys and opportunities and responsibilities and difficulties that you will always encounter in local church ministry.

Matt Smethurst

Yeah, and Paul, you’re referencing there the the gift of being aware of one’s limits and therefore wanting to push forward the gifts of others and surround yourself with people who are strong in areas where you’re weak. I’ve heard you talk a lot about this. How can a pastor resist the pull to kind of feel like he has to be all things to all people, and rather begin to view his limitations as a divine gift from heaven. How can a pastor grow in that it’s

Paul Tripp

not always godly to say yes in ministry. Sometimes I should say no. Sometimes I should say, this needs to be done. This is vital for our church, but I don’t have the gifts and understanding and training to do that thing. Perhaps it’s it’s time. I think this is a big one. Matt, by God’s plan, I’ll never get 30 hours in a day, I’ll never get 10 days in a week. I’ll never get 400 days in a year. And so if, because I don’t have anything out there, if I keep accepting and keep saying yes, it’s got to then bleed into other essential areas of my life. That’s why ministry wives feel like they’ve been abandoned, or pastors become absentee fathers, because they keep saying yes, because I think it’s godly, they say yes, but they’re working beyond their God assigned limits, and I’d have to feel bad about those limits. My sovereign savior is an act of wisdom and love has set those limits for me. Those limits are a good thing, and they don’t diminish my value, and they don’t interrupt the work of His kingdom, because they’re his choice. So you have to, you’ll have to say all the time in ministry, is this something I should be saying yes to given the limits of wisdom, spiritual maturity, training, giftedness and time that God has set for me. And when you do that, then you rise. Lies in thankfulness and gratitude and esteem for the people that God has placed around you that aren’t limited in places where you are and you’re not threatened by them, thinking that you have to be the person that does it all.

Ligon Duncan

Let me mention a couple of other temptations in that area, and maybe I’m bearing my own sinful heart here. But in addition to there certainly will be guys that will be tempted not to say no because they think the godly thing is to say yes. I know, I know those guys that that have that sort of hanging over their head all the time, but I think there some sometimes guys are tempted to say yes because they’re fearful that if they don’t say yes, that there will be people that think that they are shirking their duty, or they’re not doing what they ought to do. And so that is where you do. You as a pastor, you’ve got to if the leadership culture isn’t there, you’ve got to start building up the leadership culture around you, and even processing those sorts of things. I always had a group of three elders around me from the very beginning, at first pres, where we process the that we went over schedule, that I didn’t say yes to anything, that they didn’t approve, and that, let me tell you, I’m a guy, that my tendency is to say yes, and so they helped me say no when I didn’t have the power within me to say no, I didn’t do a good job of limiting my bandwidth, but they did help me do a lot better job than I would have if they had not been there having that conversation. And they knew that I wasn’t lazy, they knew that I wanted to work hard, but they also knew I could not do everything, and so they helped me say no, and sometimes it was my fear, oh no, if I don’t do this, I’ll be criticized. If I don’t do this, somebody will think I’m not doing a good job. The other thing I think guys have to watch out for in saying yes, and this is especially things yes outside of their local congregation, is sometimes you are looking for validation from your ministry outside, because you’re not feeling it inside, and you just want to go someplace where you feel appreciated, and so you end up saying yes to things that stretch you beyond a proper limitation, because you’re trying to get some sort of validation for your ministry,

Matt Smethurst

and not just outside speaking invitations, but just living on social media, for example, trying to pastor, Pastor the world for whom you will not give an account, rather than pastor your actual flock for whom you will because that’s harder. I want

Paul Tripp

to respond to something that Lincoln said. I know I need people in my life who rescue me from me, who know me well enough know my limits, well enough to say, you know, I know you really want to do this, but you should not do this, and here’s why, and people that you have given permission to speak into you that way, because I love the gospel. I love the church. There’s never been an opportunity that isn’t interesting to me, and that’s a danger, because I have limits and this age of my life, because I what I’ve been through, health wise, I have physical limits that I have to pay attention to. Those are God’s sovereign plan for me. And so you need people in your life who are part of that group, like Lee was talking about, who can say, Yeah, this is a great thing. It’s a wonderful opportunity, but, but it’s not one that you should be doing right now. Yeah, yeah.

