How to Survive in the Ministry

Flynn was a pastor for 45 years. The last 40 he served one church, Grace Conservative Baptist Church in Nanuet, NY. His advice on how to survive in ministry is an easy read with very little in it to cause offense. His tone throughout is tempered with kindness, and only rarely with a pinch of superiority. His first chapter should be required reading for anyone considering a vocational ministry. Flynn does an exceptional job of conveying the pitfalls, stressors, church demands and challenges associated with ministry. He may be retired, but he is not completely out of touch.The rest of the book deals with topical advice from Flynn's own ministry: delegation, sermon planning, church celebrations, hobbies and relaxation, family, etc. Pretty mundane stuff really, but he does a good job of covering all the bases. Flynn's wife contributes a delightful chapter on family life that I highly recommend. I think it may communicate the pace and stresses of ministry better than the balance of the book.The biggest problem I have with Flynn's approach is that his church was so atypical. He freely admits that three quarters of all Protestant churches have less than 150 in attendance on Sunday morning. Even if the church was small when he went there, his stories seem to come from when he had a full-time secretary and additional staff members. He authored one book a year during that time, taught part-time in a small college, and maintained a daily radio broadcast. His church was in the upper quartile for most of his tenure.Many of his suggestions are completely impractical in a small church. Small church pastors are lucky if they can avoid mowing the church grounds on Saturday! Delegation, vacations, visiting speakers and radio ministries are way beyond the possible.I suppose that I would have to add one chapter to Flynn's book - Getting a Bigger Church. Both my personal experience, and Flynn's, seem to indicate that survival in ministry has a great deal to do with finding a church large enough to provide the asistance and financial support a pastor needs.Few seminarians today are likely to imitate Flynn's pattern in full. He was too quick to embrace the sacrifices involved in ministry, and he was too vulnerable to problems that could have occurred. Toward the end his book becomes nostalgic, and the closing chapter in praise of humility, while an excellent sermon, is quite out of touch with contemporary occupational goal-setting. Flynn may only imply that the old days were better, but he might be right.