What’s your job?

I’m a pastor. That means many things to many people. There are many varying expectations about what it means to be a pastor and what a pastor does.

I’m not going to list all the things that I do as a pastor. But I will say this — there is one underlying thing that is the foundation for everything that I do. It is the summation of my job description.

My job is to make disciples.

Everything relates to this. My job isn’t to entertain. It’s not to do the ministry on behalf of everyone in the church. My job isn’t to save the institution. It’s not to keep people comfortable in their thoughts and beliefs.

My primary job is to make disciples.

And guess what — that’s your job too.

How I go about it may look different from your way. But both of us together have the same job — to make disciples. Jesus said so in Matthew 28. It’s the great commission.

I can’t emphasize this enough. My job is not to save the institution. Here’s why. If our focus is on saving an institution, then really we aren’t doing what we are supposed to. Plus, when we focus on saving the institution, what we really focus on is maintaining the status quo — maintaining things as they are. An institution exists for it’s own survival too often. But it certainly doesn’t have to.

If, instead, we focused on doing our job — making more disciples — you know what happens? The institution doesn’t get caught up in the argument over what is off limits and…