Matt Smethurst

And in Genesis three, Satan slithers in, and what is he tempting Adam and Eve to crave? He wants them to crave being like God. And I think he slithers in to our own hearts and minds and does the same thing. He wants us to convince ourselves that we can at least live as if we’re omnipotent or omnipresent or Omni competent, when in fact, we’re not. And speaking of the devil, Paul, what is the what is the role of spiritual warfare in this whole conversation? I’ve pointed out on this podcast before that Satan makes two cameo appearances in the qualifications for elders in First Timothy three. That’s not accidental. That tells us that he loves to stalk and destroy shepherds. And so how should pastors think about the reality of the satanic powers when they go about the work of ministry?

Paul Tripp

Well, I one of my favorite books in the New Testament is

Matt Smethurst

First Peter. Uh, I’m preaching through that now, one of the one of

Paul Tripp

the reasons, is because it was written by Peter. It’s it, yeah, fact that that is in the New Testament is an argue, argue, argument for the transforming power of God’s grace. So I love that. But first Peter ends with chapter five. Five which is written to the leadership of Christ’s Church, and in the middle of that discussion is a warning about Satan. It’s the passage that’s so well known about roaring lion, of seeking who made a devour and the importance of resisting, resisting him. Now, why is that the way Peter ends? Because he wants the leaders, the elders of Christ Church, who will be reading what he wrote, to understand it’s not just about staff, it’s not just about management. It’s not just about planning the worship service on Sunday morning. But this is spiritual warfare, and that there is an enemy who is out to take down the leaders of Christ’s church. It’s his strategy to bring shame to the cause of the Gospel by shameful behavior on the part of the leaders of Christ Church, and so we have to be aware that what we’re doing, by the very nature of ministry, is engaging ourselves in spiritual warfare, and that’s why Peter can’t resist bringing that into his final instructions to elders, be watchful

Matt Smethurst

listeners. If you didn’t listen to one of our earlier episodes at the beginning of 2025 called the soul of a pastor, we would commend that conversation to you, because Satan would love nothing more than for us to be fixated on all kinds of good things, vision, strategy, management, outreach, ideas, growth strategies, etc, but neglect to tend to our souls in the process, the

Paul Tripp

way that I think about This is the enemy of our souls. He’ll give us your confessional theology. He’ll give you your biblical literacy. He’ll give you your Sunday morning service, if he can control your heart. All of those things as important as they are, do not necessarily mean that I am sheltered from the seductive, deceptive, evil attacks of the enemy. And here’s what every pastor needs to know, as long as sin still lives inside of me, and it does because it’s being progressively eradicated by sanctifying grace, I have areas of susceptibility that I have to be aware of. I want people around me who are aware of my areas of susceptibility, whether that’s pride or anger or lust or whatever it is. So I have soldiers alongside of me who are battling for my heart. It’s naive to think that because I’m seasoned in ministry and I have strong gifts that I’m not yet susceptible to the attack of the enemy I am because sin makes me susceptible. Listen, it’s only the sin inside of me that ever hooks me to the evil outside of me. We’re not monastics. We don’t think we can, you know, build walls around us and we’re going to be safe and so humbly confessing that I’m yet susceptible and surrounding myself with people who I’ve confessed areas of weakness to who can fight with me is just a beautiful thing and an essential thing. So

Matt Smethurst

on that Paul, what’s the role of that leadership community, say the elders of a church, in really guarding the soul of the pastor and, frankly, loving him enough to do so, which is going to mean loving him more than what he brings to the church, loving him more than his gifts more than his ministry. What does that look like in a leadership community?

