Pastors Teach Their People to Do 2 Things

My neighbor Dave allows me to
harvest from his fruit garden.

My life as a pastor keeps narrowing. After four decades (!) of doing this I see that, pastorally, just two things need to be done. I am doing them, and I am teaching them, at Redeemer.








As a pastor, I am to:

1. Teach my people how to live in the presence of God (AKA, from the NT POV, how to "abide in Christ").
2. Teach my people how to pray.

I have seen, in my own life and in the lives of others I have been privileged to instruct, that if a Jesus-follower engages in these two things and heart-learns them, their lives will be "fruitful."

Now, today, this very week, in my Redeemer context, many in my Jesus-community (= "church") are doing 1 & 2. As this is happening, much fruit is being born.

A pastor is a fruit planter and a fruit tender. Behold the fruit of the Spirit. Continue sowing the fruit seeds of 1 and 2.

(BTW - evangelism is part of the fruit of abiding in Christ. Teach your people first, as Jesus did, how to abide in Him. This brings the overflowing life, and inexorably leads to authentic, non-programmatic evangelism.)