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Editor’s note: This column was written by a member of the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention’s Shepherds Collective. For more information, visit sbtexas.com/networks/shepherds-collective.
I’m a pastor, and I’ve struggled with pride. Not the loud kind—I’ve never stood in a pulpit and thought I was the greatest preacher alive. But I’ve checked the clicks. I’ve watched how many people viewed our service online. I’ve scrolled the comments looking for something good. I’ve kept a mental tally of how many people stopped me on the way out the door to mention the sermon.
I never said any of that out loud, but I have been guilty of it—and I suspect I’m not alone.
Pastoral pride is rarely loud. It doesn’t announce itself. It slips in quietly and looks a lot like caring about your ministry. It can look like needing people to love your sermons or refreshing your church’s social media page to see how many people shared Sunday’s message. It can look like feeling important when you get invited to the right meetings or measuring your church’s success by whether it’s being talked about around town or the state.
None of those things are wrong on their own. But when they become the scoreboard for whether ministry is going well, something has gotten off track.
Here’s what I’ve come to understand: This kind of pride starts as a way of measuring success, but it eventually shifts our focus. Little by little, it turns the spotlight away from God and onto ourselves. When that happens, we’re pointing the congregation to the wrong person.
The answer isn’t false humility—deflecting compliments, minimizing preparation, or making self-deprecating jokes. It’s found in where we direct our boasting. In 2 Corinthians 10:17, Paul doesn’t say to stop boasting. He says to boast in the right thing: “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
That simple command doesn’t kill our confidence. It relocates it. When our boasting is in Christ, we stop preaching for a response and start preaching because the Word is powerful. We stand on the promise that God’s Word “shall not return to me empty” (Isaiah 55:11). That truth changes how we step into the pulpit and how we walk out of it.
Even on the Sundays when the sermon feels flat, when the room feels distracted, and when no one says anything to us on the way out the door, God still gets the glory. The Word was preached. He will accomplish what He intends. That’s not settling for less. That’s the freedom of preaching to the glory of God alone.
When a pastor learns to boast in Christ, he can take criticism without falling apart. He can rejoice when another church grows without feeling jealous. He can preach to 30 people with the same fire he’d bring to 300. He’s no longer performing. He’s delivering a message for the king who doesn’t need him to be impressive.
So what does this look like in everyday ministry?
- Make it a habit to pray before you look at any feedback—before the comments, before the views, before the compliments. Ask the Lord to make you indifferent to your own glory and hungry for His.
- Preach to your congregation—to the struggling member carrying something heavy that nobody else knows about. Remind them every single week how good God is!
- Find a fellow pastor who will ask you the hard questions—not just, “How was Sunday?” but, “Who were you really preaching for this week?” That kind of accountability is one of the sweetest gifts a pastor can receive.
Brothers, the pulpit is a holy place. It was never meant to showcase us. It was meant to magnify Christ, the only one truly worth boasting about. Let’s keep it that way.
