Pastoral ambition

This post is from the defunct blog "Dying Church"

From Leadership Blog: Out of Ur: Pastoral Ambition: Does success chip away at our souls?:

I am convinced that personal pastoral ambition, and a pastoral ethic centered around productivity and success is brutal to our souls and destructive to the souls of the people we lead. I believe there is a better way. But it requires us to walk right into the messiness of our own ambitious hearts, ready to die to those ambitions. We must become skilled at detecting the odor of personal ambition, then flee from it as if the church's future depends on it. For I believe it does.