In this blog, David Cantillo introduces his book The Compleat Pastor—a discourse on the art of pastoring. The topics include various personal growth principles from the Bible and the business world.
This book is dedicated to pastors who want to grow. The Compleat Pastor defines the job of pastoring as fulfilling the offices of a minister, leader, and manager. To grow as a minister requires greater anointing. This anointing comes from a deeper prayer life and relationship with Jesus. Growing as a leader requires acquiring a more compelling vision about God’s will for the church. Growing as a manager necessitates wisdom from above to organize the church and train leaders.
The Art of Pastoring
When I started our church fifteen years ago, I had no idea that the growth of the church would depend on my leadership and management abilities! I just thought about evangelism, Bible studies, prayer, and having great services. But in fact, the growth of the church depends more on what the pastor does outside of the pulpit than what happens during a church service.
Growing as a leader requires acquiring a more compelling vision about God’s will for the church. Click To TweetI learned the hard way that I needed to know about leadership and management. For leadership, I needed a clear vision for the church and a specific strategy. For management, I needed to consider organization and how to train leaders. It did not matter if we had a blowout service if people did not know what to do or how to work together as a body.
For example, the functioning of the church as a body depends on the emotional intelligence of the pastor. Researchers have shown that our effectiveness in leading groups successfully depends on our EQ (emotional quotient) more than our IQ. Emotional quotient has been defined as our ability to identify and moderate our emotions, as well as identifying and moderating our emotional responses in personal and professional relationships. The book introduces this concept and provides resources for further study.
In summary, The Compleat Pastor shares lessons learned in the areas of ministry, leadership, and management in a direct and concise manner.
Bio: David Cantillo grew up in a pastor’s home. From a young age he ran as far away from pastoring as he could until God convinced him otherwise. He followed his earthly passion for chemistry to an advanced degree and enjoyed a few years of work in industry and academia. Then a heavenly passion led him to evangelistic and pastoral work as a bivocational minister. He obtained a master’s degree in counseling to improve his skills as a helper. David is married, the father of three great children, and resides in Tampa, Florida, where he continues the work of pastoring a growing multicultural congregation.
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