Qualities Of Effective Pastor-Counselors
America has just inaugurated a new President and Canadians are about to begin the process of selecting a new Prime Minister. Many professional football teams that had disappointing seasons are now searching for new coaches. Many more college football teams just finished replacing coaching staffs. Local businesses regularly seek new leaders for management positions. Our own church installed a man as a new elder/pastor this month.
In all these situations, organizations are asking, “Who is fit to lead us?” and “What kind of qualities do we desire in our leaders?” Those are reasonable questions for governments, businesses, and sports teams and leagues. And they are also fitting questions for churches and biblical ministries.
In God’s grace, He has answered those questions by providing qualifications for church leaders and categories to evaluate the effectiveness of those leaders. Those characteristics are for all church leaders. In our own church we are thinking of the office of elder, though we recognize that there are various titles for spiritual leaders in churches. Those characteristics have significant impact on biblical counseling ministries in churches.
If you are a pastor, these are the kinds of qualities that you are seeking to cultivate in yourself and model for your counselors.¹ If you are a counselor, these are the qualities that direct you in your discipleship of your counselees. And if you are a church member these are the kinds of qualities that you can expect from your elders.
There are several New Testament passages that guide our thinking about the pastor’s role in caring for church members.² For the sake of simplicity and brevity, I want to consider a few summary principles from 1 Peter 5:1–3.³
The Pastor is a Shepherd
He not only is a shepherd, but that is his title. “Pastor” means “shepherd.” Shepherding is not just something he occasionally does; it is part of his identity. It is his nature.
This shepherding responsibility is for all elders.⁴ To be an elder is to be a shepherd. What does it mean to be a shepherd? The ranching picture of a shepherd helps us understand the spiritual role of shepherding:
A shepherd is an overseer who watches over all the aspects of the sheep’s life (John 10:1–18)
The shepherd protects the sheep (Numbers 27:17; Isaiah 31:4)
The shepherd leads the sheep (2 Samuel 5:2; Psalm 80:1)
The shepherd is the master of the sheep (1 Kings 22:17)
The shepherd provides for the sheep (Psalm 23:1; John 10:8–10)
The shepherd nurtures and feeds the sheep (Psalm 28:9; Isaiah 40:11; Jeremiah 3:15; John 21:15–17)
The shepherd is compassionate toward the sheep (Matthew 9:36)
The shepherd relates to the sheep; he is no stranger to them, but they are his (John 10:3–5)
To be a faithful shepherd, a man will be integrally involved in the lives of the people entrusted to him by the Lord, helping them with their various needs (1 Thessalonians 5:14; 2 Timothy 2:24–26). There will be times when the sheep will be injured, attacked, or ill. They need help and only the shepherd is equipped to minister to them. He stays up late into the night to care for their needs, getting “soiled” by the difficulties of their situations. And he does that because God has appointed him to that role; their care from him is God’s will for him (1 Peter 5:2), and they are “allotted” to him (1 Peter 5:3).
Shepherding is intense, extensive, and frequently exhausting work. And it is a privilege since the Lord has given the honored role of that particular individual to that shepherd. That leads to another quality of the shepherd.
The Pastor is a Volunteer
There are times when people have responsibilities because they have been “volun-told” to do the job. There are no other options except to do the task.
There is an aspect of shepherding that has the weight of “I have been told/called to do this job.” Shepherds have responsibilities and duties. But the true shepherd is one who delights in the responsibilities. He desires the role (1 Timothy 3:2). He carries out the responsibilities voluntarily (1 Peter 5:2). He wants to care for God’s people. He wants to serve them. While the care may be lengthy and difficult and full of troubles, he embraces the role because God has willed that role for him (1 Peter 5:2). Like Isaiah who willingly went when the Lord sent—even when promised that the people would reject and not respond in faith to his ministry (Isaiah 6:8–13)—these elders continue to voluntarily serve God’s people in every kind of hardship. They volunteer because of the next quality of the shepherd.
The Pastor is Sacrificial
One temptation for shepherds is to be enticed by the “profitability” of being a shepherd. The pastor might “serve” his people so that he can take from them for his own benefit. Such shepherds existed in ancient Israel (Isaiah 56:11; Jeremiah 12:10; 23:1–4; Ezekiel 34:1–6), they existed in the time of Christ (we might call that the Judas problem, John 12:6), they were present in the early church (3 John 9–10), and they exist today (you know too many examples).
An elder/pastor/shepherd does not serve the church so he can get from the church. He serves so he can give to the church.
It is appropriate to pay elders and pastors for their role (1 Timothy 5:17–18), but money should never be their motive. They can have money; money cannot have them. His heart desire isn’t financial prosperity. His motive is eager (1 Peter 5:2) sacrificial service. Like the apostle Paul who was willing to be used up like a temple offering (Philippians 2:17), the elder is willing to have his life expended in caring for others at cost to himself. The result of that sacrifice results in one final quality of the shepherd noted by Peter.
The Pastor is Exemplary
There are leadership roles and responsibilities for the elder. But he never claims an exalted position over his people. While he is a shepherd, he understands that he is not the Shepherd, and unlike the Great Shepherd (1 Peter 2:25; Hebrews 13:20), he is also a sheep in need of help. He never uses his position to manipulate, control, or coerce the sheep. He uses his position to serve the sheep.
And he is exemplary in his conduct. He is not perfect, but he lives the kind of life that others can readily follow (1 Corinthians 11:1; 1 Thessalonians 1:6). He is worth imitating. His personal life exemplifies Christ, even as Christ exemplified the Father. That reality led the puritan Richard Baxter to say to pastors, “Your greatest work lies within, purifying yourselves…”
In that sense, the shepherd begins his shepherding ministry by shepherding and guiding his own soul. A church can follow him because he has learned to follow Christ.
That is the kind of leader a church needs to care well for its people. The church will have people with the heartache that comes from being sinned against, the grief of untimely suffering and death, and the burden of enslaving sin. To whom will these people turn? They will turn to a shepherd who delights in his role as a shepherd, serves voluntarily and sacrificially, and is an example to follow in their troubles because he has learned to follow Christ is his own troubles and sorrows.
¹ David Powlison’s The Pastor as Counselor: The Call for Soul Care is a brief, but more comprehensive discussion of the role of the pastor in biblical counseling.
² Consider passages like John 10:1–18; 21:15–17; Acts 20:25–32; 1 Timothy 3:1–7; 2 Timothy 2:24–26; Titus 1:5–9.
³ A more complete discussion of this passage and its implication for churches and leaders was preached recently at Grace Bible Church.
⁴ While it is beyond the scope of this article to expand this idea, the NT and this passage are clear that the three terms used for elders are interchangeable. They refer to different aspects of the role, but they also refer to the same man; to be an elder (v. 1), is to shepherd (“pastor” v. 2) God’s people, and exercise oversight (v. 2b) of and in the church.