John 2

“24”: But Jesus did not commit himself unto them, because he knew all men,

“25”: And needed not that any should testify of man: for he knew what was in man.

John 5

“44”: How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?

Sometimes, I am amazed at the heartless, unChristlike comments that some share on these blogs.  To condemn some of these pastors who are hurting, or who left the ministry is heartless.  They don’t need cliches or even verses from the Scripture.  Maybe, what they need right now is to know that others care about them.  I am not going through a rough time in ministry right now.  I have before though and I know the cruelty and unChristlike words and actions of the saints.  My heart goes out to those who have shared their hurt and disappointments.  I prayed for you today and asked God to wrap His arms around you and to minister to you.  I have a burden for pastors who have been fired or abused by churches.  We have tried to minister to pastors in our area who have gone through this pain by supplying financial assistance and counseling and an ear to listen and to love.  Those who would be cruel and judgemental towards those who have left the ministry or those still in the ministry and hurting, why not get down on your knees today and thank God that you are not going through what they are.  While you are down there, why not pray for these pastors who are hurting, and oh yes, before you get off your knees, why not pray that when you face the same hurt (it will come) that your heart won’t be so condeming and hardened.
Larry

I believe the Bible to suggest that we are to be loving at all times.  But nowhere does it say that any of us need to feel like a doormat.

I would love to speak at any of your churches on “true” love: love that is patient, kind… all of what 1 Cor 13:4-8 has to say.  But there’s another aspect to love - no less valid; it’s called telling people the truth… even when it hurts.  Hopefully, we can speak the truth in love.  But just as important is to speak the truth.  Why can’t someone (a Pastor) communicate why he is upset?  Why is the expectation so unrealistic?  Maybe people need to know that Pastors are not Jesus… just His servants.

We all are weak, have shortcomings: some we presume are socially acceptable - some not so much.  At the end of the day, Jesus died for ALL of us, He loves ALL of us, and is ‘dealing’ with ALL of us in His own way.  How dare someone criticize someone else’s walk?  Is that what Pastors are expected to do?  Criticize others?  If our example is Jesus, then criticize behavior… NOT people!!!  Love the sinner, hate the sin.  This, I presume, we could all agree on.

Pastors NEED to start speaking the truth… for ALL our sakes.  Maybe it needs to come from someone else outside first.  If this is the case, I’m open to the challenge as a “guest speaker.” The truth is what everyone says they want… until it starts hitting home.  The truth is one of the most loving things one can give someone else - regardless the means; i.e., hateful attitude, etc.  The truth is God’s… not ours.  We all see through a glass dimly - at best!  We ALL need each other to help get us through.  Pastors are NOT little Jesus’s and their congregations NEED to know this!  Teachers need to explain this in copious detail so as to help everyone have sane expectations.

This entire blog is about unrealistic expectations.  PLEASE, surrender to the cross daily, put on the full armor of God, but also realize from whence you’ve come… and where you’re headed.  Trust me when I tell you, NO ONE knows the path they’re on until after they’ve finished it.  There’s a reason why God doesn’t give us full understanding of what’s ahead - we couldn’t handle it, but one day at a time we can.

Surely, I don’t have it “all together,” but I’m on my way.  God won’t fall off His throne because a pastor says from the pulpit something the congregation won’t want to hear.  Where did pastors learn all this insecurity… truly it isn’t a Godly trait.  We are all to work out our salvation with fear and trembling… before a loving, merciful, and gracious God.  Yes, a God that has standards, but standards (rules, laws, etc.) we were never able to live up to - hence, Jesus!

It’s REALLY that simple.  Why don’t pastors speak the truth more about this topic - even for each other?  There should be at least a 4-tape series on such a topic!  Something every person coming into your church must listen to prior to becoming a member.

When someone criticizes you unrealistically, it SHOULD be a defensive characteristic to point out that there must be a plank in their eye to notice the mite in yours!  What are we all afraid of?  Being offensive?!?  So what?  I believe in speaking with love, but how much love was being administered when Jesus had the stick in the temple with the money changers?  Did Jesus forget His love then?  NO!  The message of the hour was to show them how wicked they had become!  Jesus was not delivering the message the way the expected it to be delivered, or through the means by which they felt it would be most welcomed.  Jesus was interested in the truth… not everyone else’s opinion of Him.  As a result, He set the standard by which we are to judge situations as a whole.

