The Ultimate Aim of Pastoral Overisght

In any task one must keep in view the ultimate end or purpose. This is true for pastoral ministry as well. In the final assignment for my pastoral ministry class I always ask students to state the ultimate aim of pastoral ministry. Richard Baxter provides a good answer to this question:

“The ultimate end of our pastoral oversight is … to please and to glorify God. It is also to see the sanctification and holy obedience of the people under our charge. To nurture our people’s unity, order, beauty, strength, preservation, and increase must be our task. It is the right worshipping of God. This means that before a man is capable of being a true pastor of a church, he must have a high esteem of these objectives. He must make them the great and only end of his own life” – Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor, 68

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