Advice for Young Pastors

I am constantly impressed at the sage advice and wise insights that come from the heart and mind of Kevin DeYoung. Though relatively young, Kevin is wise far beyond his years, and his sermons, books and blog posts regularly feed my soul.

Yesterday and today, Kevin posted a great two-part series with his advice for theological students and young pastors. Among his suggestions are the following:

4. Establish your priorities at the church early and clearly. I suggest: preach, pray, and people.

13. Learn to think in 5 year, 1 year, 6 months, and 1 month increments. When you start out at a church you’ll feel three months behind everyone else; you need to be six months ahead.

20. God opposes the proud but gives grace to humble. Pray this into your soul before and after every sermon.

24. Don’t preach your issues from seminary. I can almost guarantee no one in your church doubts the Pauline authorship of Ephesians. It says “Paul” in their Bibles so they’re good to go.

28. Be comfortable in your own shoes. Preach through your own personality. Learn from, but don’t try to clone, your heroes.

33. Make time to make friends. In the long run neither you nor your church will regret the hours invested in personal relationships with other pastors, old friends from seminary, and kindred spirits in the congregation.

39. Love your wife. Spend time with your kids. Be very afraid if you no longer look forward to going home at the end of the day.

40. Be generous in giving credit to others and stingy in passing around the blame.

44. What your people need most from you is your own personal holiness. People want a pastor who has been with God.

45. Keep your passions in proportion. Not everything matters as much as everything else. Keep the gospel front and center.

If you are a pastor or seminary student, do yourself a favor and check out the complete lists. Read numbers 1-20 here and numbers 21-45 here.