Thom S. Rainer's Blog, page 43

The Taxing Consequences of Constant Urgency for Pastors and Church Leaders

“Pastor, I’ve got to show you something.” Sunday mornings come with various tasks, but I could tell by his tone that I needed to stop what I was doing and follow him. The longtime church member guided me down the stairs to our education area below the sanctuary. He pointed at the door.

“Do we have another leak?” I asked.

“No, but it’s just as significant. Every single doorstop in the church is not to code. They will all need replacements.”

I stood with this kind and caring church member, looking at doorstops. In his mind, they were both urgent and significant. They were neither. What did I do? I listened to his concerns and then walked into the worship service. In this case, his urgent concern was not malicious. But that’s the problem. People mean well when they call you into urgency.

The Taxing Consequences of Constant Urgency

You become a reactive leader when you give the bulk of your attention to urgent matters. Little flare-ups always exist. Urgent church leaders reactively move from one to the next. When you set the right priorities, you can discern the dangerous fires with the potential to affect everyone. There are several taxing consequences of constant attention to urgent matters.

The pace of requests is frenzied and unpredictable. Pastors and church leaders receive endless requests for information and guidance. These requests range from the vitally important to the mundane. They come in the form of authorizations for critical ministry decisions or non-essential matters of church facility operations. The difficulty arises when the leader becomes so inundated with requests that he or she can no longer discern what is primary, secondary, tertiary, or totally imprudent. In this scenario, the leader ends up fixing the squeakiest wheel.

The substance of the work is disjointed. The sheer variety of tasks involved in ministry can become daunting. Church leaders will go from counseling someone on serious personal issues to calling the air conditioner repairman. The disjointed nature of ministry work can make the leader lose sight of the true vision of the church.

The work can become reactive. Sometimes pastors and church leaders can feel more like firefighters than gospel workers. They react to “fires” in the church because of the gravitational pull of immediate needs. Some situations require leaders to put a hold on everything. The problem, however, surfaces when this reactive management mode overtakes and detracts from the proactive planning necessary for leading God’s church.

Decision-making and planning can become too incremental. Rarely are decisions in the church made cleanly and distinctly within a specific timeframe. Instead, decisions evolve over time and across many segments of the church. In addition, prolonged decision-making can become an emotional drag on a leader. As a result, the leader spends an excessive amount of time managing and assuaging the emotions of others.

The Difference Between What Is Urgent and What Is Significant

Urgent matters require immediate attention. When you hear a child scream, you feel a sense of urgency. Is it a broken arm? Or did another child grab the toy? The only way to discern the nature of the scream is to give attention to the matter. In the church, pastors and church leaders can bounce between urgent concerns and never get to what is most significant. The tyranny of the urgent has a real effect on church leadership because people lack self-awareness that their issue is less significant than someone else’s problem. Everyone wants attention now.

Significant priorities often get delayed because tending to urgent matters takes an emotional toll. Can something be both urgent and significant? Yes, but such convergence does not happen often. Urgency implies immediacy, while significance tends to have longer-term effects.

In The Church Revitalization Checklist, I dedicate an entire chapter to setting the right priorities. When priorities are neglected, the church creates an unhealthy culture of fragile resiliency. Many churches are simultaneously fragile and resilient. Every Sunday can feel like the precipice of disaster. Yet the same church survives year after year, decade after decade. Struggling churches tend to maintain constant tension between fragility and resiliency. It’s the perpetual state of not quite dying.

This feeling of suspended animation creates a climate in which church members learn to survive but never thrive. On the other hand, the organizational culture has just enough momentum and life to get to the following Sunday, the next month, and the next year. So many churches seem to be hanging on by their fingernails, but those fingernails prove to be incredibly strong.

Want more helpful resources on this subject? Check out “ How To Discern The Top Of Your Priority List ,“ “The Church Revitalization Checklist: Part Two of Three: Tending to What Is Most Important in Church Revitalization,” and Church Answers Membership .

