Hi! My name is Seth. I’ll tell you a little about my story, and why I’ve created Clergy Craftsman.
I grew up in a strong Christian home and have been a Christian most of my life. I earned a business degree in college and afterwards worked in the corporate world for 7 years. Then God made it clear he wanted me to become a pastor. I wasn’t thrilled.
Pastors, in my perspective, held a rather weird, public job heaped with impossibly high expectations. The pastors I knew personally were nice enough but always seemed tired and stressed out. Though I respected their office, I didn’t want an office of my own.
But God kept working on me. Finally, I decided to make a deal. I told God I would go into ministry, but on my own terms—I would skip seminary and plant a church. (Why do I need seminary when I already know everything, right?) Furthermore, I would plant with people I picked, in the city I chose, and build the kind of church I preferred to attend.
It turns out that God doesn’t appreciate us dictating the terms of our service to Him. The church plant never got off the ground and was, honestly, a painful experience. I came to the sobering realization that, when it came to leading a church, I had no idea what I was doing.
Following the church plant disaster, God opened doors for me to attend seminary. My family relocated to Texas so I could pursue a Master of Theology degree. Seminary was overall a wonderful experience. I learned a great deal about Bible and theology, my wife and I added 2 more kids to our family, and during my final semester I was blessed to be hired as an Associate Pastor at a mid-size church. (The position I still have today.) I thoroughly benefited from my formal education, but it was in full-time pastoral ministry where the real learning began.
One of the first things I noticed upon entering full-time ministry was that being a pastor is complicated. In fact, if I’m honest, the difficulty and complexity of pastoral ministry caught me off-guard. Being a pastor requires more than just exegeting Scripture and knowing something about theology. Though theology and Scripture exegesis are obviously essential, the skillset of the successful pastor is wider than that.
For example, the successful pastor needs a generous helping of emotional intelligence. He needs to be ever closing the gap between how he perceives himself and how others perceive him. This requires listening skills, self-awareness, and the ability to see things from another person’s perspective. Lots of other person’s perspectives, actually, because the church governing body alone (the elder board, in my case) represents a wide diversity of personalities and viewpoints. The pastor must also know how to lead; he must guide his areas of ministry carefully, decisively and humbly. Emotional intelligence, leadership—these are difficult skills to learn. Learning them takes time, which brings me to my next point.
The successful pastor will have outstanding time management skills. If you’re like me, time often feels unmanageable. Nary a week goes by that I don’t feel a little bit behind, and, from talking to my pastor friends, I know many other ministers feel the same. This is a dangerous situation because if we can’t manage our time, then things more important than ministry get squeezed. Things like being present and engaged with our families. Things like resting, exercising, and having fun so we actually enjoy our lives. Most devastating, poor time management will impact your relationship with God. Have you ever gotten so busy you ran out of time to pray, or read, or sit still and enjoy God’s presence? I have. And it led me to a dark place spiritually. It all started because I didn’t know how to manage my time. So this time management stuff matters.
Finally, the successful pastor will have a deeply personal, ever-growing, heartfelt relationship with God. Perhaps better said, an ever-growing dependence on God. Many a pastor has ministered out of his own abilities rather than allowing the Holy Spirit to work through him. This never ends well. The fallacy is that being a pastor means you automatically have a great relationship with God. Anyone who works in ministry and is paying attention will know that’s not true. There is no magical spiritual pill that one takes upon entering ministry. Just like any other member of the body of Christ, the pastor needs daily, personal, genuine connection with his Heavenly Father.
What does all this have to do with the website you’re on? In other words, why did I start Clergy Craftsman? No, it’s not because I think I’ve mastered the pastorate and now I want to share my wisdom. Far from it. I’m learning right alongside my fellow clergymen. I’ve started this website because I learn best when I share what I’m learning with others. Through your feedback, I can also learn from you. The end result of this mutual learning should be pastors better equipped to serve and lead God’s church. In my humble opinion, that is an outcome worth pursuing.
Clergy Craftsman will start off as a simple blog. We’ll see where it goes from there.
On last thing regarding the website’s name: why “craftsman”? I took the idea of craftsman from Cal Newport’s book, So Good They Can’t Ignore You. (A book I highly recommend reading.) Newport defines the craftsman mindset as, “An approach to your working life in which you focus on the value of what you are offering to the world.” And, as Newport explains throughout the book, offering the world something valuable requires you to hone your professional skills—in whatever profession you might work—purposefully, carefully and continually.
I like that. I like thinking in terms of value I can offer the world rather than what the world can offer me. I like seeing myself as a craftsman, and therefore systematically honing my ministry skills in the same way a blacksmith or a farmer or a carpenter might strive to improve their skillset.
Now, don’t overthink it. I know there are differences between ministry and other fields of work. I know being a pastor is a calling and not a career. I know that, as pastors, we don’t put our faith in own abilities, but rather allow the Holy Spirit to work through us. I also know that God has called me to lead, shepherd and teach within his church, and since that is my calling, I’d like to do my best. My goal is simply to be a pastor in the deepest sense of the word, and to be a good one. If you have the same calling and desire, then join me on this journey.