Having an effective ministry is not a simple matter. Today, there are tools to evaluate various elements of church related ministry and its leadership. There are countless (!) books to be read on the subject as well. I left seminary in the pre-Mesozoic age with, I believe, an excellent training in biblical studies and exegetical principles. I also believe that I left that training with a fair idea of how church was supposed “to work.” And, having grown up in the church, I felt very comfortable launching out into that ministry. During my tenor in pastoral ministry, the Lord gave me an eight year diversion to teach in a Bible College setting. When I re-entered pastoral ministry, I was astounded with how much “doing church” had changed and how little it resembled what I remembered. I am now some fourteen years down the path of this ecclesiastical re-entry and I’m still discovering things that I either did not know, or, I find out that being a pastoral leader carries different expectations. I’m not surprised at the differing expectations, but I am realizing that the non-simplicity factor is very much alive and well on planet earth. It used to be that if you preached the Word of God faithfully, led the worship service in a manner that aided the comfort level of the saints, visited the infirmed/needy and provided counsel for the struggling, you pretty much had church ministry covered. Things have shifted a bit now days. Preaching is not the primary focus of many worship services; the use of power point has become a necessity; and visionary leadership with competent over site of how each principle part ministers and is coordinated with other ministries within the church and properly aligned with the church’s vision statement are now the essentials. And that’s not all bad. In fact, it demonstrates the desire of God’s people to not only be very much involved in ministry but it also demonstrates a desire of clarity and communication/encouragement from the leadership to get the job done well. So, I am engaged with the question of “what does pastoral ministry look like, today?” When all else fails, as I have told people many times before, consult the text (of Scripture). And right now, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. As I have been reminded, the answer is probably somewhere between the Acts of the Apostles and the Pastoral Epistles. Stay tuned.