Logos Staff
A seminary professor once relayed the story of an idealistic church member who complained that pastors should get “real world experience” before beginning pastoral ministry. The professor listened at first, but soon grew impatient with the complaints about pastors not understanding the “real world.”
“Let me ask you something about the ‘real world,’” the professor interrupted. “Have you ever counseled a couple as their marriage fell apart? Or sat silently with a grieving mother whose son just took his own life? Have you ever prayed with someone in the grip of addiction, conducted a funeral service, or felt the tremendous weight that comes with conveying God’s Word to his people? Pastors see more ‘reality’ in a single week than you or I could bear in three lifetimes!”
The professor’s remarks may have been terse, but it’s hard to deny their truth. Pastors have a high calling, a hard job, and enormous responsibility. They need all the help, support, and appreciation they can get.
Here we’ve pulled together resources for pastors seeking to grow in their calling. Pastoral ministry is tough work in the real world; these resources will help you faithfully fulfill that high calling.
Build healthy marriages in your church
Though statistics regarding the divorce rate in the church are often blown out of proportion, pastors and other ministry leaders still have a responsibility to encourage and strengthen marriages and families in their congregations. The Christian Focus Marriage and Family Collection (7 vols.) covers subjects such as divorce, establishing a loving home, balancing marriage with pastoral ministry, singleness and dating, and much more. It’s an excellent resource to strengthen your own ministry to families and couples, and a trove of books to recommend to those you minister to every day.
Refocus on Jesus
The entirety of Scripture is one grand narrative with Jesus at the center; and yet, when you’re preaching through passages without an explicit mention of Christ, it can be challenging to find the connection to the gospel and the person of Jesus, even if you’re convinced it’s there! You need a good selection of commentaries that put Christ at the center and keep you from falling into the trap of moralism. Discovering Christ in All Scriptures (15 vols.) is an excellent resource for sermon prep that keeps your focus on the central figure of the Bible: Jesus. Covering books across both the Old and New Testaments, as well as an overview of the Bible and a book of devotionals, this collection will help you keep Christ at the center of your ministry.
Renew your commitment to ministry
Learning is a lifetime pursuit. Even if you’ve been in ministry for decades, taking time out to refocus on the essentials of pastoral ministry can be both refreshing and inspiring. The Mobile Ed course Pastoral Ministry in a Missional Church is a seminary-level course designed to help you examine the essentially missional identity of the local church, and determine how that mission should be played out in your own ministry context. This course isn’t simply an exploration of evangelism, it focuses on developing a true missional community, and includes practical discussion on how you as a pastor can empower others for ministry while attending to the spiritual needs of your flock.
Reinvigorate your sermon prep
The weekly sermon doesn’t begin at 11 a.m. on Sunday; it starts on Monday morning in the pastor’s study, with an open Bible, a praying heart, and the hard work of serious exegesis. The Evangelical Exegetical Commentary (44 vols.) is designed for just that kind of serious study. Featuring the work of trusted evangelical scholars, the EEC is the first commentary of it’s kind, a digital-first series built to function seamlessly within Logos Bible Software.
Build a strong theological foundation for ministry
A solid grasp of systematic theology is one of the best things that can happen to a pastor’s ministry. Seeing how the Bible’s teaching on issues such as the person of Christ, the Holy Spirit, or salvation fit together into a unified whole can provide a firm foundation for your ministry. Plus, systematic theology, when properly undertaken, ultimately leads to doxology—the praise and worship of God.
In Systematic Theology: Biblical and Historical, Robert Duncan Culver draws from the resources of reason, tradition, experience, and—most importantly—the Bible to construct a comprehensive systematic theology. He provides a logical structure of doctrine, demonstrating how the truths of God’s Word relate to one another and form a unified whole.
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Steve Auld
Chris Bruno
Christy Chermak