I came across the following insightful, typically Keane-esque quote yesterday that I think has a lot to it:

I think that is an absolutely fantastic football quote, particularly the last line:

If football was only about ability, we’d have more than one ball on the pitch. When one player has the ball, for the other 21 the game’s about positioning, running, desire, communication, organisation. It’s about a lot more than just the ball. The ball tricks people into believing some of these lads are top players.

That last line has quite a lot of application outside of football. You could replace the word ‘ball’ with all manner of things and make the same point about quite a lot of jobs. Rare is the job that is solely about just one basic thing.

I was particularly set to thinking about that last line when it comes to the pastorate. I think Keane’s observation would hold for pastors if we reword it this way:

It’s about a lot more than just the sermon. The sermon tricks people into believing some of these lads are top pastors.

Of course, pastoral ministry necessitates decent preaching ability just as football requires some ability to control the ball. But just as you can have Premier League ball control and yet be a fourth-tier player, you can be a fantastic communicator and yet a sub-par preacher. You could even be a fantastic preacher – great bible handling, brilliant exegesis, fantastic application, amazing communication – and yet still be a terrible pastor. Being a pastor is about more than just preaching.

This is why, in the list of qualifications Paul gives us for eldership, ‘able to teach’ is just one of them. It is why ‘able to teach’ is pretty much the only ability in the entire list. It’s not that Paul thinks teaching and preaching is unimportant; just that it isn’t the only thing. There is much more to being a pastor than how good you are in the pulpit.

It is worth bearing this in mind when it comes to appointing a new pastor. Very often, we are on the lookout for somebody who can preach well. More often than not, we stick somebody in the pulpit a few times and – if we think they’re decent – that’s the man for us. The typical way British churches check out their next pastor is to invite them to ‘preach with a view’. It’s not that this has no value, it’s just that this doesn’t cover all or even most of the bases. There is a lot more to being a pastor than preaching.

I suspect that some of this lies behind the slew of high profile ‘falls’ we have seen over recent years. Reformed Conservative Evangelicals – who rightly prize the Word and its teaching – are perhaps most guilty of being so in awe of this one (albeit vitally important) skill, that they overlook or pay minimal attention to all the other character criteria Paul lays out for prospective elders. Dare I say, a lot of those criteria – being somewhat flexible – are often fitted around the man we have decided we want, and we typically want him because he preaches well or he seems (as we judge it) ‘pastoral’.

As an aside, ‘pastoral’ is one of those code words I’ve never fully cracked. What I do know is it isn’t in the list of the qualification for eldership. Appointing someone because they’re ‘pastoral’ is a bit like saying we want to hire a shepherd because he’s quite shepherdy. If I can pin it down at all, ‘pastoral’ seems to be code for sort of a nice bloke who is generally less inclined to get on anyone’s case about sin, which strikes me as not being part of Paul’s eldership criteria and almost the exact opposite of what elders are called to do. I am often wary when someone pronounces a person as ‘pastorally gifted’ if for no other reason than I rarely know what they mean and they typically can’t explain it when I ask! Let’s stick to the actual criteria Paul gives us and look for those people.

But when we look at Paul’s criteria, he doesn’t only have one: able to teach. In fact, it’s notable that even then Paul’s criteria is not ‘outstanding preacher’. He is much more muted. Able to teach, yes. Rightly able to handle the word of God and so rebuke those who depart from it, yes. Fantastic preacher? Simply not there. Which begs the question why we elevate that above the other criteria that are actually there and make out that it is the pinnacle of pastoral ability.

Most pastors of most churches have to be all-round generalists. Of course, preaching is a significant part of the job. But so are all manner of other things. Which is why I think Roy Keane helps us think about that in his typically Keane-like way. Just as football is about more than just the ball, pastoral ministry is about more than just the sermon.