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7 Mistakes Some Young Leaders and Pastors—and Older Ones, Too—Make

I’ve been a seminary professor for 26+ years, and I’ve mentored young leaders and pastors most of those years. I’ve watched young leaders do really well as they started ministry, but I’ve also seen many face struggles really quickly. My conclusions are anecdotal, but here are some of the most common mistakes I’ve seen young pastors make:

1. Trying to change too much too quickly. They see a need—one they see as obvious—and they assume everyone else in the church sees what they see. “Surely everyone will be ready for a quick change,” they think. They’re often wrong.

2. Focusing almost exclusively on preaching, to the neglect of pastoral care. Preaching must indeed be a priority, but I’ve seen young pastors retreat to the office, focus almost exclusively on study, and spend little time with the church family. They then find themselves preaching to a people they don’t really know.

3. Enacting church discipline quickly even if the church has not done discipline in decades. I agree that local churches need to give more attention to the discipline of wayward members. That we need to do it is not in question, but how and when we do it matter. When we do it quickly without adequate education and preparation of the congregation, the church often pays a price.

4. Being impatient with undiscipled church leaders. Many churches have wrongly placed members in leadership who have been faithful in attendance and giving, but who have never truly been discipled. They remain baby believers trying to lead other baby believers—and young, idealistic pastors sometimes seek to correct that problem before helping the church understand the problem.

5. Giving too little attention to “Senior Saints.” It’s natural for young leaders to gravitate toward other young singles, couples, and families, and there’s nothing wrong with that general direction. The problem comes when the young pastor gives little time to those who have often paid the bills and kept the doors open.

6. Giving up too quickly. It’s seldom easy to change overnight what has been ingrained in the church for decades. Young leaders, however, are often accustomed to a microwave world where everything ought to be quick—including church change. They get frustrated with the slow pace of change and often leave a church too soon. The problem is that they don’t recognize their departure was speedy until after they’ve left.

7. Assuming they would never fall morally. I’ve seen some young leaders fall before they ever got started in ministry – but none of them assumed it would ever happen to them. They were convinced they would not fall into traps that have taken down other leaders. Again, some gifted young leaders have been wrong.

I have focused on young leaders with this post, but older leaders and pastors sometimes make the same mistakes. None of us is immune from making bad choices or moving in unhealthy directions. Based on your own experiences, what would you add to this list? 

 

Want more helpful resources on this subject? Check out Leading Change When Nobody Wants It by Sam Rainer , Five Things Older Pastors Would Tell Their Younger Selves , and Church Answers Membership

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The Canary in the Churches’ Coal Mines: Financial Warnings to Heed

Those poor dead canaries.

For decades beginning in the early 1900s, coal miners would take canaries in a cage with them as they descended into the darkened mines. The canaries were highly sensitive to carbon monoxide, much more so than humans are. The carbon monoxide gas is colorless and odorless, and humans typically only have mild symptoms at first. The lethal fumes can take the life of a person quickly, often without warning.

The coal miners would thus watch the canaries as they moved more deeply into the mines. If a canary suddenly realized its expiration date, the miners would move quickly out of the mine. They had received an early warning that saved their lives.

The process of sacrificial canaries was so helpful in Britain that some miners continued to use the birds until 1986, when British legislation mandated that the miners had to replace their canaries with more effective electronic carbon monoxide detectors.*  The detectors were much more efficient and accurate.

I am sure the canaries were grateful as well.

The Financial Early Warning Signs for Churches

We at Church Answers have the advantage of working with several hundred churches each month. As we coach their leaders, consult with their congregations, and respond to their questions, we began to notice that a small but increasing number of churches were seeing an unexpected decline in financial gifts.

“Unexpected” is the key word. There was not a significant loss of members. There was no widespread unemployment in the community. As one pastor told us, “The decline seemed to come out of nowhere.”

