Music pastor skills for your resume and career

In my students, I encourage the development of soft skills such as deep listening, empathy, authenticity, flexibility, integrity, trustworthiness, and a collaborative leadership style. These skills exist alongside commitments to ongoing spiritual formation, self and theological reflection and reflexivity, ongoing education and supervision, and care of the self's physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual parts.

In terms of the hard/technical skills that aid pastors/ministers in carrying out their responsibilities, these would include skills of crisis intervention, conflict resolution & peacebuilding, knowledge and praxis related to racial justice and reconciliation, and knowledge of (and techniques for) addressing some of the following situations: trauma and grief, conflicts in the family (including pre-marital, marital and family interventions), addictions and situations of sexual abuse. In all of this, attention to the intercultural dimension of pastoral caregiving is also extremely important. Clinical Pastoral Education training can also provide some of these "hard" and "soft" skills.

The best way to maximize your salary in pastoral ministries is to not focus on it. Find a job in ministry you love and allow the financial returns to follow a strong work ethic, a recognition and acceptance of your current role, and a consideration of further ones that have more earning potential, but only as they fit the man or woman you are and want to be. One of the biggest mistakes in ministry is leaving a job we love and are effective in to simply earn more money in a different role that we don't like, that doesn't fit our spiritual gifts or experience, and where we quickly lose our joy in the faith and our joy in our pastoral roles.