The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus, by Zack Eswine
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The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus, by Zack Eswine
Read Online and Download The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus, by Zack Eswine
Dear Pastor,
Desire burns within you. You’ve trained and dreamt of doing large things in famous ways as fast as you can for God's glory. But pastoral work keeps requiring your surrender to small, mostly overlooked things over long periods of time.
You stand at a crossroads. Jesus stands with you. You were never meant to know everything, fix everything, and be everywhere at once. That's his job, not yours.
So what now? Let the apprenticeship begin.
The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus, by Zack Eswine - Amazon Sales Rank: #35780 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-30
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.50" h x .70" w x 5.50" l, .93 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 272 pages
The Imperfect Pastor: Discovering Joy in Our Limitations through a Daily Apprenticeship with Jesus, by Zack Eswine Review
"The Imperfect Pastor might be the most helpful and profound book I've read in years. If you're in pastoral ministry, grab a copy."—Matt Chandler, Lead Pastor, The Village Church, Dallas, Texas; President, Acts 29 Church Planting Network; author, The Mingling of Souls
“It's hard to imagine a book packed with more grace and insight into the extraordinary life of the ordinary pastor. So I'll quit trying and just read Zack Eswine's The Imperfect Pastor again. No one today shows more insight into the perils and joys of everyday ministry in the local church—a refreshingly honest and beautifully written meditation.”—Mark Galli, Editor, Christianity Today
“I wish I’d read this book twenty-five years ago when I first began to consider pastoral ministry. The ground Zack covers is vital for novices and senior pastors alike. He steers us well clear of dangerous ambitions, absurd expectations, and corrosive work patterns. But he does so with wit, self-deprecation, and deeply felt realism. Eswine reignited in me a love for the Perfect Shepherd who has the extraordinary grace to include imperfect shepherds in his kingdom work. This should be on everyone’s must-read list!”—Mark Meynell, Associate Director (Europe), Langham Preaching; author, A Wilderness of Mirrors
“Zack Eswine has done it again. In The Imperfect Pastor, he extends the hand of brotherhood to every minister of the gospel. Too many weary soldiers guard the front lines; Eswine reminds us all that Christ is our guard and defender, and that strength in him is our strongest place.”—Lore Ferguson, writer; graphic designer; speaker
“This book needs to be read by every pastor, to rescue us and call us back to what matters. The expectation of large, famous, and fast ministry in a post-Christian culture can be a destructive burden. Zack's wisdom is a healing balm bringing needed grace to help us minister with patience and endurance.”—Peter Boyd, Pastor, Shore Presbyterian Church, Auckland, New Zealand
“This is simply the best book on pastoral ministry I have ever read. In an upside-down ministry world that idolizes stardom and size, Zack opens our eyes to the only things that really matter. Prayerfully read and reread this beautiful, poignant meditation and you will discover joy and true greatness in the midst of your extraordinary, ordinary life.”—Ken Shigematsu, Pastor, Tenth Church Vancouver, best-selling author, God in My Everything
“Zack Eswine pokes his prose into a very sensitive area we pastors and leaders hate to discuss: the amount of people who come to our churches, the size of the offering, and the number of social media followers we have can be the Nielson Ratings we draw our sense of identity and esteem from. As painful as this truth may seem, this is not a book filled with condemnation but rather winsome encouragement. I could feel Zack's arms around me as God used him to point the way forward—toward a path of healing and hope.”—Bryan Loritts, Pastor for Preaching and Mission, Trinity Grace Church, New York City; Founder and President, The Kainos Movement; Editor, Letters to a Birmingham Jail
“The Imperfect Pastor is a refreshing reminder of what ministry is all about: walking with Jesus, recognizing our own desires and limitations, and reflecting a listening presence, hopeful patience, and restorative purpose. Zack’s personal experiences related to the ups and downs of ministry, along with his contemplative approach to spirituality, will challenge and encourage anyone who seeks to minister in the name of Jesus.” —Wendy Der, Director of Mobilization in Mexico, Avance Internacional
“Here is wisdom reminiscent of the gifted preachers of another era, but expressed in the sound and tone of today. Here is pastoral theology written, preached, and lived out in the very real and checkered life of Zack himself. Here is humane and godly counsel. You should read this book!”—Leighton Ford, President, Leighton Ford Ministries
About the Author
Zack Eswine (PhD, Regent University) is lead pastor at Riverside Church in Webster Groves, Missouri, enjoys writing about life and ministry in Jesus, and blogs at preachingbarefoot.wordpress.com. He is the author of Preaching to a Post-Everything World, which won the PreachingToday.com Preaching Book Award in 2009.
