the primary quality of a pastor

As I take part in search processes for a number of churches, I find myself filling out extensive applications filled with questions. Recently, I was asked the following:

What do you think we should be looking for as the primary quality/characteristic in our next pastor?

I wonder, if you attend church regularly, how would you answer that question? What do you think should be the primary quality or characteristic of your pastor?

Here’s how I replied.

I think you should be looking for his personal holiness and likeness to Jesus.

I don’t think I could say it better than Robert Murray M’Cheyne did over 200 years ago:

“A minister’s life is the life of his ministry . . . In great measure, according to the purity and perfections of the instrument, will be the success. It is not great talents God blesses so much as great likeness to Jesus. A holy minister is an awful weapon in the hand of God.”