Paul Tripp

Well, I think it’s, I think you’ve, you’ve said it, but I’ll re say it. Loving your pastor is not just loving a function. It’s loving a person. It’s loving a human being. May the image of God. It’s loving someone for whom Christ shed his blood. It’s loving someone who himself is in the midst of his own sanctification. That means knowing this man, drawing drawing him out. It means believing the Gospel. Look, if, if there’s nothing that could ever be known. Or exposed about me that hasn’t already been covered by the substitutionary work of Jesus, then we should be able to be the most candid community on earth. Now, obviously that has limits, but within that community of leadership, I should be able to say Luella and I right now are having a hard time in our marriage, and I’ve been responding with lots of anger. I’m exhausted and discouraged, guys, I need help. I should not be afraid of making that confession. That confession is not disqualifying. It just means I need help, and so that’s what I’m talking about. Talk about having that kind of community where those kinds of things can be confessed. Maybe it’s I bumped across something on the internet yesterday that I lingered at that I probably should not have looked at and being able to make those confessions, because we have such a strong belief in the present ministry of Christ on our behalf and and look, maybe pastors listen say I could never do that. I understand that I I did a pre conference for John Piper, and was basically on dangerous calling, and I had a line of guys afterwards who wanted to talk to me, and I heard multiple times if I went home and I made any kind of confession I’d be done, I don’t have that kind of community around me, and that gets us back to the need of cultural Change in in leadership. Listen, a seminary degree does not mean you’re a grace graduate. It just doesn’t. And we have to be honest about not only the normal temptations of life that every pastor will will face because he, too is in the middle of sanctification, living in this fallen world, but also the unique temptations of pastoral ministry that he’s going to have to deal with.

Matt Smethurst

And just to clarify, Paul, you’re you’re not saying there aren’t things that if one confesses them, he would and should be done. You’re right. There are disqualifying sins. You’re saying, though, that if a pastor doesn’t invite this kind of input into his life, where he’s enabling those around him to see him as a fellow struggler and a fellow sinner saved by grace and being sanctified by grace, then it’s not going to happen this kind of healthy candor, healthy transparency, is not just going to suddenly arise in a vacuum. It’s going to have to be something that the pastor teaches toward, leads toward, shepherds toward and invites in in response, were you going to say something? No. I

Ligon Duncan

mean just to Amen, What? What? What Paul just said. And again, that has to be cultivated with my pastors Advisory Committee. Those guys, they were there with me in the fight, and they they knew what was going on at home. They knew what was going on in my marriage. They knew what was going on with the kids. I could get down into the weeds with them. And you, there’s got to be someplace where you can do that, or else you get hollowed out and you never address it, you know. And that’s, you know, Tim Keller talks about that, you know, when you see a public fall in the ministry, you can, you can best believe that somebody’s insides got hollowed out long before the public fall came. I

Paul Tripp

want to, I’m going to speak to something that you, you mentioned, Matt, I think this kind of gospel community can make a huge difference in those situations where there is disqualifying sin. Imagine I’ve committed disqualifying sin, but I know I’m surrounded by men who love me and who care for my soul. And I know I’m done, but I know they will care for me through this process versus you. Don’t have that culture at all. I’m scared to death to admit this. I hide, resist, deny. I put the church through a couple years of horror in the process. So even when you’re dealing with the unthinkable, to have established that kind of culture is so much better for the church when they’re going through the dark days of. Of losing their pasture to disqualifying sin, the whole process will be much easier than when that’s not in place. I’m

Matt Smethurst

reminded of like something you said, reminded me of JC ryle’s comment that men fall in private long before they fall in public. And it’s an act of love for us to bring people in when those sins are private, those struggles are private. Paul, I want to ask you, you’ve talked before about two kind of occupational hazards in the life of a pastor, dangerous adulation and harsh criticism. Talk about each of those two things and how pastors can be better prepared to respond to praise, but also to deal with criticism, especially if it feels misguided.

Paul Tripp

Well, you know, I I said many times to the young guys I minister our mentor that success is more dangerous in ministry than failure, because success can can change the way you think about yourself, whether that’s the success of public approval or ministry initiatives being successful, or The size of church growing, I begin to think that I’m something and I begin to take credit for what only God, in His sovereign grace, could do and produce that pride of accomplishment is is deadly in ministry, because if you think what has happened is a result of your independent ability, you quit seeking God’s help. Quit seeking the help of others. This whole culture that we’ve talked about you you step away from, or you’re resistant to. I’ve heard that I I once had someone of a large church who had been counseled by somebody of a small church say, What could a small church pastor ever say to me that would be helpful? Look what we’ve done here. So I have to be careful where I give credit in ministry. I just really believe that I don’t control when the winds of the Spirit will blow, thankfully. And so that sense of I am but a tool in God’s toolbox. And he picks me up in his powerful, redeeming hands, and he does things through me, but I am just a tool in his hands, and apart from the power of His grace and the power of his Spirit, empowering my words, whether spoken or written, it would all be for naught, and so I have to be very careful that I don’t get defined by my applause. Let