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful. A Post-Apocalyptic Pastoral Theology By Ben Post-apocalyptic movies always begin the same way. The scene opens upon the heels of catastrophe—all of humanity’s best laid plans have quite literally exploded around us, and the few survivors are left to pull together what remains and eke out some semblance of meaning and purpose from the ashes.So call Zack Eswine’s latest book, The Imperfect Pastor, something like a post-apocalyptic pastoral theology. Having experienced desolation himself, both personal and pastoral, Eswine forges a way forward for pastors in the far from perfect world we live in. Simply put, he explores the calling we pursue (part 1), the temptations we face (part 2), reshaping our inner life (part 3), and reshaping the work we do (part 4).What is immediately striking about the book is its tone. There are many books in pastoral theology today promising seven steps to a better church, or the secret key to unlocking ministry leadership potential in order to grow your church tenfold. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are many other books that react against this sort of “Leadership Industrial Complex” (to quote Jared Wilson) with uneasiness, distrust, and even cynicism. Having seen such grand promises fall through, the second sort of book warns the reader against the church growth movement and its allurement. While they rightly (in my opinion) point out the errors of the first, few go so far as to chart a practical way forward.This is what is remarkable about Eswine’s work: his own personal disasters and disillusionment with chasing “professional” ministry seem to have chastened him and created in him a humble wisdom that is grateful for small things. What does pastoral ministry look like without speaking platforms, book deals, podcasts, and networks? What is a pastor to think when his church is not large, influential, strategic, or well-known? Consider these words:"We have trouble seeing how it is glorifying to God to eat food, learn to love, go to bed, and get up the next day for the same old work. The thought of living and ministering in one or two unknown and ordinary places for fifty years and then going home to be with the Lord feels like death. Of what account to God is an ordinary life in the grain fields?"As Eswine painted ever more clearly his picture of ministry, my heart kept saying, “Yes!” The cult of personality that the pastorate has become is neither good nor safe. Furthermore, it is hard to reconcile pastoral platform-building with, say, the attitude of John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30). Eswine speaks an encouraging word to the majority of pastors in the world laboring in small congregations in the middle of nowhere, helping them shepherd their flocks with practical advice about how to care for the sick and how to handle well-meaning but hurtful comparisons to the former pastor.If the book has any weaknesses, it is in its verbosity. Sometimes Eswine says in ten words what he could say in two. Notwithstanding, The Imperfect Pastor is a thought-provoking, incisive, and valuable meditation on what it means to be a pastor. I had something to gain by sitting at Eswine’s feet, and I trust that many others will, too.DISCLAIMER: I received a copy of this book from the publisher for the purpose of a fair, unbiased review.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful. Imperfect Vessels for a Perfect Jesus By Zach Barnhart The landscape of books on pastoral ministry is so broad that it’s tough to discern what you’re going to get when picking up another book on the subject. You can almost categorize most of these books into simple summary statements:“Care about your leadership more than your people.”“You need the right charisma and strategy to win people.”“God put you in this position because he wants you to succeed.”But what about when people write books that say “the key to pastoral ministry is realizing you can’t.”? Do pastors have a category, much less a bent towards these books? Probably not.But we need these books. So badly. The Imperfect Pastor is a message every single current pastor and future pastor needs to hear. Megachurch visionaries and community church shepherds alike will benefit greatly from what Eswine has written here. A gentle but firm reminder that we are, indeed, imperfect, but have been employed by and serve a perfect Jesus.There are two phrases near the beginning of this book that struck me and have stayed with me since finishing. Both are ideas not often found in books like these:Almost anything in life that truly matters will require you to do small, mostly insignificant tasks over a long period of time…the pastoral vocation, because it focuses on helping people what truly matters, is therefore no exception.Out desire for greatness in ministry isn’t the problem. Our problem rises from how the haste of doing large things, famously and as fas as we can, is reshaping our definition of what a great thing is…Desire greatness, dear pastor! But bend your definition of greatness to the one Jesus gives us.That hit me like a ton of bricks.As I dive into a life of ministry, where’s my heart? What are my motivations for preparing sermons or discipleship meetings or contributing ideas for church events? Am I desiring greatness in these