Advice to pastors from Chuck Colson

I was going through some old papers last week (cleaning up for a new year, I guess) and found an interview done by Preaching magazine in the July/August 2008 edition with Chuck Colson, President of Prison Fellowship. In response to a question for "words of counsel to pastors," he responded:

"The principle thing I have to say to them - but you'd also have to say it to their lay-leadership - is to worry more about spiritual depth than church growth. There's too much recruitment going on just to get people in the church. And I think pastors most often suffer because they're under pressure from their own leadership, their deacons, and elders. It's the people who want the biggest church in town more than the pastor. So I would simply say: focus on making disciples, transforming them.

"I think there's a real sense of unease in the church today that we've got lots of numbers, but we don't have people who are really change agents and who are really witnesses of transformed lives.

"Transformational discipleship is a buzz-word that I would love to see the church pick up. My advice to any pastor would be to work on spiritual depth. Growth will come, but depth has to be the most important thing." (page 26)