Common Ground – Pastors and Politicians

Listened to a Catalyst podcast this morning – an interview with Gov Mike Huckabee about leadership. Interesting and informative.

Gov Huck said serving as a Baptist pastor in his 20’s & 30’s helped prepare him for politics b/c there are 4 things required to be a successful pastor that are also key for success in politics.

1. Message. Pastors and politicians must have a clear and compelling message.

2. Motivate. Churches and political campaigns both depend on large numbers of volunteers, so pastors and politicians must be able to recruit and motivate volunteers.

3. Media. Having a compelling message that no one hears accomplishes nothing, so pastors and politicians must use every means available to get their message to as many people as possible. Traditional media, plus blogs, podcasts, texts, tweets (mssg on twitter)…

4. Money. Pastors and politicians must be able to raise money to fund their organizations and their vision.

(The 4M words are a dead give away that Gov Huck was a Baptist pastor in a former life. Seminary sermon outlines - the same yesterday, today, forever.)

I am Steve Murrell and I approve of Huck’s Catalyst message.

***New post on the accidental missionary site: "two roads & tough decisions - watch the office or watch & pray?" 

Comments

[Dave Tang]

hey Pastor Steve, big fan of your blog - how come you don't list your "book's i'm reading" anymore? i get ideas from it and i cross reference it to other pastoral blogs :) sorry this comment is unrelated to the huckabee post but i didn't see a place for general blog feedback.

[Jameel Yaqub]

I find it a little disconcerting that none of the 4M's talk about relationship. I would have thought that relationships and being able to relate to people is important for both pastors and politicians.

Unfortunately I may be cynical but I think a 5th 'M' that is sometimes used by both pastors and politicians is Manipulation. I pray that this is not true of any of our pastors. Somehow I am less optimistic about our politicians!

[Dave Hess]

I love the Catalyst podcast. I'll have to check out that one with Gov. Huckabee. I listened to the one they did with him a while back and it was really interesting.