Matt Smethurst

me just interject there and say one of my favorite books of yours is instruments in the Redeemers hands. It’s an older, older book. But any pastors listening who haven’t read instruments in the Redeemers hands, that’s a that’s a remarkable book for helping your church members think about what it looks like for them to do spiritual good to one another, how to have a culture of counseling in your church, where you’re speaking truth and in love into one another’s lives. So thank you for that book, Paul, thank you the other the other side of the coin, Paul is, is the harsh criticism? Criticism?

Unknown Speaker

Yeah. Well, I have, I have a

Paul Tripp

variety of ways thinking about this. If I could start by telling you a story, I I got a letter in the days when letters were still being written, 12 pages from a woman in our church of criticism of my ministry. It was harsh in many places unloving. I immediately called my brother Ted, who had preceded me in ministry, and I wanted him to tell me what a wonderful person and pastor I was, and that I should take the letter out back and ceremoniously burn it. And he said, Do you believe that God is sovereign over everything in your life? I said, Yeah, I do. You know I do. He said, Well, there’s a reason for that letter. And he said, what I want you to do is I want you over the next couple weeks. Weeks to read it over and over again, so you can get beyond the emotion and ask yourself, is there anything here that God wants me to see that was hard to do. I cried my way through that letter the first couple of times I was so hurt, but over those two weeks, there were three things that God brought to the surface that I absolutely needed to hear that ended up being transforming for me in ministry. God doesn’t promise that the instrument will always be one that we are ready to hear and and so I didn’t have to endorse everything that woman said, but in that there were things that were really important for me, that changed me, and I actually ended up seeking counsel for some of those things that we’re we’re transformative. Yeah. So this balance between being overly defensive and and being too open to every criticism comes your way, there’s a middle ground that I think you can achieve that can really be helpful for your growth in ministry.

Ligon Duncan

Yeah, that’s a good word. Paul and I’ve had the same experience I’ve shared with Matt before, that the man who actually put my name into the pulpit committee at first pres, who was a beloved senior father in the faith, actually wrote me a two or three page criticism after I was about two or three years into the ministry at the church. It was deeply wounding. I mean, it just I was devastated by it. But over the years, as I’ve gone back to the letter, I’ve realized, Wow, he really put his finger on a lot of things. It took me a long time to learn, but he, he put his he and he, I don’t think he meant to be destructive in his criticism. I think he was, he was given some tough love. I do know a lot of pastors that are just starved for some affirmation that their ministry is landing in people’s lives. Knowing how to handle criticism is really important for anybody that’s going to have any duration of ministry in a local church. And I think it’s important for people to recognize the greatest ministers who have ever lived in the history of Christianity have had critics in their local congregations. The most famous American theologian in history was fired because he had a significant plurality of his congregation that was mad at him about how he had handled a pastoral problem. Jonathan Edwards got fired from his church because there were people that felt like he had mishandled a pastoral issue with the young people in his church, and so all of us are going to get criticism. So knowing how to handle that is a part of leadership. I

Paul Tripp

would say also that being honest with yourself if you’re not handling it. I I was in a ministry situation where there was a elder who hated my preaching, and he was very vocal about not liking my preaching, and I was just not honest with myself about the impact that that was having on me. And I found myself when I was preparing to preach, thinking, this point will get him. He will come to me after this sermon and he will say, I’ve been wrong. You are a glorious preacher. Well, you don’t need me to tell you, tell you that that’s idolatrous preaching and and it was, it was in one of those moments where I thought, What am I doing? I had not just been, I had not been honest to myself about the impact of this man that ended up, I ended up going to a fellow pastor just confess what was going on inside of me. And then I met with this man, and it ended. But that was a period of months that this was going on, and I was not honest with myself about the impact that this criticism was having on me and my preaching. I’d stand up to preaching, and everybody else had a normal sized head, except this guy, you know, yeah, he was all too apparent, and it was my problem. I just wasn’t being honest about the impact of this criticism.

