When a pastor truly partners with Jesus, marvelous results can be expected. I had an experience many years ago that inspired my own pastoring style, and it intensified my desire to be a partner with the Lord, Jesus Christ.

I was an intern observing an older worker who had entered the ministry late in life. He was unorthodox. He wasn't articulate. He hadn't studied Christology, the Pauline Epistles, or Greek. Yet, he was very successful as a pastor and evangelist.

This pastor never received a large evangelistic budget, yet he was a steady, annual producer of baptisms. He was never assigned to a large congregation, yet the people he shepherded seemed to love him and were willingly led by him. He always produced the goals set by the conference administration without fanfare.

I remember one year when he unfolded the tent sent by the conference for his summer campaign. It was rotten and fell apart. He pitched the one solid section of the tent and preached night after night. I just knew that no one would attend such a shabby-looking meeting. I was correct, to a degree. Not a single person who thought like me attended.

But there were apparently many folk who did not think like me, and they came in good numbers. They hungered for knowledge of Jesus Christ. I recall that the baptismal count reached 55 precious individuals!

I know that many times we bring our plans to Christ and ask Him to bless them. This dear man spent hours with the Lord, asking Him for a plan. Each time the Lord gave him a plan through inspiration, the partnership was renewed.

Listen, pastor friend. I believe that formal preparation for ministry is more critically important now than at any previous time. Get all of it that you can possibly get. It will make you a better partner for Christ. But if you neglect the heart preparation and development of the total dependence on God that this wonderful pastor had, you will not be a good partner.

In the final accounting, we do not work for goals or baptisms of precious individuals, but for the satisfaction, peace, and sense of accomplishment that comes from having Jesus as our partner. After all, what we really want to hear at the end of our careers is, "Well done, thou good and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord" (Matthew 25:21).