If someone leaves your church because they’re offended, what’s the worst thing that will happen?  They’ll talk behind your back?  Aren’t they already doing that?  So what?  As a leader - not a manager - there should be a natural choosing of sides with the people, and it will be formed out of respect - not gooey love.

Truly, I have WAY more respect for ALL of you than you do for yourselves.  Leaders, by their nature, promote controversy.  Don’t see this as a stumbling block, but a welcome sign that you’re doing things right.  How can there be change until someone sets the standard.  So long as the Bible is your standard, we can all follow.  How can any of us follow someone who’s trying to please everyone else?  This just doesn’t make sense.  Jesus wasn’t a people-pleaser… He was a God-pleaser.  And THIS is the true heart of the Good Shepherd!  So should it be ALL of ours… and I’m not even a pastor!

I hope this helps.  I mean to project the truth in a loving manner, but if love wasn’t what you felt, check that you aren’t having the same attitude with me as YOUR critics!  Regardless the avenue, we ALL have to deal with the truth if we are to be true Christians: for Jesus is the way, the TRUTH, and the life.

Truly, God’s richest blessings to you all,

David Riley
Shelby Township, Michigan
(248) 802-6318

I think there are several things “in play” here that contribute to the “plight of the minister.”

1. Automatically in “Americanized Christianity” we assume that a “call to the ministry” means “Pastoring” when in fact, it can and should mean much more. Jesus gave 5 office gifts at His ascension and there are other gifts given as well in Romans 12, 1st Corinthians 12 & 14 (Leadership, serving, etc.).

Too many people are pastoring when they should be evangelizing, or teaching or some other gifting. They don’t have “Shepherd hearts” and then they get hurt by trying to be Shepherds…

More mature people in Church leadership, means more people helping to shoulder the burdens of ministry and more people to disciple the people into maturity (nice lead in to point 2).

2. We really do have “thin skin” here in America. Only God can love us perfectly, yet we expect man to. God has commanded US to make disciples and yet we expect God to. People in our flocks will only mature to the level that we help them obtain (this is the Great Commission, mind you: “teaching them to obey, all that I commanded...").

Sheep bite. That is what the “rod and staff” are for! Not in an “angry, I’m Moses, hear me roar” type of way, but loving, yet firm correction. “Faithful are the wounds of a friend.... Better is an open rebuke, then love concealed.”

I am amazed at the years some people have been in “church” but yet they lack maturity. And it is not just THEIR fault. We have been given the mandate to disciple them. That means “cutting” on them. The one who desires to grow, will welcome the pruning. The ones who just want to cast stones with no consequences will leave… and we will be the better for it.

3. We do need to stop the division between “Clergy and Laity.” It doesn’t exist in the Bible. Yes, some may be “fulltime” in the sense of “pay”, but everyone should be a “minister.” To much pressure is being expected and exerted on those who are “paid staff” to do the work of the ministry, when in fact they are supposed to be equipping the congregation for the “works of service.”

4. Lastly, people who are in ministry need to learn to take sabaticals! I have been in “fulltime” ministry for 18 years (many of those being bi-vocational) and about 12 years into it was about to fall apart. Ministry is taxing. It can be a downfall if you let it. But YOU have the CHOICE. God designed the Sabbath rest (and not just once a week)!

Look at what he required of Israel, every 7 years. TAKE A BREAK!!!

Life and ministry will go on without you. I took a 2 year Sabatical that helped keep my marriage strong and brought me back into ministry with a renewed vision, focus and zeal!

The gifts and callings of God are without repentance. But you can minister and NOT have to be in a staff position. But don’t give up on “fulltime ministry” either.

Strike the balance…

And remember, love never fails. Jesus called us to bless those who curse us. Pray for those who persecute us. Love the unlovable and wash the feet of those who would deny, abandon and betray you. That is the love of Christ!