Ligon Duncan

Yeah, I think we, a lot of times, we’ve got to have a little interior conversation with ourselves about folks like that in the congregation. And you know, on the one hand, Lord help me, love so and so. Help me not help me not be caught up in in this bitterness because of the way that I’ve been treated or the way that we’re relating, and then, Lord, help me not defend myself in my preaching, but try and edify the older I’ve gotten, the more I have to talk to myself, Paul about attitudes like that that I may have. I don’t think you can be a good leader and not really want to serve everybody in your congregation, and there are always going to be some people that are more challenging than others in that area. And so I do find myself having conversations trying to follow Lloyd Jones admonition not to listen to myself, but to talk to myself and even preach to myself sometimes, because I do think those those can get in your head, and you can’t get them out when you’re preparing and when you’re preaching, and that’s going to limit your joy and your effectiveness and everything. I think that’s a real thing that all of us need to reckon with.

Matt Smethurst

Amen, don’t preach to your critics. Don’t preach to your fans. And in fact, I would say that often those who praise you most effusively are those who can become your harshest critics. So don’t read too much into praise or criticism. Take it seriously. Consider it but don’t live in either. I think Spurgeon once said, If any man thinks ill of you, do not be angry with him for you or worse than he thinks you to be. And there, there are also people that think we’re better than than we actually are. That’s why I wanted to ask the question earlier, Paul, because I think these two sides of the same coin, the dangerous adulation and the harsh criticism are actually not as unrelated as they can appear. They both are things that our hearts can feed on and our minds can become occupied with, which can cause and can end up dictating our ministry, the way we pastor, the way we lead, the way we preach. Paul as we are starting to wrap up this episode, I want to read a quote from lead you write. It is love for Jesus that has the power to crush leader pride. It is love for Jesus that ignites and protects our love for one another. It is love for Jesus that turns ministry achievement from a cause for self glory into a reason to worship. It is love for Jesus that protects a leader from both fear of man and fear of failure. What would you say to pastors listening whose love for Christ has just kind of, frankly, grown cold? They want to have that love for Jesus that is the fountainhead of all good things in ministry, but that Fountain has begun to dry up. What would you say to that struggling brother?

Paul Tripp

Well, ministry is always formed by some kind of love, because that’s who we are as human beings. We’re, it’s, it’s either formed by love for our savior or by the love of something else. It could be that love of adulation, love of success, love of power, love of control, love of parading the degree of my theological knowledge or my biblical literacy. It’s always formed by some kind of love and and so I would wonder if that love for Jesus hasn’t just waned, but it’s been replaced by something else. Because if it’s something else, look ministry is a miserable place to look for success. It’s just those things will are exhausting and discouraging and make you want to just quit. I often think that what we call burnout is disordered love, because I’m not getting what I’m actually hungry for in ministry, it makes it hard to continue to do it. I gave the example of preaching because I was so focused on this guy, it made preaching hard for me. It had become burdensome for me. And so I want to, I want to ask the question, is there a way that love for Jesus has been replaced by love for something else, and the and the lack of that has become discouraging and exhausting and disheartening, so much so that you want to quit

Matt Smethurst

looking to ministry for what ministry was never designed to give you. Yeah, and I think that

Paul Tripp

shift is. Is, is much more subtle, and I think, much more prevalent than we we would like to think it, think it is. There are an awful lot of motivations that quest for the heart of a pastor that goes back to the spiritual warfare thing. So am I willing to ask myself the question, is there something else that I’ve been after that, is there a buzz that I’ve been looking for that I thought would satisfy my heart that I’m not getting, or is it enough for me, that Jesus loves me. Is it enough for me, that he is in me and for me and with me? Is enough for me that he’s given me gifts? Is it enough for me that I get to get up, whether it’s three people or 3000 people, and speak the truth of the gospel. Is it enough for me, that that gospel protects my heart even as I’m speaking it to somebody else? Is this enough for me? And I think there are many moments in ministry where I would have had to say to myself, No, it’s not enough. I want more. And so I think that kind of self examination, and I want to say sometimes self examination is a community project. You need to get other people in who know you, to help you examine yourself. Maybe, maybe the fact that I’m not that love is not enough for me, is depicted by a weak, wimpy, maybe non existent devotional life, where my contact with the Word of God is always preparing for something and I’m not nurturing my own soul. I’m not being pastored by my savior every morning. So there’s a lot of places to go to act, to ask the question, Is my heart really being nurtured by and motivated by love for Jesus, and is his love for me enough? That’s

