Advice from the real world

Pastors meet to encourage one another and consider how to better programs

The Liberty University Pastoral Leadership Advisory Board gathered Tuesday, Feb. 16 to encourage one another in ministering to families in their churches and to evaluate Liberty’s pastoral leadership program.

On a day when campus was closed until 11 a.m., more than 50 pastors from places such as North Carolina, Ohio, Michigan and Iran traveled across the snow-covered campus to the Jerry Falwell Library.

Jonathan Falwell, pastor of Thomas Road Baptist Church (TRBC), was the first featured speaker of the morning. He said pastors must lead their own families well, a lesson he learned firsthand from his father, Dr. Jerry Falwell Sr.

“The one thing (my dad) never lost sight of was … the fact that his primary duty, outside of his relationship with Christ, was to be the pastor of his home,” Jonathan Falwell said. “I learned that from him. People around him learned that from him.”

Jonathan Falwell said when he became the lead pastor of TRBC, he told the congregation he would not allow his work as a minister to take priority over his role as a husband and father.

“I don’t ever want my kids to think they were neglected because I was out doing the work of God,” Jonathan Falwell said.

Gene Dodson, the lead student pastor at Highview Baptist Church in Louisville, Kentucky, taught the group how to minister to paid staff and their families. He said the first step is to establish a
healthy work culture.

“If your staff are constantly coming home frustrated due to poor leadership … it’s really hard to get around that to do ministry to the staff person and their family,” Dodson said. “Before you minister to the family personally, you have to minister with them professionally.”

He also said a pastor should be intentional about developing leaders within their church. It is then the pastor’s responsibility to cultivate those leaders’ abilities by giving them greater authority in the organization. Along the way, the lead pastor must “affirm them, love them, trust them, listen to them (and) celebrate them publicly,” Dodson said.

Dr. Daniel Broyles, an executive pastor at Tri Cities Baptist Church in Gray, Tennessee, explained his church’s strategy for partnering with parents to help disciple their children. He said his church wants to come alongside families and help them teach their children age-appropriate lessons at each stage of life.

“(Parents) want the family to be the primary place for training and making disciples,” Broyles said. “The problem is that if you ask them, ‘What is your strategic plan for doing that?’ you get the long pauses … because there’s really not a year-by-year plan.”

The church created a plan titled the “Family Discipleship Plan” that presents Bible content and themes to teach to young congregants all the way through graduation from high school. Broyles said his goal was not to have each of the pastors adopt his church’s specific plan, but he hopes each of them would begin to reflect on how their churches are approaching the topic of family ministry.

In between each of the three main speakers, Matt Willmington, the director of ministries at TRBC, moderated discussion among the pastors as they broke into small groups to discuss the respective topics.

Throughout the day and during the rest of the week, the pastors spoke as guest lecturers in pastoral leadership classes and advised the faculty on how they can best prepare students for ministry.

Dr. David Adams, the director of pastoral leadership at Liberty, said the board serves as a “brain trust” for the program. He said the pastors help bridge the gap between the academic knowledge needed to serve in ministry and the real-world situations pastors face in their roles.

“Since 1985 I’ve been convening advisory board meetings like this, and our curriculum and our practice and experiential learning (are outcomes) of their advice,” Adams said. “So as a result, we’d like to think our program will be improved.”

Clarke is a copy editor.