As we continue to pursue understanding this plight, we are becoming more confident that inflation is the primary challenge. Church members have fewer discretionary dollars because their normal expenses are increasing, sometimes dramatically. Many businesses owned or run by church members are seeing declines in sales. They too have fewer dollars to spend as they like.

The canary just died.

Responding with Faith and Wisdom

Of course, the reaction of church leaders should be one of faith rather than panic. We serve a Risen Savior who is Lord of all, including our economy. But we should also respond with wisdom. If we are anticipating a financial drought, we need to ask what we can be putting in our literal and figurative storehouses.

At the very least, we encourage church leaders to have a “plan B” budget. For example, in addition to your regular budget planning, you could ask the question, “What would our budget look like if we have a 20 percent decline in giving?” The percentage would obviously be different in different contexts, but the exercise would be similar from congregation to congregation.

Is the Decline a Certainty?

The simple answer is “no.” We are not omniscient. Indeed, we predicted a steep decline in giving during the pandemic quarantine, but it never happened in most churches. Our government injected liquidity into the economy through subsidies, bailouts, and tax rebates. We were able to get through the potentially rough financial times as a result.

We don’t think the financial and political environment is favorable for future government subsidies, certainly not to the level that we saw during the pandemic. Indeed, the purpose of increasing rates is to slow down the economy. Inflation is a growth killer. It seems to be working.

Watching the Canaries

It is a time for watchfulness rather than anxiety. It is a time to trust God while using the wisdom He gave us to make the right decisions.

Church Answers will continue to monitor this financial matter and report any developments to you promptly. Indeed, we will let you know the next time a canary dies.

 

* “The Canary in the Coal Mine Isn’t Ancient History” by Kiona N. Smith. Forbes. December 31, 2019.

 

Want more helpful resources on this subject? Check out Know Your Budget report, and “ Six Prudent Practices to Prepare Your Church Budget for a Potential Economic Recession .”

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Leading Wounded: Dealing with Church Hurt, Disappointment, and Despair as a Leader

I’m sure you’ve heard it said, “Ministry would be great if it weren’t for the people.”
It is a pithy statement loaded with stories of wounds, conflict, and misunderstandings to try to rationalize the reality of church hurt.

Church hurt happens all across the board between staff, pastors and members, and within small groups. As you read this you probably have a handful of faces that are coming to mind where something was said, a decision was made, or the neglect or lack of response to a situation resulted in a broken relationship, awkward stare, or maybe even the decision to leave a church all together.

With statistics growing larger for those who are leaving the Church and leaders who are quitting the ministry due to burn out and exhaustion we have to ask the questions: “How do we deal with church hurt?” and “In what ways can we make sure that we as leaders are processing our own hurt?”

A 3-point blog is in no way going to heal the losses and pains that you have endured, but I hope that in acknowledging and recognizing what so many leaders are carrying right now, we can begin to take steps toward health and healing. 

Grieve What Is Broken

Pete Scazzero says that “Good leaders are good grievers.” This concept was revolutionary to me as a leader several years ago. I often approached my disappointment in church like I did in my softball days where I would get hit by a ball, and though painful and sudden, I would walk it off and keep pressing on for the sake of the game. I was doing the same in my ministry. I would avoid, act like the words or situation wouldn’t phase me, and keep doing the next thing. What I didn’t realize was how much hurt, pain, and rejection I was carrying around in ministry and perspective toward God and His church. The staff departures, the gossip and betrayal, the isolation and the crushing feeling of members leaving the church were all wounds that I had endured but not grieved. 

I love the example David gives us in the Psalms of wrestling out all of the injustices, hurt, and emotion that come with leading. As leaders we often have a tendency to brush it off and rationalize it as “part of the job” but if we don’t humbly and transparently take all our disappointments, failures, and injustices to the God who sees, knows, and cares, we run the risk of leading out of our hurt.

Pray and Reflect

One of my consistent prayers as a leader is, “God keep my heart tender and my skin thick.” The hard parts of ministry and life usually are used by God to unearth the false identities and comforts that I tend to cling to other than God himself. The temptation for a wounded leader is to puff up in self reliance and protection, but it is through the work of the Spirit that we are shown where our blind spots are revealed, compassion is birthed, and dependence is deepened.