I’ve read a good majority of the things in this article, including the comments of other ministers.  I would agree with most all of them.  However,I enjoyed pastoring a church more than life itself at times.  I find the problem to be that most Christians are very Pharisical, including some preachers.  Now understand what I’m saying.  Jesus not only healed the sick, saved the lost, and was the ultimate pastor of 12, he also fought the Pharisees with their legalisms.  My question is, who calls a man to preach and pastor a church.  Not the churches, but God does. There are many preachers, including myself, that have been put off to the side because of money problems, divorce, etc.  Divorce is what got me.  My wife comes in one day and said, “You weren’t a preacher when I married you and I’m not a pastor’s wife.” and she left.  Victim of circumstance pure and simple.  But for me and probably many others other in this situation, our ministry, as a pastor, is over simply because of a HUMAN mistake.  If we look at mistakes, then none of us are qualified to do anything for the Lord.  Being called to preach is the greatest blessing there is.  Yes, the man who talked about the criticisms, and the monitoring the pastor and expecting him not to fall is right.  There are a lot of church members, who call themselves Christians, who stand in judgment of preachers and don’t look at the lives they live theirselves.  In fact, they would blame their spirituality on the pastor and not take credit for their own failures or accomplishments.  Put the shoes on of a man who has the desire to pastor, but can’t because of a failed marriage.  If we all did, we would find ourselves looking and trying to find ways to get back into the ministry as a pastor or trying to help a pastor who is in this situation instead of judging him.  If you did, you could stop saying “I don’t want to do this anymore simply because of the people who judge me.” We should see the importance of the calling and put it above all.  I believe that when God calls us and we surrender to HIM, that He gives us strength to overcome failure, being talked about, etc.  Yes it hurts when people we love and cherish say negative things about us and our families when we pastor.  There is no denying that.  However, we need to be about God’s business and not worrying about what other people think or say.  I know that is very hard, because we know we are human even when our church members think we’re not or don’t seem to care.  However, the blessing of God overcome and out weigh anything men can do.  Thanks for the comments and articles.  They helped me see where I am going and make me wish even more that I could pastor again.  Ronnie

“Pastor, you look a bit dejected today. Is something wrong?”

You bet there’s something wrong! The hosts of hell have mounted an all-out assault upon the servants of God. If the inquirer only knew just how much is wrong. But the pastor, brave soul that he is, shrugs it off with the reply, “Oh, nothing much. Just tired today, I guess.”

My experience has been that most pastors don’t feel at liberty to bare their own soul with those who ask. You see, pastors are supposed to be strong, “on top of it,” always positve. You can’t spoil the image - you know. And so, Brother Pastor struggles bravely on, with a big grin on his face . . . but big frown in his heart.

Make no mistake about it, the ‘ole devil and his army is out to bring us down. We are a target of their hatred, these infernal powers of darkness.

Even Paul was hindered by Satan as he pursued his work for the Lord (1 Thess. 2:18), and he suffered physical pain because of this “thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan” (2 Cor. 12:7).

In his masterful exposure of demonic schemes, he warned us that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but . . . against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Eph. 6:12).

We need to keep in mind that our trials and distresses, as servants of God, are not of human origin. Our conflict is not primarily with Mrs. Whatnow or Deacon Youdidwhat, but it is with a tremendously powerful supernatural being whose entire time and attention is devoted to disrupting God’s work. The pastor is a number one target for the devil and his forces of evil.

We are warned that we ought not to be “ignorant of his devices” (2 Cor. 2:11). It is sometimes difficult to recognize the hand of Satan. Things that happen seem so natural, so “human” and so expainable. But there is a sinister mastermind behind those events that threaten the peace and effectiveness of the shepherd of God.

Let me encourage you guys to stick to the stuff and not let the devil win. Keep your eyes on Jesus and let Him take care of the enemies.

“Pastor” Art:

It’s time for your meds!

8-)

Good! And he is right on all points. jesus would say, “I’ve been there, I’ve felt the pain you feel, I’ve been there. I’m acquainted with your trials. So when your going through the valley of the heartache once again, you’re only going where I’ve already been, I’ve been there.”

The trouble is that when you go back to the nets as Peter said, you will find that the world is no different. They inspect, intrud, prod and punch there too. Now you will have to add to that the Lord chasing you back to where He placed you, or at least that is what Jonah would say.

We have all been there and some are there now. The path is a lonely one until you say, this is who I am and what I am if I meet your needs great if not there is always other churches to help you! Having done all to stand...Stand!

Pastor Jay Wegter says:

Committed Christians are leaving churches because the corporate institutional model represents and increasing departure from N.T. apostalic Christianity.  A fellow pastor and myself have penned some observations on what would be necessary to escape the institutional approach.

Thoughts on Church Renewal

By Jay Wegter and Massimo Lorenzini

The Need for a Grace Awakening
So many churches need a “grace awakening.” They are stuck in maintenance mode—the congregation is coasting along on the pastor’s energy. Here is a typical way a church gets into this religious rut: A church calls a new pastor. Both the congregation and the pastor enter into the relationship with excitement and hope for the future. The new pastor experiences an initial “honeymoon” in which his faults are overlooked. The congregation enthusiastically pledges their loyalty to him. They then settle back and bask in his radiant heat as he burns himself up for them.

