• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Home
  • Sermons
  • About
  • Contact

So What Faith

Greg Smith

  • Books
  • Discipleship
  • Social Media
  • Leadership
  • Trends
  • Prayer

Pastoral Selling (#1063)

2013/04/14 By Greg

George CliffordClergy obviously need more than spirituality, academic preparation, and field education to become great bishops, deans, rectors, and vicars.

Retired Navy chaplain George Clifford recently included the above quote in a blog post emphasizing the importance of the skill of selling within the framework of leadership.  He writes:

Spend a day with the bishop, dean, rector, or vicar of one our relatively few growing, thriving dioceses or congregations and you will observe a leader who is a highly effective salesperson . . . Good ordained leaders are constantly selling the organization they lead to other staff, volunteers, members, and the non-affiliated.

So What?

In an era when many churches are declining, much is being written about that trend.  Thankfully, the amount of literature is growing that considers the smaller number of churches that are growing, including commonalities and best practices.

  • Is pastoral competency in selling something far more common in growing churches than in declining ones?
  • Should leadership bodies at the level of the local church as well as denomination be allocating additional resources to aid clergy in attaining and improving competency with the skill of selling?

Primary Sidebar

Greg Smith

Greg is a follower of the Way of Jesus who strives to make the world a better place for all people. Currently, he serves as Chief Executive Officer of White Rock Center of Hope and as Interim Senior Pastor of Advent Lutheran Church. He has served ten congregations, taught religion to undergraduates for eight years, and helped three organizations provide quality healthcare to underserved populations. (Read More)

Categories

Recent Posts

  • Going Electric! (#2229)
  • Living by Faith (#2228)
  • Fewer Master of Divinity Students (#2227)
  • Welcoming Everyone (#2226)
  • The Increasingly Purple Mainline (#2225)

Tags

Advent Lutheran Church Bible blogging Catholic change Christian Christianity church COVID-19 Dallas decline Diana Butler Bass discipleship education ELCA Episcopal Evangelical facebook faith Jesus Leadership love mainline Mainline Protestant marcus borg membership Ministry Naples United Church of Christ ordination pastor PCUSA Pew Research Center Prayer preaching Presbyterian Protestant religion Scot McKnight social media technology theology twitter United Church of Christ United Methodist worship

Copyright © 2025 ยท So What Faith, a member of The Faith Growth Digital Ministry Network