Psalm 23 is a picture of God as our Great Shepherd who leads us, cares for us, and restores our soul. If we aren’t willing to trust God for His work in our own lives we can not lead people to Him in their times of struggle and brokenness. The same God you teach and preach about who restores is the same God who desires the same for you. Not so that you can lead better or wiser, but because you are His child and He wants you to know and experience Him.

Fight for The Bride

Jackie Hill Perry once said, “What healed my church hurt, was the Church.” 

When I am facing hard seasons I think of these words often. I believe in the Church because it is God’s mission to be a light in the midst of darkness and hope in the midst of despair. I believe in the Church not because of what I think I can accomplish or how I can fix her, but because it has been God’s plan from the very beginning of time to image His love, justice, and redemption to all people. The privilege of watching Him work, move, and redeem what is broken in me and in those I lead and minister to is the primary motivation of my ministry. With this truth we have to choose to fight for the Church – for her purity, her righteousness, her love, and for a focused mission.

My heart breaks and goes out to so many leaders in this season. I have heard story after story of leaders feeling disposable, division ripping apart faith families, and the deep despair of depression and hopelessness. So many of us are leading from empty souls wondering if we will make it through this season, and my hope and encouragement for all of us is that we recognize our deep need for our Father in these moments. 

I’m praying for all of you wounded leaders right now. Though like Jacob you may walk with a limp, you are a physical reminder to those around you of seeing God face-to-face. I’m praying for you to sit and wrestle out your grief, that you drink deeply of His goodness and righteousness, and that you are able to stand firmly in grace.

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Increase Your Ability to Listen with These Three Easy Questions

If you’re not listening well, then you’re not leading well. In the church, listening is essential because of spiritual growth. How can you guide someone to being more like Christ if you don’t listen carefully to what they say?

I know I can be guilty of thinking of my next sentence as someone speaks. Just because you’re not cutting people off while they speak doesn’t mean you are listening.

Even when you are listening actively, with the best intentions, you can still miss important cues and information. Not only should you carefully listen to what is said, but you should also listen for what is not said. Sometimes what church members don’t say is as crucial as what they say. Three questions can help you discern if anything significant is not being said.

1. What is avoided? Let’s assume you’re discussing a sensitive issue with two people, one in which an obvious offense exists, but neither of them mentions it. Instead, they talk around the issue. The fact they are avoiding the issue and not discussing it is more telling than the ancillary items they bring up. Also, you should take notice when people hesitate. You might ask someone what you believe to be a benign question, but then the person hesitates in responding. Hesitations should cause you to think there might be something deeper there.

2. What is unknown? Pastors are often the first to know about an occurrence in the church or the last to know. The tone of a group in the church will change, and you won’t know why. They will be unusually sad, unusually happy, or just different. Often, there is something unknown to you. Simply asking what’s occurring will many times lead to an answer.

3. What is hidden? Yes, people hide things, even your closest confidants. When church members confess sin, they rarely confess everything at once. Rarely do conspiracy theories pan out to be accurate, but sometimes people do have hidden agendas. You should remain alert to the assumptions of others.

You should not attempt to “read between the lines” in every conversation. Only paranoid pastors think there’s a hidden agenda in everything. But careful and shrewd leaders grow to appreciate and learn what they don’t know. To gain this understanding, you must learn to listen to what is not being said.

 

Want to learn more about this subject? Check out these resources: “ Listening When You Can’t Possibly Hear Everyone ” by Sam Rainer, Church Answers Silver

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Church Leaders’ Frustration with Sunday Sports: Five Considerations

“If our members did not let their kids play on travel leagues or Sunday sports, our attendance would increase by 25 percent.” 

