I'm going to preface my comments with two caveats:
You cannot please all of the people all of the time.
Jesus (and his mother) are not available to be your pastor/priest/minister, so you're getting a fallible and limited human.
Now that I've got those out of the way...
Ministry is diverse. Every person in ministry is unique, with a particular mix of gifts, skills, experience, personality, and so on. And every ministry situation is unique, with particular needs and issues in the congregation and in the local community. My point is, there's no "good priest" cookie cutter, and good ministry varies with the situation and the people involved.
A story; when I was at college, there was a student there who had already been ordained overseas, but had had very limited education, and so was with us to fill in some gaps, as it were. I confess, to my shame, that I tended to unconsciously look down on him as not really being up to the standard of most of the rest of us. One day, he talked about his ministry in the refugee camp he had been in for years; how every day, every single day, his ministry was to conduct funeral after funeral after funeral, back to back. And when the funerals were done, to sit with the families, to listen to them, pray with them, cry with them, before going back to his own tent to collapse. That man may not have had much education, he may not have had even what I took for granted as basic life skills, he didn't fit the mould of what a lot of people would have thought a "good priest" should be. But he loved his people and ministered faithfully for years in a situation that would have broken most other people. And I tell you what, I never looked down on him again; I can only hope to be a fraction as good a priest as he is.
That said, I think there are some basic traits which go deeper than surface matters.
Just off the top of my head (I'm quite happy to explore ideas further), a good pastor/priest:
- Values the gifts and perspectives of everyone in the church community, and makes space for diversity, including those they might personally not like or find easy to get on with, or with whom they disagree.
- Will not avoid necessary conflict, and will not avoid dealing with difficult issues and situations.
- Is willing to listen to the points of view, values, and opinions of those with whom they disagree, and adjust their approach as necessary. (Knows what is - and is not - a hill worth dying on).
- Is willing to be held accountable, to be open to hearing that they have been wrong or interacted poorly with someone, and is willing to apologise and do what is necessary to make amends.
- Is committed to the safety, wellbeing and nurture of the people in their care.
- Understands their role as building up, encouraging, equipping, the people in their church community, and leading them in mission in their context. That is, the focus is on the corporate life and action of the community.
- Has robust boundaries and is not afraid to insist on their own safety and wellbeing, and that of their family/household. Respects their family members as people in their own right and does not use them as props or unpaid labour in their ministry.
- Is committed to ongoing learning (professional development), collegial collaboration, and has some process (be it a supervisor, mentor, spiritual director or other) for reflecting on their own ministry.
- Has a reasonable understanding of group dynamics and how to work with groups, including sharing leadership and power.
- Can cope with, manage, and initiate change.
In many ways the question of what a pastor should be to the local church is very context-dependent. Some churches will set that out in a contract or constitution or other governing document. Others will have a more informal set of cultural expectations. What I will say is that one thing I experience is something of a culture clash; in the last - let's say fifty years - the world and the church have changed enormously, the demands on people in ministry have changed enormously, but many people in the congregation don't see a lot of that, and still expect ministers to do what Fr. So-and-so (of sainted memory) did decades ago (usually far more pastoral visiting than most of us manage now). It's a source of some ongoing tension, and goes back to my first point... you cannot please all of the people all of the time!
