Having been involved in some capacity with pastors for over 30 years I have come up with some personal observations regarding the different kinds of pastors I have either worked with or to whom I’ve ministered.

Since all of us (including pastors) have broken places in our lives, we can all struggle with and identify with some of the following categories. However, in this article each category represents a lifestyle or habit pattern of pastors, not an occasional struggle.

My objective in this article is to help pastors and leaders become self-aware and allow the Lord to deal with those broken places, as well as understanding our strengths and weaknesses. These categories should also be applied as much as possible to any person and/or leader lest folks in churches become judgmental of their pastors.

1. The Emotionally Sick Pastor

Many people have reported over the years that a large percentage of pastors feel depressed on Monday mornings, whether due to fatigue, lack of attendance on Sunday, low offerings or other disappointing things related to their Sunday services. Depression is probably anywhere from 35-40% among pastors. Emotional health is usually not a priority for many pastors because, in their minds, their heavy workload doesn’t give them a lot of time for self-renewal and introspection.

2. The Driven Pastor

Driven pastors are trying to prove something to themselves or to others. Ministry does not come out of a pure heart as unto the Lord but is related to an innate need for success. Hence, these pastors often fall into presumption regarding pushing their congregations to finance building projects and other endeavors that are subconsciously motivated to help inflate their own sense of self-worth. This results in them attempting to do things the Lord never led them to undertake, which causes them to operate outside the grace and power of the Spirit.

These kinds of pastors not only continually drive themselves but their congregations to accomplish great things. Often they are also driven to excel beyond any other pastor in their community because their identity is wrapped up in being the most successful pastor instead of their identity being anchored in Christ. Of course, many of these pastors eventually burn out emotionally because they are operating on their own gifts and abilities instead of through God’s leading.

3. The Fleshly Pastor

This is a person who never fully dealt with their issues of the flesh before entering the ministry. Hence, they begin to fall into a lifestyle of sin as a coping mechanism to deal with stress and/or emotional pain. The more successful the pastor the more temptation this kind will have to deal with, since the more influence they have the more stress and challenges they will experience.

Also, the more popularity they have the more opportunity they will have to engage in immoral behavior due to the mutual carnal desires between themselves and congregants enamored with them who are also trying to medicate their stress. This is why it is extremely important that people do not enter full-time church ministry as pastors until they have allowed the Lord to work inward holiness and spiritual maturity in their lives.

4. The Faddish Pastor

This kind of pastor is always attending conferences, reading books and talking to successful pastors trying to discover the next new thing God is doing. Consequently, they are always changing either the vision of their church or implementing church growth strategies according to the latest fads. These are unstable pastors who are unsure of themselves, their own walk with God, and their ability to hear from God.

They will also have a lot of turnover in church leadership because many of their key leaders will get tired of going from one thing to another and will look for a more stable church. These kinds of pastors really need to focus on universal, trans-historical and trans-cultural biblical principles of local church practice and mission and not try to copy every other successful model they see.

5. The Angry Pastor

This is the kind of pastor that has undealt with anger, bitterness, and unforgiveness from past wounds that are either self-inflicted or the result of real betrayal. Instead of taking responsibility for their own failures they justify their lack of success by continually shifting blame towards others. Often their sermons are filled with angry denunciations about sin, different behavioral issues and even about specific people. Instead of ministering grace and faith in the power of the Spirit they are ministering guilt and condemnation. They are always fighting something and someone and always seem to be a victim of satanic plots and/or people who are against them. They also tend to blackball those who leave their churches and speak badly about anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

6. The Superstar Pastor

These kinds of pastors always have an entourage surrounding them, are hard for individuals in the congregation to access, always wear the most expensive clothes, drive the best cars, demand huge honorariums to speak in other churches, and are generally superficial in relationships. They speak as if they have the most important ministry in the world and as if they are the most important man of God in the world! In their sermons they emphasize passages that illustrate how the anointing comes by serving the man of God (for example, Elisha and Elijah) but neglect passages in which Jesus speaks about not coming to be served but to serve (Matthew 20:28). Protocols related to honoring the pastor (or bishop or apostle, etc.) have to be strictly followed (legalistically) rather than folks honoring spiritual authority from the heart as unto the Lord. They may talk and preach about humility but their lifestyle contradicts what they say.

7. The Professional Pastor

This kind of pastor has no real passion for the Lord or His people but views their pastoral ministry as a mere job and/or profession. They clock in and clock out and will move from one congregation to another depending upon who can pay them the highest salary or provide the best benefits. These are the “hirelings” Jesus spoke about (John 10) who run when the wolves come to devour the sheep because they are not true shepherds but mere professionals. Those who look at being a pastor as merely a business or a profession instead of as a holy calling fit this category.

(Of course, by this point I do not mean that a pastor should not make a decent salary or be professional in how they conduct business. I am referring to the motivation not the method in this particular point.)

8. The Compromising Pastor

This is the kind of pastor that will only preach popular messages that ruffle no one’s feathers. They will attempt to draw crowds, make people feel good, never preach anything negative, and will go with the cultural flow and avoid controversial issues like abortion and biblical marriage. They will also placate their top tithers and give them positions of honor they do not deserve. These are the kind spoken of in the Gospel of John (12:42-43) who love the praises of men more than they love the praises of God. Compromise and the fear of man is also what caused the downfall of King Saul (1 Samuel 15).