Ligon Duncan

a good word. And I if I could add, I think a personal challenge I’ve seen is sometimes when my motives are as pure as I can possibly make them, I can still find myself mixing a desire for particular outcomes of my faithful exalting of Christ, and one of my little sayings to my students is, you don’t get to decide how the Lord is going to use your faithfulness. And sometimes we have a we’ve got a plan in our mind for how the Lord is going to use our faithfulness. And when it doesn’t come about the way we have planned it, it’s deeply discouraging to us, and we don’t realize we’ve mixed in to our desires, a desire for faithfulness to Jesus, plus this particular outcome, even if the outcome is a good and godly outcome, like lots of people coming to faith In Christ, or the church growing, or some of the things that Matt mentioned before, and I that’s a matter of the heart too, as you know, as as pure as you can be in your desires, we’re never we’re never immune from mixing in other things, other than trust in the Lord, complete loyalty to him, finding Him as our treasure, where there are all sorts of ways ministers can sneak other things into that that make us unhappy.

Paul Tripp

Yeah, and I think that one of the spiritual dangers of ministry planning, what you have to do and you will do is that my allegiance shifts to the plan, yeah, and so I become very committed, loyal to the Plan, and I’m not writing my own ministry story. There’s an author who is writing the story, and he may do with that plan something that’s way, way different than what I wanted that plan to be. And you have to be careful that there’s not an allegiance shift in your heart once you’ve launched a plan. That’s good.

Matt Smethurst

There’s all kinds of good things, like, as you were saying, that God has not promised us, he’s not promised us healthy bodies. He’s not promised us successful growing ministries. It’s okay to. Desire things God has not promised, but it’s not okay to demand them. And here’s the telltale sign, I think, that we’ve started to demand them. It’s how we respond when we don’t get it. So very few of us as pastors would say, Oh yeah, I demand things God hasn’t promised, but when your church is shrinking, when people are criticizing you, when things are not going well in your life or ministry, is that eroding your joy? Is that robbing you of the peace that is found in Christ? If so, then maybe there’s a heart demand that your mouth isn’t speaking, but your heart is is clutching there. Man, there’s so much more we could talk about in this in this area of pastoral leadership, Paul, I’d love to close just by having you pray for pastors, listening in as they think about trying to be more faithful and effective leaders.

Paul Tripp

Father, we are so thankful that you have gifted us with your church. Where would we be without the instruction, the worship, the sacraments, the fellowship of your church, and we are so very thankful for the 1000s and 1000s of men who have given themselves to leadership in your church. You’ve called as elders and pastors. That’s a that’s a wonderful, wonderful calling. What we know it’s not always easy. There are moments when ministry is hard. There are moments of where spiritual warfare is raging, there are times of criticism, there are times of dangerous adulation and success. And so we would pray for the hearts of pastors that you would be their guide, that you would be the protector, that that convicting and empowering ministry of the Holy Spirit would thrive, and we pray that you would surround pastors with good and godly gospel community where help for their souls is available. Lord, we pray for this podcast that it would be helpful and encouraging that Matt and Lee could look back in weeks and months and say, in these moments, God was with us, and he did a very good thing. Thank you that you hear us, thank you that you love us. We would just pray that your love would be enough for us, that it would shape us in our private lives, in our families, in our ministry and in our relationships, and the way that we make decisions and what we desire and how we think we pray this in the name of Jesus, our Savior, who is our rock and our fortress, our son, our shepherd, our shield, who is life and health and peace to us in His name. Amen, amen.

Matt Smethurst

Amen. Paul, thanks so much for being with us. Thank you for writing dangerous calling and lead, and may God bless you as you continue to work on Restore Thank you for listening to this episode of the everyday pastor. We hope it’s been an encouragement to you, just as it has been to me. Please take a moment to leave a review. Share it with a friend so that we can help other pastors find fresh joy in the work of ministry.