A pastor in Texas said that to me just one week ago. I’ve heard that sentence or similar sentences countless times. Sunday used to be the day for church and only a few other businesses. Now Sunday is a day for almost anything and everything. And church leaders are often frustrated that some of their most committed members are among those whose children are in Sunday sports. 

Let’s look at the issue as objectively as possible. I get the angst. When I served as a pastor many years ago, we would lose one-fourth of our attendance when members and their extended families went on a weekend camping excursion twice a year. I immaturely dreaded preaching to the more vacuous room on those frustrating days.

Here are five considerations. I would love to hear your perspectives as well.

1. Many members are less committed to the church today. From the second chapter of Acts to the third chapter of Revelation, that entire part of the New Testament is either to the local church, about the local church, or written in the context of the local church. The local church is God’s plan A for His mission on earth until Jesus returns, and He did not give us a plan B. Sadly, many church members view the gathered church as just another activity from which to choose. Sometimes sports win. Sometimes sleeping in wins. And sometimes, taking a day off wins. By the way, what do you call a church member who attends only once a month? An elder (or deacon). Yes, that was my weak attempt at humor.

2. Churches expect less today than they did a few decades ago. It’s not just that members are less committed; churches have lowered the bar of biblical expectations of what it means to be a part of the body of Christ. It’s analogous to a wedding ceremony where the groom tells the bride that he loves her, but that he does not plan to spend much time with her. We have dumbed down church membership in many of our churches. We don’t even expect our members to spend time with the bride of Christ.

3. Cultural norms have changed. Have you ever heard of “blue laws”? Those were real laws of cities, counties, and states that restricted most businesses from opening on Sundays. I grew up with those laws. You either went to church or hid in your home so no one would know you weren’t in church. The culture was largely pro-church and pro-Christian then. Yes, the times have changed. But we can’t blame culture for our low-commitment churches. The problem is best seen in the mirror.

4. Churches have adapted to cultural changes in the past. It is likely that Sunday morning worship times, particularly the sacrosanct (at least for a season) 11 am service, was an accommodation to an agricultural society. Get the farm chores done, then go to church. Do we leaders in churches need to reconsider our times and days? Is there anything heretical about offering a Thursday night service in addition to the Sunday morning service? Are we being too rigid with our own schedules? Should we consider accommodating the Sunday sports schedules at least part way?

5. The frustration has been exacerbated by COVID. Since the quarantine and re-opening of churches, attendance has fallen by a median of 20 percent. It feels like we lost one of five members and attendees overnight. In reality, we did lose them! Now, when those three kids are playing soccer, softball, and flag football on Sunday morning, we really get frustrated. There are even fewer people gathered for worship than before. 

I doubt we will solve this challenge with this short article. But I would really like to hear from you. Does your church have the Sunday sports challenge? Are you trying to address it positively? If so, what are you doing?

Let me hear from you.

 

Want to learn more about this subject? Check out these resources: The Complete Membership Class Toolkit , I Am a Christian , “The Once-a-Month Churchgoers Are Becoming More Common” by Thom S. Rainer.

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The Art (and Science) of the First-Time Guest Follow-Up Phone Call

In previous posts, I talked about the importance of following up with first-time guests (FTGs), and seven ways to structure your follow up process. Today: the phone call. If you’ve determined you should make one, what’s the best way to do so? I have five tried-and-true methods that have served me well over the years:

1. Redeem your otherwise-wasted time.

“I just don’t have any more margin to add something to my calendar!” Yes you do. It’s your daily commute, and you can trade off the time you’d listen to podcasts by investing in your guests. The Monday and Tuesday afternoon commutes are usually my go-to times for guest follow up. Typically, I’m catching guests at times they’re also in the car, so it’s a win-win for both of us.

2. Use the etiquette your mama gave you.

Identify who you are and what you do early in the phone call. “My name is ___ and I’m one of the staff members at ___ Church” will build an immediate bridge with someone who just visited your church. (It also sets you apart from telemarketers.)

Ask if this is a convenient time to talk. Sometimes the background noise or stress in their voice will answer that question. If it’s not a good time, ask when would be, and then make sure you call back as promised.

