Appreciating and Understanding Your Pastor
For 45 years I’ve served the Lord Jesus in some form of pastoral ministry: Pastor, Associate Pastor, Transitional Pastor, and Interim Pastor. For the last 12 years I’ve had the privilege of coaching individual pastors, facilitating learning experiences for them, and providing leadership training through Compass Coach and Consulting. Your support over the years has allowed me to continue to serve the Body of Christ, I believe, in a meaningful way.
I am so grateful to be currently serving as the Interim Pastor of Bedon Baptist Church in Walterboro, while also continuing to work with other pastors in three South Carolina Baptist Associations. I say this because, even at this stage of my life, I’m still discovering and learning more about the complexities, challenges, and biblical principles of pastoring a local body of believers.
Many churches observe an October Pastor Appreciation month. As a pastor, I’ve appreciated those times when churches have shown their love and support to me and the other pastors and ministers on the church staff. But to appreciate someone or something is more than to be thankful for them. To appreciate someone or something is to value or to regard them highly.
Another dimension of appreciation is to be conscious of or aware of, which carries with it the idea of understanding. It’s like when we tell a member of the armed forces, “I appreciate your service.” We might be expressing mere heartfelt gratitude for their service. However, we might also be expressing a degree of understanding, at least some consciousness of the sacrifices involved in their service to the nation.
Continuing with that analogy, one can appreciate and understand, but only to a degree, what a service member sacrifices to serve our country if one has not also served. Only a person who has gone through the rigors of basic training, been separated from family members and loved ones for extended periods of time, experienced the demands of military life and discipline, been thrust into deadly conflict, and seen the horrors of war can fully appreciate and understand a service member’s life of sacrifice.
This is, of course, true of any walk of life, each with its own set of demands, disciplines, and difficulties. If you’ve never been a lineman during severe weather or after a hurricane, you can’t fully appreciate what that’s like. Elliott was an elementary school teacher for nearly 30 years. I saw both the joys and strains of that noble and selfless work up close, but I never walked a mile in her shoes. My dad was a lawyer, and I even worked for him for a few summers, but I was never a lawyer. I’ve been close to more than a few, needless to say: My father-in-law, my brother, my best friend, and my brother-in-law – all lawyers. But that’s not all! Now I’ve got three nephews practicing law, and the icing on the cake is that my son, Brian, is a lawyer. Still, I can only appreciate and understand that unique calling up to a very elemental point.
Working with pastors as I do, involves me in some very intimate and frank discussions with men who are on the front lines of the spiritual battle in which the church is engaged. What’s so fulfilling for me is that I’m still in the great struggle with, perhaps, a few more skirmishes than most of them. So, when they talk about the challenges they’re facing, the burdens they carry, the wounds they are living with, and both the joys and the sorrows of pastoring the people of God, I have walked a few miles in their shoes! I appreciate and understand their calling and their sacrifice.
One of the things I often hear as these pastors open up in these confidential settings is that the people whom they serve simply can’t understand what life is like as a pastor. And it can be frustrating. But for the most part, they are expressing sympathy rather than resentment toward their people. And they’re right in thinking that way. Nevertheless, speaking as a pastor, I believe that many church members at heart want to appreciate and understand their pastors the best way they can. I believe that most church members would welcome some insight and a better understanding of the life and calling of their pastor. But how?
Over the last several months, I’ve written about the pivotal partnership of prayer between the pastor and his people. This is a partnership of intercessory prayer which I believe to be essential to the ministry and mission of the church. In the coming months, my intent is to write some articles concerning the life and calling of the pastor. These will be articles that will hopefully increase your appreciation and understanding of pastors in general with the hope that it will expand your understanding of your pastor. Why? Because your relationship with your pastor is a vital relationship.
Two of our Founding Fathers who shared a common purpose and close friendship during the American Revolution, later had a political falling out. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson became bitter political rivals in the years after the Revolution. Prompted by another Founding Father, Benjamin Rush, they renewed correspondence with one another. A renewed friendship followed. In one letter, John Adams wrote Jefferson saying, “Before we die we ought to explain ourselves to one another.” And they did.
It is my hope and prayer that these upcoming articles will be along those lines – we as pastors and people explaining ourselves to one another – with the goal of greater appreciation for and understanding of one another for the sake of the Gospel.
Ministry and Family Update:
In a nutshell, the family and the ministry are doing well. Elliott and I are in reasonably good health and with no real complaints. God is good to us, and we’re living in gratitude for His faithfulness. Laura and Joe, like Brian and Brittney, are busy with their careers. The grandchildren are sources of great pride and joy for us. As for the ministry, your prayers and financial support sustain us and constantly encourage us to press on. May God bless you all in his infinite and unfailing love! We are truly grateful for every expression of your partnership in our lives and in our ministry. To God be the glory!