things because I love seeing Jesus’s mission fulfilled, or my own? Am I basing what’s “successful” off of rigid, lifeless statistics and retweets, or off of watching how Jesus has cleaned up my messes? Mostly, am I okay with a life of ministry that’s unflashy, mundane, and mere foundation building, setting up the revival to happen in fifty years, when I’ll then be all but forgotten?The thing I appreciate most about The Imperfect Pastor is that Eswine has unclipped the rope barrier and ushered us into seeing his ministry, his life, his feelings, his thoughts in a sort of “I’m with you, brother” fashion. The entire book reads like he’s shepherding us along the way through these oftentimes convicting and difficult truths to admit, never failing to make sure our soul is cared for as he repeatedly points back to the Founder and Perfecter.In The Imperfect Pastor we find a wealth of wisdom in facing the four main subheadings the book is divided in — The callings we pursue, the temptations we face, reshaping our inner life, and reshaping the work we do. There’s no “8 Steps to Becoming a Better Communicator” jargon here. It’s time and time again, “the boundaries of your calling reveal God’s pastoral care for you.” This is a book for any and every pastor. Young, old, experienced, novice, extrovert, introvert, they all need these words. The last thing we need is a puffed chest, another to-do list, or a hopeless discouragement. Eswine has written the manifesto our brotherhood needs: “What I’m trying to say is that life and ministry are an apprenticeship in Jesus in which, by his grace, he recovers our humanity, and for his glory he enables others to do the same.”One of the best, most encouraging, and helpful books I’ve read this year. I hope to return to it as I grow in ministry and need these words over and over again.Stars: 5.0/5.0Note: I received a review copy of this book from Crossway in partnership with NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. One of the best pastoral theology books I've read By Darryl Dash When I first read Sensing Jesus by Zack Eswine, I liked it so much that I bought a paper copy to go with the Kindle version. It's a good thing, too, because my wife has claimed rights to the paperback and has marked it up. It's a book that I planned to read and re-read. It's a book I recommended that every pastor read.No more. I now recommend his new book The Imperfect Pastor, an updated and shortened version of Sensing Jesus. It addresses the same issue: our desire to do large things in famous ways as fast as we can. "When I started, I did not know that a pastoral vocation in Jesus would limit me, slow me down, and painfully undo the misguided mentoring of my life," Eswine writes. "Now, I know that my success and joy as a pastor depend on this. So does yours."The Imperfect Pastor feels like a chronology of my temptations as a pastor. Part one begins with our calling. Desire is good, but it can be twisted by evil, especially as we drink from the "stale waters of celebrity, consumerism, and immediate gratification." We desire to do great things for God, but our definition of greatness is often different than God's. "Almost anything in life that truly matters will require you to do small, mostly overlooked things , over a long period of time with him."Eswine reminds us that pastoral ministry is creaturely. We pastor as humans; "greatness, even in ministry, cannot escape humanity." We must find our place with ordinary people in ordinary places, and love the people right in front of us. We must learn to serve within ministries that are often mundane, invisible, uncontrollable, and unfinished. When we give our time to "unknown, broken people in out-of-the-way places overlooked by the world, but delighted in by him," we are following the example of Jesus.Part two tackles our temptations:-to be everywhere for everyone, rather than doing a long, small work in an unknown place;-to try to fix everything, rather than knowing that there are things we can neither control nor fix;-to think we know it all, rather than understanding the limits of our knowledge;-to accomplish things quickly, rather than learning patience.Part three calls us to reshape our inner life by cultivating a quiet heart, being attentive to God's graces right in front of us, and finding our pace. Part four invites us to reshape the work we do: to visit the sick, care for the sinner, know and love the place to which we're called, lead biblically rather than efficiently, and "do the great work...right in front of you with the persons and places that his providence has granted you.""Pause here ," writes Eswine. "Read that last sentence again if you need to. Prayerfully slow down for this." Phrases like this litter the book. It's not just a literary device; it's the very tenor of the book. Slow down. Meditate. Consider what's written. Ask God to help you. This is not a book to speed-read; it's a book to savor and re-read.I've read this book in one form or another at least three times now, and I'm not done yet. The Imperfect Pastor is an exposé on the temptations that pastors face, and a reminder of what real ministry looks like. It's one of the best pastoral theology books I've read, and one that's worth rumination, not just reading. I hope you'll get it.
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