Focus the conversation on them and not you. ‘Nuff said.

3. Keep it short.

My goal is two minutes for the phone call, unless the guest is carrying the conversation and wants to talk longer. I have four things I want to cover:

A personal thanks for their visit. That “thank you” goes a long way.“How was your experience?” This question opens lots of doors to the good and bad of their visit.A chance for them to ask questions. 98% of the time, our guests don’t have any, but this gives them the opportunity.An invitation to a next step. For us, this is our newcomers class called Starting Point. For you, it may simply be a return visit next weekend.

4. Voicemail is your friend.

In the last post I shared that on the first day of follow up calls, I will typically have 80% of my calls go to voicemail. However, if I leave a message and promise to follow up the next day at the same time, I will then get an 80% answer rate. So leave that voicemail…and follow up.

5. Make notes.

I’ll toggle back and forth between phone calls and my voice memo app in order to make sure I’m keeping good information. “Bob was invited by his co-worker Jerry. He’s lived here for a month and is actively looking for a church. His wife and kids are moving here in a few weeks.” That info will go into that person’s profile on our database, so that any other pastor can get up to speed when necessary.

I don’t like to admit this, but as one who doesn’t love talking on the phone, I’ve often said that the five minutes before making follow-up calls are the five most dreaded minutes of my week. But five minutes after the call, I’m always reminded that there’s no better investment of my time.

___________________

This post originally appeared on dfranks.com .

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Pastors with Initiative Build Healthier Church Relationships

Leadership requires initiative. Healthy relationships require initiative. You’re the leader as the pastor. You must take the initiative, especially with relationships in the church. Many pastors rigorously protect their study time in God’s Word. The same intensity should apply to personal relationships.

Will you intimately know every person in your congregation? Of course not. Neither will you know every nuance of every passage in Scripture. But you still make the time to study a specific passage for your sermon preparation. The same initiative that applies to the study of Scripture also applies to relationships in the church. Pastors who take the initiative build more relational bridges in the congregation.

Don’t wait for others to invite you to a meal. You should reach out to people. Invite them to Sunday lunches with your family. Have members over for dinner at your home once or twice a month. Meet key leaders for early coffee or breakfast before work. Don’t have an agenda for these meals. Simply get to know people. It will build relational capital. More importantly, it’s biblical.

When you have an awkward moment with someone, call them. Pastors use a lot of words, especially lead pastors. You speak, preach, pray, and guide meetings. The sheer volume of words used by pastors means people will misunderstand you, and you will unknowingly misstate your intentions. When you have an awkward moment with someone, call them. Take the initiative to clarify what was spoken. Don’t assume people will figure it out or forget. Clarity is critical to the health of relationships, and you have to take the lead to obtain it.

When you don’t know someone, introduce yourself. Wallflowers are not leaders. Pastors do not have the luxury of hiding in the corners of crowded rooms. Take every opportunity to make an introduction with someone you do not know.

Be the main greeter before and after worship services. Worship services are the perfect opportunities to build relationships. The majority of the church tends to be on campus for worship. Handshakes, hugs, and smiles are quick but powerful reminders that you care for people.

Text people when you pray for them. This one is simple. When you pray for someone, take the extra ten seconds to tell them! Your initiative could brighten someone’s day at just the moment needed.

Hand-write thank you notes. Write a few letters weekly to people in the church who went above and beyond with their service. Five notes a week will yield 260 personal communications—many of which your congregation will keep in a desk drawer or box to be pulled out occasionally and read again. The initiative to write these notes speaks volumes about your passion to care for people.

When someone implies they are struggling, ask them about it. I’ve noticed few people will explicitly state they are struggling. Usually, they speak in a couched tone or with veiled words. When you can tell they are hurting, ask them about it. Rarely will people be offended. Their reserved posture is more of a cry for help than a desire to hide something.

To love Jesus is to feed His sheep. This effort takes initiative, especially within the context of relationships in the church.

