Stan Toler's Practical Guide for Pastoral Ministry

Stan Toler in his book Stan Toler's Practical Guide for Pastoral Ministry seeks to benefit fellow and future pastors based on what he has learned in 30+ years of ministry experience. The book is exhaustive in ministry practicality, for it contains seventy-five short chapters. In order to summarize all he has learned, Toler gives practical advice for personal growth, family life, ministry, leadership, coaching, and communication.

Toler's book encourages the personal growth of pastors. He argues that this is the pastor's life-blood. He details what the pastor's life should be like in public, when no one is watching, with family, friends, his church, etc. Practical suggestions are given to encourage personal growth in all avenues of life with the source being personal devotion, obedience, integrity, etc.

Toler then details what the pastor's family life should consist of. He offers practical advice for marriage, parenting, finances, etc. Pastors are further encouraged to have Christ-honoring, affirming attitudes that build up others in his home and without.

The next section of Toler's work details the pastor's ministry. He offers suggestions for virtually every aspect of ministry outside the pulpit. He makes suggestions for pastoral care, conducting funerals, weddings, planning worship services, participating in evangelism, hospital visitation, recruiting volunteers, encouraging wayward members, etc.

Toler then moves to detail the area of leadership. He helps his readers by describing aspects of great leaders, suggested vision, building a team, recruiting and training leaders, etc. He concludes this section showing his readers how to manage conflict, change, and how to lead in difficult times.

Nearing the end of his work, Toler shows his readers how to coach others. He details how a pastor can motivate and inspire hearers to join him in the Lord's work. He further encourages pastors in mentoring, defining success, and taking responsibility for their ministries.

Toler concludes his book examining the pastor's communication. He offers insight into both the pulpit and the board room. He even encourages pastors in writing and staying on the cutting edge in ministry.

Critique

Toler's book is full of practical advice for pastors. It succeeds in encouraging, warning, and helping pastors to be faithful to the Lord throughout their ministries. There are some positive and negative aspects however with this work, for there are some things that are very encouraging and other things that are plainly unbiblical.

This writer appreciated Toler's reference to sexual immorality being a problem of the heart, not the situation. It was refreshing to actually hear another pastor say that legalism was not the answer to sexual purity in ministry (26-27). He is right in saying that sexual attraction is not an irresistible force. The heart is indeed the problem for the sexually immoral. With one of the fruit of the Spirit being self-control, one wonders with most of the answers for purity in ministry being on setting legalistic boundaries, if Christian men are growing in their ability to exercise self-control. With the correct emphasis of Toler, pastors can now grow in their ability to control themselves as well instead of never dealing with the reason why they desire to be sexually immoral. These two pages alone are worth the price of the book.

Moving to some negative aspects, first, almost the entire book stinks of modernism. Many of the suggestions Toler gives could be applied to the life of a CEO in order for him or her to be successful. Much of his emphasis on leadership, casting vision, and encouraging others to come onboard has its roots in the corporate world. With the church trying to distinguish itself from the world, this writer does not understand how a business mindset can be applied to the church that is biblically trying to communicate that it is not a business, but the body of Christ. In encouraging pastors to think like this, Toler actually encourages the church to expect their pastors to be dynamic worldly leaders. It is an extra-biblical requirement; and thus, is legalistic. Instead of helping pastors and churches, it actually harms both of them.

Also, in defining success in ministry, Toler accepts worldly standards as part of his measuring rod for success. He says that worldly indicators such as growth, both financially and numerically, are part of the success examination (251). Granted, he does argue in favor of spiritual growth, but the modernistic "bigger is better" mentality is present as well. With a cursory biblical glance however, readers will notice that there are no points in the Old or New Testaments that communicate numeric and financial growth are indicators of success. Toler misses this.

To summarize, the biggest problem this writer has with Toler encouraging pastors to adopt modern principles for ministry that are not found in the Scriptures is that he simply encourages the church to expect its pastors to be great CEOs. If a faithful, godly man cannot follow a faithful godly pastor because of some unbiblical arbitrary standard, then the church has been built on something other than the Word of God. Toler, by equating excellence in leadership in the church with excellence in leadership in the world, encourages the church and pastors alike to be unbiblical in some of their emphasis and encourage their hearers to think unbiblically as well. If pastors adopt his mentality, the church will be built on the personalities and secular leadership ability of their pastors instead of on the objective truth of God's Word. This writer believes churches today do not need another idle, though Toler gives them one.

