Ministers urged to focus on what they do best
___By Mark Wingfield
___Managing Editor
___GLORIETA, N.M.--Ministers are expected to do everything well but in reality must discover their two or three areas of giftedness and focus on those, a veteran pastor said.
___Dennis Hochgraber, pastor of Shiloh Terrace Baptist Church in Dallas, led a session
for clergy during the Texas Baptist Family Reunion. Based on his 25 years of experience as a pastor, he urged ministers to focus on their areas of giftedness and seek to surround themselves with others who are gifted in different areas.
___Though serving God faithfully through the church, ministers must not "sell yourself out to the church," he said, because left unchecked churches will continually make more demands until the minister burns out.
___Hochgraber identified five premises for balancing the demands of ministry:
___
Recognize there is a difference between being successful and being faithful. Faithfulness is not related to church size or many of the traditional measures ministers judge themselves by, he said. Rather, faithfulness is a measure of being true to one's calling from God.
___ Recognize you have but one life to live. "The trap in ministry is to try to live several lives," he explained. "You don't do anything well because you try to do everything."
___ Do not waste your life. Ministers must "continually come before the Lord" for personal renewal in order to have the spiritual energy to minister to others, he said. "We get empty and have to be filled."
___ Understand the stages of life. God doesn't always reveal his entire plan for a person's life at once, and ministers especially must recognize that living in God's will creates different demands and opportunities throughout life, Hochgraber said. "Like climbing Mount Baldy (at Glorieta), the experience is in getting there."
___ Seek to glorify God in your life and ministry. "The reason the church is here is to bring glory to God," he said.
___Ministers who don't pay attention to these matters will find themselves like the person described in the Song of Songs who took care of his extended family's vineyards but neglected his own, Hochgraber said. "This is a powerful warning."
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