Encourage Your Local Pastor
I guy I don’t know named Curt Hendley wrote me an email a couple of weeks back—just before I went on vacation—which read thusly:
I’m writing to you and other blogging pastors because I have a question only a pastor can answer. I’ve been growing increasingly aware of how difficult the job of pastor can be. I know that pastors often receive a lot more criticism than encouragement, and that can lead to all sorts of bad feelings. I think, though, that most congregations truly love their pastors but don’t understand how much encouragement is needed or how to practically provide that encouragement. I also think that pastors are generally and understandably reluctant to ask for such encouragement or display any human weakness at all.
I personally love my pastor, and I’m keenly aware of many things that beat him down in his ministry. Most of those things are entirely out of my control or influence. I would like to provide encouragement to him myself and incite others to do so as well. But I know enough to know that I have no idea exactly what issues a pastor faces that members of the congregation could alleviate. I just don’t know what to do or how to go about providing the most effective encouragement for him.
My request to you is that you respond with a blog post (or a link to a post if you’ve already written one) listing some practical ways a congregation can encourage their pastor.
Curt says he’ll post all responses at his website. I promised him I’d post when I got back, and so allow me a few words:
1. Be a friend to your pastor. For whatever reason, there seem to be few folks who really feel comfortable just hanging out with their pastors like they might with other friends. I’ll use this as an opportunity to say a great “thanks!” to Frank and Jan Dalton, long-time members of my current church, who are moving to North Carolina in a week. Frank and Jan, about as well as anyone I’ve ever had as church members, understand this point: they have been, as well as parishioners, good friends. They aren’t intimidated by THE PASTOR—YIKES! No, they’ve always been the kind of folks who will call us up just to hang out—and there aren’t many who do that, truthfully; at least that’s been my experience. I remember getting mild criticism years ago from someone in a church who felt that we were “playing favorites” with a particular family in our church. The truth of the matter was that we did do a lot of things with this particular couple—because they, like Frank and Jan, would call us up just to hang out. Yes, we did more things with this couple than most in our church—because they asked us much more often than did most (and frankly, we turned them down more than we turned down anyone else—for precisely the same reason!). I like to do normal stuff during my time off—and it’s cool when folks understand that, remove their pastors from whatever silly pedestals they’ve put us on, and invite us to the ballgame/cookout/night of doing nothing but just hangin’…
2. Ask me how I’m doing sometime. Got a guy in my church now who is just great at this, and it means a whole lot to me. We’ll get together 3-4 times a year for nothing in particular, just to grab lunch and shoot the breeze, generally, but he often (not every time, but often) will ask, “how are you doing?” He wants to know how I’m handling the stress and issues of life in ministry, and he’s sincere and helpful. Twila Paris was right: “deep inside this armor, the warrior is a child”.
3. Once in awhile, tell me how something I’ve done has made a difference. I’d trade 20 “that was a good sermon, Pastor” words at the door for one “you know, something you said a few weeks ago stuck with me, and God’s using that to change me”. John said, “I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth”—ditto. Hearing your testimony of spiritual progress/change is music to my ears.
4. Think of the little extras occasionally—at times of the year other than “Pastor Appreciation Month”. Handwritten notes are wonderful…wonderful. Remember milestones. Marking anniversaries of service, particularly “milestone” ones, is a nice touch. A little bit goes a long way with some of these things.
I’m sure I could think of more, and there are other pastors who’ve probably responded with better ideas, but at least these are some that occur to me off the top of my head. Thanks for asking, Curt, and I hope that my words make a difference.
This phrase comes from the 1978 "Jonestown massacre" in which most members of the Peoples Temple cult, blindly following their leader Jim Jones, committed suicide by drinking cyanide-laced Kool-Aid.
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5 Responses to “Encourage Your Local Pastor”
2 Corinthians 3:2-3
“You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.â€
Philippians 2:1-4; 14-16
“Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. …Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.â€
Pats on the back are nice and even needed from time to time. But the thing that brings me the most encouragement and “fulfills my joy†is to see the power of God transforming His people and to know “that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.†That means more to me than any affirmation. Nothing brings me greater joy.
-Don
Don ~ Jun 28, 2005 at 7:44 am
Good words…that fleshes out point 3 a little more fully! And I guess I’d say that “pats on the back” aren’t really what I meant to imply (except maybe in point 4), Don; honestly, I get a good amount of those, and I think most pastors probably do. I do think that sometimes folks are reluctant to view the pastor as a friend. But yeah, I could easily have made point 3 my first point!
Byron ~ Jun 28, 2005 at 7:57 am
THIS POST IS NOT FROM ME…IT IS FROM A LADY, SHERRY, WHO USES WALMART’S INTERNET, AND THUS CANNOT POST TO MY BLOG, BECAUSE MY SPAM FILTER DOESN’T LIKE EVERYDAY LOW PRICES OR SOMETHING…
I’m all for being friends with my pastor and family! I’d be interested to hear your opinion about this: is “shop talk” allowed during “hang time”?
) By that I mean that I love to talk about ministry and theology and many other things that have to do with “church”….and generally speaking when you have a bunch of Christians together hopefully you spend some time talking about those things. But as a pastor, who makes a living this way – if you catch my drift – do you ever want to scream “can’t we just talk about anything other than “church”????!!!
You know as lay people, we should be bi-vocational and be living out our faith at work….so are pastors uni-vocational and they simply never leave work or would they generally rather save the “church” talk for work hours or what????
This may sound like a stupid question, but I’m really serious about this – especially now that we are blessed with a pastor who preaches expositionally and has a heart for world evangelization……………..I always look forward to a good chin wag with him to see what I can learn! But I wouldn’t want to be a bore during “hang time”……..
Sherry ~ Jul 3, 2005 at 5:09 pm
Thanks for asking, Sherry, and good question! One man’s answer, nuanced as it is going to be: I enjoy talking about ministry and church-related topics, and so, in general, talking about these in “hang time” is great. Now…maybe I’d draw a distinction between the “theoretical” and the “mundane”…allow me to pontificate (well, I’m going to anyway, whether you allow it or not…).
“Hang time” isn’t the place to talk about the gripes you have with the nursery workers or the lead guitarist. “Hang time” isn’t the time to get into lobbying the pastor regarding the impending church business conference. “Hang time” isn’t the time to ask about whom it would be good to recruit as new children’s church workers.
Conversely, “hang time” would be a great time to talk about a good Christian book you’ve been reading. It’d be fine to share your concern about how the evangelical church–of which we’re a part–should be responding to the AIDS crisis in sub-Saharan Africa. It’d be cool to pool our ignorance over the Calvinist/Arminian debate during “hang time”. I get a kick out of talking about some of the great topics and issues of our time; I don’t get too jazzed about trying to relax and “hang” amid conversations about the sound system.
Howzat?
Byron ~ Jul 3, 2005 at 5:16 pm