What Is a Successful Pastor?

All leaders have a scorecard, a measure of what success looks like. These can vary, and generally, they're neither right nor wrong: Numeric growth, influence reach, facility upgrades. But for pastors — especially those prone to a "visionary" leadership style — it can be all too easy to develop a faulty or distorted scorecard, to measure success with cultural markers rather than with biblical faithfulness. Fruitfulness. In this episode of The Flourishing Pastor Podcast, Tom Nelson describes how tracking success in pastoral work can be both essential and fraught. He outlines a healthier way to measure success and looks toward the ultimate goal of pastoral leadership.

Tom Nelson is the senior pastor of Christ Community Church in Kansas City, Kansas, and he's the president of Made to Flourish, a national nonprofit that works with churches and their leaders in the area of faith and work. You can learn more about Tom's work at www.madetoflourish.org, and you can find his new book, The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership — which is the springboard for this podcast — wherever you buy books. 

***Get Free Books*** Christians often report that their churches don’t prepare them for the pressures, opportunities, or challenges of their daily work. At Made to Flourish, we call this the Sunday to Monday gap, an unhealthy divide that can blur our understanding of God’s work in the world — work we’re meant to join. To help close that gap, we want to mail you a collection of practical, theological books — completely free of charge. In this free box, you’ll also get the latest issue of the award-winning Common Good magazine, and for a limited time, Tom Nelson’s book, The Flourishing Pastor: Recovering the Lost Art of Shepherd Leadership. So whether you’re a pastor or layperson, claim your free books at madetoflourish.org/box.