Church Leader’s Top 5 Weaknesses

Posted on Sunday, December 30th, 2007 at 7:51 pm

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Church Leader’s Top 5 Weaknesses

Being a preacher at Coral Ridge and following Dr. Kennedy is a difficult position.  I feel that I am never good enough, prepared enough, organized enough, or even spiritual enough.  I stumbled across a recent list of the top five problems that most pastor’s feel in their work.  One thing that helps me is the realization that I am not a senior pastor, but simply a cricket chirping while the Swanlike voice of Dr. D. James Kennedy remains silent.  I am a fill in, and like most fill ins just do the best that I can under difficult circumstances.  Every Sunday I walk out of the service thinking that no-one could have understood what I was trying to say.  To my surprise, God in his graciousness uses even the voice of Baalam’s donkey,so perhaps I still have a chance.

The top five pastoral problems were these.  I hate to say it but I find some of myself in each one of these problem areas.  I appreciate your prayers and kind notes more than you all could ever know.  I envy the new pastor because of the wonderful love that he will feel from such a wonderful congregation.  I would appreciate any comments that you might have about these problems and any suggestions that might help me be more effective.  Info Somewhat to their surprise, Thom Rainer and his research team found effective church leaders not only recognize and admit their mistakes, but they were happy to share those weaknesses. The top five weaknesses revealed are:

1. Pastoral Ministry - 3 out of 4 admit their number one leadership weakness is providing personal pastoral ministry. Pastoral ministry is defined as counseling, doing hospital visitation and performing weddings and funerals, to name a few of the responsibilities.
2. Lack of Patience - Another top weakness among effective church leaders is that they are task driven. More than 7 out of 10 indicate they are impatient to see objectives accomplished. Contributing to this dilemma is the fact that most American churches are notoriously resistant to change.
3. Dealing with Staff - 7 out of 10 considered their staff leadership skills to be weak.
4. Dealing with Criticism - Nearly 7 out of 10 effective church leaders struggle with handling or avoiding criticism.
5. Always Task-Driven - The dominant leadership style noted was “task-oriented.” Task-driven or oriented is defined as “high interest in production and getting things “done.” When a leader is always task-driven, sometimes to the exclusion of relational issues, there is a tendency to fail to take people’s feelings into consideration. It’s good to be task-driven, but it’s not good to be so driven that you forget about people.

Adapted from Lessons on Integrity:A Tribute to James Draper by Tom Rainer, Christian Post 8/13/07

Thanks for the suggestions to follow.  I appreciate them greatly.

Onward . . .

DrSamLam 12/30/07