Second, there are aspects that are clearly unbiblical. In his emphasis upon measuring success, Toler details a story where he would give back the church's tithe in 90 days if God did not bless their tithe (253). He quotes Matthew 13:8 where Christ details a parable of sowing and reaping. The problem is that Christ's emphasis is spiritual, not physical. People are not guaranteed earthly rewards for their obedience. God does not always physically bless the tither, but this should not affect whether or not Christians tithe. Obedience should be the goal, not what Christians get in return. This is true for pastors as well.

Another unbiblical example is Toler's encouragement of pastors to dream. He misses the fact that God has never asked anyone to believe what He has not said. Faith is not being certain of something that God has not promised. Encouraging pastors to dream seems to be the opposite of what the Scriptures detail. For every one pastor that has "lucked up" by dreaming, there are a hundred the church never hears about that fell flat on their faces. If God tells pastors something, they must have faith, but God never requires or encourages Christians to dream. The definition of faith is taking God at His Word, not in dreaming about something God has not said. As proven by Toler's arguments and examples, dreaming big is a modern and largely American phenomenon. He indirectly encourages the church here to think like the world.

Another unbiblical example is found in Toler's emphasis on pastors taking responsibility for their ministries. In his final point in this section, he argues that pastors must take responsibility for the results of their ministries. He says that the buck always stops with leaders (246). With even a cursory glance at the Scriptures, Toler's argument is destroyed. If the buck always stops with the leader, then Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul, David, etc. were all failures. When Jesus went to the cross, the disciples scattered. Would Toler blame Jesus for their scattering? The Apostle Paul in the New Testament wrote most of his letters coming against ungodly doctrines or actions that rebelled against what he had previously taught the recipients. David's own son rebelled against his leadership trying to steal his kingdom from him. The biblical list can go on and on. Toler did not learn this from the Scriptures, but from the world. Biblical faithfulness should be the emphasis, not some arbitrary CEO mentality. Also, if leaders are responsible for the results, then when fruit occurs, they should get the credit for the results. Toler cannot give leaders the responsibilityofthe results without giving them the creditforthe results. He thus indirectly encourages pastors to practice idolatry. There are many problems like this throughout the book. It seems virtually endless.

Evaluation

This writer agrees with much of the practical application Toler details. He is very helpful in the day to day affairs of pastoral ministry. It is always beneficial to be reminded that pastors must constantly examine their own walks with the Lord. They must practice what they preach. This writer knows that he must be more intentional and consistent with his personal time with the Lord. Toler reminded him of this.

Furthermore, Toler's reference to sexual self-control was encouraging. In this writer's experience, in youth ministry especially, there is often a legalistic standard placed on children in order to help them remain sexually pure. The problem is that the heart issue, the fact that their desires for one another outside of wedlock are actually wicked, is never addressed. Instead, much pressure is placed on women to dress like nuns or Amish people in order to keep their brothers from stumbling. Though this writer understands the emphasis on modesty, he finds much belief in the church that men simply cannot help but desire women in a sexually impure way. In this writer's ministry, he will emphasize from now on that though it is good to set up boundaries according to one's own conscience, men must deal with the sin problem that causes them to desire sexual immorality.

This writer also found the suggestions for performing funerals and weddings very beneficial. These are arguably two of the most volatile times in a family's life. Emotions are often running rampant. Toler helped this writer to understand this reality, and he provided many practical suggestions to help this writer encourage these families while representing Christ well.

Finally and unfortunately, most of this book this writer cannot consistently apply to his ministry. If this writer really is expected by churches to be the leader Toler describes, then this writer needs to leave the ministry. Much of this book is what is wrong with evangelicalism today. She does not trust the sufficiency of the Word of God. Ministries are built upon the backs of great CEOs instead of simple, faithful, godly men. Though pastors need to seek excellence in everything they do, the world cannot teach them how to properly lead God's church. On most pages in this book, this writer simply said, "that's not me," and "oh, I'm not that," and "I'll never be that." Much of what Toler presented, this writer wants no part of. He finds the overarching mentality of this book to be detrimental to Christianity, impossible to pass on to the next generation, impossible to produce healthy biblical churches, and impossible to live up to. If it was not for the Scriptures, this writer would be discouraged after reading this book, for most of what he saw was what he could not be and could not accomplish.