The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor: Proven Practices for Balancing the Demands of Leading Your Church

by Gary L. McIntosh

If most pastors were pressed to describe an average day of ministry, they'd have trouble doing it. In a single day, a pastor may fill many different roles in quick succession, from counselor to theologian to student to CEO to custodian (well, let's hope there's usually someone else available to perform that last role). Some roles come more naturally than others, but every pastor wants to perform each role to the best of their ability.In The 10 Key Roles of a Pastor, church consultant Gary L. McIntosh shows pastors how to - understand and juggle their many essential roles- prioritize their time and energy- manage their people's expectations of them- and empower others to take up the vital work of the church bodyPastors just starting out in ministry, as well as those who have been at it a while and find themselves overworked and overwhelmed, will value this practical resource. It is also an enlightening read for those in church leadership who would benefit from understanding the pressures their pastor faces on a daily basis.

Genres: Leadership

200 pages, Kindle Edition

Published June 8, 2021

Reviews

[Kelton Zacharias · Rating 2 out of 5]

Certainly had some helpful tidbits, but they weren’t worth reading the rest for.

[Daniel Mann · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is a lot to commend about this book from McIntosh. I love the way this book is formatted and structured, and he has a very readable style as a writer. In addition, this book has a lot of practical suggestions for pastors and is very helpful in defining and describing key roles and responsibilities that every pastor must tend to.

On the negative side, this book relies too much on science and statistics for church growth and pastoral effectiveness. The author does not give enough attention to the fact that church growth and pastoral effectiveness is not as simple as a math equation (i.e. a certain amount of hours spent on a certain role will lead to these results). Furthermore, the book seemed to be a bit unrealistic as to how many hours pastors could put into the suggested roles, and I found myself at times overwhelemed with feelings of inadequacy.

In short, I found this book helpful and even convicting. The author made many great points about the roles of a pastor that I have either not given sufficient time to or had not considered. However, I think he would have been even more helpful to us if he had pointed us more to our sufficiency in Christ and relied less on scientific data.

[Casey Holencik · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was all over the place in terms of usefulness for me personally and relatability. The principals provided are sound and i found if I got past the rest and took the big pints and principals then this would really help me. The problem is the author (or maybe editor) decided to write this as middle of the road as possible and so most of the details and suggestions were geared towards either large churches, suburban churches or church with multiple paid staff. That’s great for pastors in those churches, but has not been my pastoral experience.

Great principals, so/so relatability, still well worth the read and I learned a lot from it…

[James Chester · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a great read! As a new pastor trying to find my legs the book gave practical insight into growing, stagnate, and failing churches. I especially love the hats that a pastor would wear and the stories that support the different hats that the end of chapters would describe of a pastor who was not doing well wearing the hat.

Overall I would highly suggest this read to any new pastors and any pastor that is trying to renew their personal vision of the way to be an affective pastor. I have not been able to put my own self into the work yet but I have intention to do this as I grow as a pastor.

[Kenneth Garrett · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is written by a trusted, veteran pastor and Christian educator, and is the fruit of decades of learning, teaching, and observing the pastorate. To enumerate the many roles of a pastor, and organize such a study into a useful, relevant book is quite a task! Dr McIntosh accomplishes this well, describing the various roles of a pastor, and how a pastor might organize his energies, time, etc in such a way that those roles are effectively filled to serve the congregation. Recommended for all pastors!

[Michael Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

McIntosh gives some interesting insights and ideas concerning pastoral ministry (worth a read), but he leaves out the spiritual side of ministry. No "devotional time with Jesus" hat? Our walk with the Lord is the most important hat in our ministry. Many pastors struggle with making devotional time with our Lord the priority it should be because they allow themselves to get so busy. I agree that we must focus on our strengths and seek to delegate to others (when we can) those things that are not strengths for us. This is harder to do when serving in a smaller church.

[Tyler Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

What I found helpful about this book was the categories (hats) that pastors operate in. It helped me look back on my labors and place the things that naturally fill the time. McIntosh writes with many modern leadership research in mind, which brought fresh perspectives.

Some criticisms would be a regular conflation of size with health, the missing “ministry of prayer” hat, and a view of adapting to the modern world that feels much more pragmatic than I’d like.

[Russ · Rating 1 out of 5]

This book is an example why Christian publishing is a wasteland and evangelical ministry is not attracting our best and brightest. If you need this Talbotized Patrick Lencioni to help you, you are not ready for the ministry.

And what’s with the goofy forced metaphor of the hats?

[Brian Bradshaw · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bi-Vocational

Good book!! I wish I had this 25 or 30 years ago.

I would like to see more research from the bi-vocational aspect. My entire Pastoral ministry has been as a bi-vocational leader.

[David Voetberg]

I enjoyed listening through this book. It was engaging and held my interest well. There were things said throughout the book that I wouldn't find myself in agreement with, but it did offer helpful things to think through regarding pastoral ministry.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I found the hat metaphor irrelevant personally, the material in this book is helpful: good reminders and new ideas for pastoring. Read if you pastor a church.

[Paul Herriott · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would highly recommend this book to pastors old and new. It will keep ministry leaders from burnout or from over-specializing.

[Paul Abdallah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some helpful questions and tips in thinking about the role of pastor. But he is clearly working from a different philosophy of ministry!

[Abram Bagunu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Find my review here:
https://abrambagunu.substack.com/p/bo...