35 Lessons From 35 Years as a Pastor

Thirty-five years ago this month I began serving my first church as pastor. The Rock Prairie Baptist Church in College Station, Texas took a major risk on a senior Texas A&M student by issuing me a call to be their pastor. It was my happy privilege to serve them for nearly two years before being called to the Spring Valley Baptist Church in Dallas. I am currently in my twenty-eighth year of serving Grace Baptist Church in Cape Coral, Florida.

As I recently reflected on the last thirty-five years I wrote down some lessons learned and convictions I’ve come to or continued to hold. Here are thirty-five of them.

1. Long-term perspective helps you to endure and to think wisely about immediate problems.
2. The kingdom of God does not—and will not—skip a beat when I am sidelined.
3. The church is more important than I thought when I started.
4. Some of my words and actions to which I am most oblivious can be hurtful to people.
5. Pastoral ministry is indeed, as John Newton puts it, “a bitter full of sweet” and “a sorrow full of joy.”
6. Christians are the greatest people in the world.
7. Christians are capable of the most wicked actions in the world.  Continue at Tom Ascol