The new pastor may find it superficially rewarding to operate as a “source person” who brokers the glory of God to the people. If he is not careful, his ego receives a power boost by the way the church looks to him as the professional answer-man who doles out the revelation of God. If he is a man of vision, he enjoys the newfound influence he has to lead the church. But after the first year, his happy delusions melt away as he discovers the spiritual deadness of the people. Instead of unleashing the congregation, he finds that they are operating in a parasitic fashion of dependency upon Him. They are draining him dry.  He’s an unwilling “pope” to them—a vicar of Christ, a figurehead in whom they take pride. He knows something is not right, but he can’t put his finger on it.

Without a grace awakening, they will be unable to give back to God, their pastor, or one another.  They are operating upon reflected glory, similar to those who gazed at Moses’ glowing face after he descended the holy mountain with the law of God (Ex 34:29-35). But they themselves are not in the habit of regularly beholding the glory of Christ in the gospel. They are not daily drawing their spiritual life directly from Christ in personal communion with Him.

In a grace awakening the congregation will begin to fix their sight on Christ and what He has done for them in redeeming them by grace. As they grow in their personal knowledge of the Son of God by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, they will be eager to follow Christ in discipleship and ministry. They will become team players alongside the pastor rather than being mere spectators sitting on the sidelines watching the ministry of the pastor. They will no longer be content to accept the ministry of their pastor as a substitute for their own ministry within and through the body.

The Lost Spiritual Discipline of Meditation
The majority of church members today have not learned to go to their Savior directly by meditation, worship, and adoration. Lest we forget, meditation is a godly discipline that is resisted by our natural faculties. Our cognitive faculties are dialed into sensual stimuli. As our media-saturated culture becomes more and more visually stimulated by man-made fantasies, it becomes increasingly difficult to tune our hearts into the invisible truths of the gospel. It is work to have the eyes of the heart opened fully wide to behold by faith unseen spiritual certainties. But the labor of meditation is necessary if our souls are to be ravished by the sight of our wealth in the Son of God. (the remainder of the article can be read at http://www.thegospelforlife.org under the section of articles titled church renewal.)

Sincerely,
Pastor Jay Wegter

Pastor Art,
What are you talking about?  Get the rod?  Beat the people?  I hate it when people on this blog put others down, however, you need to pray for God to change your heart. 
You should consider leaving the ministry for I fear you have lost your love for the sheep under you care. 
I mean are you serious?  Tell me you were joking a little bit.  Where is the compassion for the people?

I’d suggest that pastors read “Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome” by Kent Hughes, pastor of College Church in Wheaton, IL.

I appreciate the good thoughts expressed here.

I left the parish ministry almost twenty years ago for a lot of the same reasons mentioned by Scott. 

I ended up doing retail management, not exactly a haven for sanity or good behavior on the part of customers or amployees.  But, when asked why I was in management, I often said that the church was a far more difficult occupation.  Mean customers come and go, but they do not plant themselves as a group in front of you once a week, and they do not control your income. 

Having developed some better boundaries over the years, and the Customer Service Head Tilt, I would probably find some sense of accomplishment and satisfaction in pastoring a local church.  But the memories linger of a church board who met behind my back while I was vacation, only to meet me with a self-styled “review,” a polite term for an attack on me personally that sealed the deal for me to move on with my life

Just remember that the Apostle Paul was thought by some people to be a failure. They criticized his ministry and even denied his apostleship. But his response was, “But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment . . . He that judgeth me is the Lord” (1 Corinthians 4:3,4).

The next time any of you men, who have truly been called of God to be a minister of the Gospel, feel like you are a failure in the ministry—ask yourself the question: By whose standards? Yours? Others? or God’s?

Many times our judgments of what we’re doing for the Lord are made upon standards other than divine ones. If some of the characters in God’s Word had been judged by such standards, they would definitely be considered failures today. I mean you think of Noah, he preached for 120 years with little results.

I remember hearing the story of the great preacher, H.A. Ironside, who stood dejected at the front of the church where he had preached a powerful gospel message with no outward response. A mature believer noticed the discouraged preacher and said, “Remember, Harry, that the harvest is at the end of the world, not the end of the meeting.”

We need to keep in mind that it is not our mission down here on earth to “succeed” except as we succeed in lifting up the name of Jesus.