I can’t help but wonder if we are so drawn to charismatic preachers because of their obvious confidence. Perhaps what we call “charisma” is actually just confidence. I remember the first dozen or so times I watched John Piper preach. He certainly helped me see things in Scripture that I hadn’t seen before. But in hindsight, I think I was more drawn to the serious confidence he took in the pulpit. This stuff was real and it was important and he exuded a kind of confidence I was drawn to. He wasn’t posing questions without answering them. He wasn’t doing hermeneutical gymnastics to avoid offending people. He was confident about the person, work, and worth of Christ.
Attributes of a Good Pastor
One of my congregants wanted me to be more alluring, more charismatic, more humorous. He wanted me to hold his attention such that I would keep him coming back every week.
This is certainly understandable. Most of us enjoy listening to faithful brothers like Matt Chandler, John Piper, David Platt, or Kevin DeYoung. And for good reason. These brothers are charismatic. They’re funny, radiantly passionate, wicked smart, handsome, and/or comfortable in their own skin. I am none of these things. But the instinct to be those things in order to grow a church is strong, isn’t it?
But even as we feel this understandable pull, we need to more properly assess and orient ourselves. We need to understand what’s ultimately more stable and more alluring. As it’s been said, “What you win them with is what you win them to.”
Charisma is helpful, important even. But I want to focus on other attributes that are even more important for the pastor: character, capability, conviction, and compassion.
Character
When Paul was writing to the church plant in Crete, he told Titus to “appoint elders in every town” so that he might “put what remained into order” (Titus 1:5). In case Titus might be unsure what elders should be like, Paul continued:
. . . if anyone is above reproach, the husband of one wife, and his children are believers and not open to the charge of debauchery or insubordination. For an overseer, as God’s steward, must be above reproach. He must not be arrogant or quick-tempered or a drunkard or violent or greedy for gain, but hospitable, a lover of good, self-controlled, upright, holy, and disciplined. (Titus 1:6–8)
He then explains to Titus why character is so important:
For there are many who are insubordinate, empty talkers and deceivers, especially those of the circumcision party. They must be silenced, since they are upsetting whole families by teaching for shameful gain what they ought not to teach. One of the Cretans, a prophet of their own, said “Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons.” This testimony is true. (Titus 1:10–13)
Paul knows that if the church of Jesus Christ is going to testify to the holiness of God, it needs to be led by godly pastors. In other words, as Titus put what remained into order, he needed the character of the pastors to shine brightly against the dark night of the Crete skies. So it is with us.
Capability
For pastors, character is necessary but insufficient. They must also be “able to teach” (1 Tim. 3:2). Elsewhere, Paul says pastors need to “be able to give instruction in sound doctrine” (Titus 1:9).
The emphasis here is on clarity and biblical soundness. Is the pastor faithfully distinguishing between what is true and not true? A pastor’s teaching doesn’t need to be flashy, but it does need to be faithful and clear.
Conviction
Jesus was and is the truth (John 14:6). The church is the pillar and buttress of truth (1 Tim. 3:15). Therefore, every pastor-planter must have clear convictions about the truth.