Here is a guest post from Matthew Winters. He is a pastor who has his own blog site: Honest Thoughts From a Pastor He talks about thoughts that pastors may have but are not always open to talking about. As a former pastor I have seen what he talks about, along with seeing it just as a member of a church. This article was originated on his site and was posted with his permission.
I remember my first memory of a pastor – It was Pastor Alan Moor at Alexander Baptist Church in Portsmouth, Virginia. He was a thin, older man from Tennessee, and his accent gave it away. I remember him to be a passionate preacher. Pastor Moor was what some might call the epitome of a conservative Southern Baptist preacher in the 1980s. I remember him pounding the pulpit with an injured wrist. He would be one of many I would remember through the years.
When I started attending the United Methodist Church my Dad grew up attending, the personalities were much different. You were hard-pressed to hear any hell-fire and brimstone preaching. Many of the pastors read their pre-ordered sermons and would insert their personal illustrations into them.
Then came what I would consider the epitome of the minister – the Reverend Eric Camden, as portrayed by Stephen Collins, in the long running TV show “7th Heaven”. Reverend Camden was there for everyone. Whether the person attended the church or happened to be coming through the Glen Oak community, they were met with compassion and care from the Reverend. When I was called into ministry, I set out to have that same level of compassionate care. I was in for the shock of my life when I discovered that seminaries weren’t focusing much on pastoral care, and the upcoming generation of preachers had a different focus. I will talk more about that in a moment.
Before I talk about the common struggles of pastors, I want to go ahead and get this discussion out of the way – the one to which most pastors deflect – the critical spirit of people in the pew. It is true that some people, inside and outside the church, will never be pleased by anything a pastor does. When I pastored a church, the people I visited sometimes weekly never found it to be enough. I know some people who hate anyone who is a preacher. Now they love the pastors on television whom they have never met. They will tell you so many great things about the pastor whose church they would attend every time the doors were open if they lived on the other side of the country. Some people will never be satisfied with the ministry of a pastor, and I would dare say they would never be satisfied if that pastor were Jesus Himself.
Now that I have the typical argument out of the way, I want to talk about the flaws and issues I have observed in pastors, including some of my personal flaws. I am not going to shoot arrows at other pastors without first acknowledging my own faults. I may or may not specifically call myself out in the upcoming paragraphs, but I will nevertheless relate to some of these.
Some pastors have a single-focus ministry. The things to which I alluded earlier are the two focal points I have seen among up and coming pastors – the single focus is either expository preaching or it is growing a church (more truthfully known as building a name for oneself or building an impressive résumé). There is nothing wrong with expository preaching. It keeps pastors from taking scripture out of context. It has become a god to some pastors. You know it’s a problem when you’ve studied for hours and never once built relationships with the believers in your church or the lost outside your church.
The church growth movement has become a bigger god to pastors. I have to confess I was enamored with that for a moment in time. The largest church I ever served had 500-600 in Sunday morning attendance. I was amazed that I landed a staff position in a church that size at age 22. I left there after six years and went to one that averaged 350 in morning worship. After that, I served churches of 200 or less in attendance and found my favorites were ones with less than 100. The attendance factor has determined many pastoral friendships.
Tribalism has been a thing that makes me gag (and I’m being nice here). In my last pastorate, I attended a pastor’s lunch for a while. I always felt like a misfit. It was comprised of mostly large to megachurch pastors, but it did have a small pool of us lowly, bivocational pastors. We had our own little huddle while the big shots and big shot wannabes had their own tables. I also tried the denominational meetings, and those guys would not give me the time of day with the exception of one association in North Carolina.
Before I sound like I’m going off on these guys, let me tell you the bottom line – pastors are just like everyone else. They have insecurities. They have fears. They have pride issues, family problems, financial problems, addictions, bitterness, unforgiveness, resentment, hurt, and the list goes on. Here is the lie that I hear over and over – “If you’re in the ministry, you’re not supposed to have that.”
Let’s get real, folks! The devil has a big giant target on the backs of everyone on your pastoral staff, and he’s eating some of them for lunch right this very moment. Some of you right now have a pastor who is contemplating suicide this very moment because his church does not have one good thing to say about him. He only hears the criticism of committees and deacons. Some of you have a youth pastor whose wife is sick of the 60 hours a week that he puts in to everyone else but his family and is ready for divorce. Some of you have a discipleship pastor right now who is dealing with a prodigal child and won’t say anything to anyone because his job is on the line, and he knows no one else will hire him. To some, ministry has become an idol. To others, they are fighting hard to keep their jobs because of unrealistic demands. Only Jesus walked on water, with the exception of Simon Peter for a minute.
Pastors are needy people just like you. Sometimes, they are more needy. Have you ever looked at the jacked up bunch handpicked by Jesus Himself to be His disciples?!? If Jesus picked people like that then, He is still choosing those same kinds of people today – men and women who are frail clay pots. These are people who need the love of the body of Christ just like those who are considered “lay people” (I hate that distinction because it’s not biblical, but it is what it is.)
May I challenge you today to pray for that pastor you think is arrogant or too spineless to stand up to the deacons or too scatter-brained to remember what you asked him to do last week? May I challenge you to be a blessing to that pastor even when you’re not feeling it. I never knew spiritual warfare like I’ve known in church ministry positions. Anyone who is serious about living for Christ, whether in vocational ministry or not, is going to face difficulty and opposition from the devil. We are on the same team, folks! It’s time we start acting like it!– Matthew Winters
Photo by Ekaterina Kuznetsova on Unsplash
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