9. The Legalistic Pastor

This is the kind of pastor who puts all sorts of man-made rules, traditions, and regulations upon their congregations. Since they have no real revelation of grace, and lack a deep relationship with God, they have unreasonable standards and place burdens on men’s shoulders they are unwilling to lend a hand to help lift. These pastors are confused and mix biblical commands with man-made tradition and place the latter on the same level as the former (read Mark 7:9-13).

10. The Progressive Pastor

A progressive pastor is always on the cutting edge of culture, technology and new things happening in the church. While this is often a good thing, sometimes this kind of pastor does away with the old for the sake of the new, even when the old works best (whether it is replacing old leaders with new ones, certain church practices or structures of worship services, etc.). These pastors need older, more seasoned leaders speaking into their lives so they do not make unnecessary changes that will hurt more than help their congregations in the long run.

11. The Traditional Pastor

This is the opposite of the progressive pastor in that this kind of pastor is a protector and maintainer of the old ways of doing things, whether they are effective today or not. Their love for tradition exceeds their love for souls and actually hinders them from hearing a fresh word from the Lord. Oftentimes, these pastors lead dying churches that are answering questions no one is asking anymore!

12. The Isolated Pastor

The isolated pastor has no deep relationships, tries to work out every situation on their own, and is very lonely, all because of a lack of trust in their heart towards other people. They do not work well with other church leaders and have only superficial accountability with their overseers. Since they lack the proper relational accountability and input, they tend to make decisions without seeing the full picture, which results in unwise decision making.

13. The Independent Pastor

This is the alpha leader who thinks they have the best ideas, the most knowledge, and are not open to having oversight, peer-based accountability, and are not a functional part of an association, network or denomination. Not only is this kind of pastor independent but also their congregations function independently as well, even if they belong (in name) to a denomination. These pastors lack the knowledge of the New Testament model of one-church one-city as we see in the epistles and in Revelation chapters 2 and 3.

14. The Seasoned/Balanced Pastor

This is the kind of pastor who is balanced and mature, who doesn’t neglect their walk with God or their family, and is anchored in the Lord regarding their identity. This person ministers out of the overflow of their walk with the Lord because their cup overflows! They have strong, transparent, and accountable relationships with their secondary leaders, peers and overseers. They are not using ministry to prove anything to themselves, thus they do not compromise the gospel they preach nor do they need ministry to feel good about themselves. They are ministers, not performers or professionals, and God can trust them with the sheep because they long to present every person mature in Christ.

15. The Mystical Pastor

This kind of pastor always says they are “hearing from God” and “thus saith the Lord.” Many in this category also have frequent spiritual visions and dreams. They usually have an allegorical or mystical approach to biblical interpretation and don’t usually exegete Scripture with the intent of discovering the original intent of the biblical authors. Pastors in this camp emphasize certain kinds of prayer, worship, and spiritual ministry but have a difficult time connecting the dots and applying the Bible in a practical way in life and ministry.

16. The Soulish Pastor

The soulish pastor is the opposite of the mystical pastor in that this kind depends heavily on their intellect, rarely believes they hear from God in the Spirit, but generally thinks God only speaks to them through the Scriptures. They usually have a very weak prayer life, are very analytical and doctrinal in their approach to preaching, and are afraid of spontaneity and unplanned moves of the Holy Spirit. They usually oversee a church that emphasizes the Word but has challenges with corporate and personal prayer participation.

These pastors also tend to split hairs over doctrine and often have a critical spirit of the charismatic movement and preachers who don’t agree with them theologically.

17. The Caretaker pastor

This kind of pastor builds a strong relational church, loves being with the sheep and has an extensive counseling ministry. Their congregation is inwardly focused rather than outwardly focused and they usually have smaller congregations because they like to minister in a church where they know every person’s name. Thus they do not really desire exponential growth although they will receive it, if it happens to come. Their greatest weakness is a lack of soul winning and community outreach to the unchurched.

18. The Evangelist Pastor

This kind is the opposite of the caretaker pastor because they are outwardly focused. They have a gift of gathering large crowds and have an emphasis on soul winning more than on shepherding and discipleship. Their preaching is usually very powerful but is centered on the basics of the gospel message of love, hope, healing, deliverance, justification by faith, and the eternity to come. The content of their messages is very basic, they are great storytellers, and win a lot of people to Christ. But their preaching doesn’t feed more mature Christians who will tire of these messages after a few years, since their messages are not deep and not meant to feed mature saints but are designed to win the lost and encourage faith in the congregation.

19. The Prophetic Pastor

The prophetic pastor usually has very deep messages, is strong on commitment, tends to have longer worship services, and spends a lot of personal time seeking God for vision and direction. They have high quality and high content services with a strong presence of God and do not hesitate to preach uncompromising messages that may offend some in attendance.

20. The Apostolic Pastor

The apostolic pastor is not generally a good caretaker, is concerned with big picture items regarding reaching their communities, raising up leaders, planting other church campuses, expanding their facilities, and rarely gets involved with counseling church members. Their churches have good systems, strong government and stability combined with a good balance of outreach and in-reach. They need the ministry of the prophet to come in regularly to make sure the fire and passion of God is imparted to the congregation.

Finally, there are many more categories and subcategories of pastors I can probably think of, but these are some of the main ones I have observed. May the Lord use these categories to make us more self-aware in our leadership so we can continue to grapple with life’s issues, and grow into the mature leaders our churches and communities need.

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