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10 Changes Many Pastors Need to Make to Strengthen Evangelism in Our Churches

We at Church Answers have a growing burden to help church leaders and congregations do evangelism in a rapidly changing world. As a pastor and professor, though, I know many of us need to make some changes to take this lead in our churches:

1. Ask God to deepen our personal burden for lost people. If we’re honest, many of us have lost some of our heaviness about lostness and eternal judgment. We need our theology to compel us outward again.

2. Take responsibility for leading our church to do evangelism. As I’ve said before, I have never, in more than 25 years of studying churches, seen an evangelistic congregation without an evangelistic pastor. Evangelism starts with the person in the pulpit week after week.

3. Enlist prayer warriors to pray Ephesians 6:18-20 and Colossians 4:2-4 for us. The apostle Paul requested prayer for boldness, clarity, and opportunity in evangelizing others—including jailors who arrested him in the first place. If Paul needed this prayer support, we pastors do, too.

4. Raise up others to help do pastoral care. We need to be doing this anyway as we equip saints to share the work of ministry, but we especially need to do this if we want to lead the way in evangelism. Ministry to believers can consume all our time if we do it alone.

5. Get outside the office to be among non-believers. Most of us have to build this time intentionally into our calendars. If you take this step, be sure to let your church know what you’re doing so they can pray for you and follow your example.

6. Focus on reaching 2-3 non-believers. Cry out for their salvation (Rom 10:1). Fast on their behalf. Grieve their sin more than they may grieve their own. Trust the Lord wants to save them—and press on evangelistically in faith.

7. Build evangelism mentoring into our ministries. Evangelism training programs are important, but this kind of training starts best in small groups. We can light a fire for evangelism in our congregations by striking the match with just a few members.

8. Lead our congregations to emphasize prayer by name for believers to be witnesses and for non-believers to follow Christ. We can pray generically, “God, make us evangelists and call others to Yourself,”—but a nameless burden is really no burden at all. We pray with the most passion when we can name people who need Jesus.

9. Hold ourselves accountable to other church leaders for our evangelism. That might be other elders, deacons, lay leaders, or even other pastors in the area – but be accountable to someone. What we do as pastors matters.

10. Start today. If you read this post and consider changing something later, it’s likely nothing will change. Do something today.  

Pastors, what might you add to this list?

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You Are My Pastor

You are my pastor.

You spend hours each week preparing a message for me.

You are faithful each week, even if life has been tough for you.

 

You are my pastor.

You told me about a Savior named Jesus.

I accepted him, and my life has been changed forever.

 

You are my pastor.

I woke you up at 1:00 am to tell you my son was in a terrible automobile accident.

You were sitting next to me in the hospital within an hour.

 

You are my pastor.

You were there for me when my marriage was on the rocks.

I never thanked you for the hours you spent with both of us.

 

You are my pastor.

I asked you to pray for me, and you did.

I got a glimpse of your prayer list with so many names on it.

 

You are my pastor.

I criticized you for something you did not deserve.

I realized I was one of the many criticisms you get every month.

 

You are my pastor.

I saw the hours you invested in that family.

They ended up leaving the church because they “weren’t getting fed.”

 

You are my pastor.

I see the exhaustion on your face regularly.

You are trying to meet the needs of your own family and your church family.

 

You are my pastor.

You recently preached at the funeral of one of your close friends.

I saw the tears you tried to hide as you ministered to the family.

 

You are my pastor.

I am amazed at how you love the members of our church.

You will laugh with a child, and you will hug a senior saint without a second thought.

 

You are my pastor.

This week you took a new family in town to lunch.

You love reaching people outside the walls of our church.

 

You are my pastor.

You could have taken another line of work with higher pay and shorter hours.

But you decided to answer a calling rather than accept a job.

 

You are my pastor.

I rarely say thank you or tell you how much I appreciate you.

But I do. I really do love you and appreciate you.

 

You are my pastor.

 

And I thank God that you are.

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