What you need to know Before you express your appreciation during Pastor's appreciation month:

 

This is pastor appreciation month and I am treated better than I deserve; I feel blessed to be part of a church that loves my family and encourages us, so no sour grapes here from me! I can’t complain about the church we minister with — instead I simply want to lift the curtain and allow you a sneak peek into a world you think you know but you really don’t.

Certainly every profession has its challenges that most outsiders, through no fault of their own, fail to comprehend. Nurses carry heavy workloads enduring long hours and often are unfairly pitted between patients and doctors. School administrators learn early on you will never please everyone. Police officers, often disrespected and challenged by the public they serve and protect, risk their lives to maintain law and order. Serving others is uniquely difficult and feels thankless at times.

Until you have entrusted your livelihood into the hands of volunteers who feel they hold a lot of sway over how you spend your money, where you live, what you drive, how you dress, what you can and cannot say, same for the movies you watch, not to mention decisions they want to make for your whole family, you will never know the stress and the anxiety of many pastors. Pocket-watchers are always curious wondering what pastors do all day -- they wouldn’t know how our time is spent because few pastors will toot their own horn.

Regardless of the size of the congregation, most pastors wake up thinking about their churches, and throughout the day are in prayer for their congregations, emailing or texting with or talking on the phone or in person, and this goes on until they hit their pillow, every single day of every week. This has nothing to do with the multitude of other responsibilities like writing bulletin articles, sermon preparations, organizing events, being a liaison with the community, or recruiting people to serve.

We are available and on call 24/7/365, we never shut our phones off in case of a crisis, we come home early from vacations and miss family meals often. We do not have regular hours, there can be a death, an ER visit to attend to, an emergency counseling session, or an impromptu Bible study -- all scheduling can go out the window without a moment’s notice.

As rewarding as ministry is, there are significant sacrifices and struggles within the home of pastors that many church members take for granted and are unaware of. We don’t clock out at the end of the day and disconnect from work. We don’t have a switch to flip or a conveyor belt to unplug. Our work goes everywhere we go.

Pastoral families forfeit much of their privacy. The pastor’s personal life is made more public than perhaps in any other profession, the church knows your income, your phone number, and much more than church-member’s co-workers know about each other. Often pastor’s children unfairly grow up in a fishbowl, those same kids who are criticized & judged for being wild at times because just like the old saying, “the cobbler’s kids go barefoot.”

Where do pastors find new ideas or the time to prepare “interesting” lessons that captivate everyone’s attention and apply to the whole age-range of the congregation, or even plan out a future sermon series? It’s hard to pump water from an empty well, yet there is precious little extra time to fill your mind and remain creative in this fast paced world. The demands of ministry can drain you spirituality, mentally, and emotionally, yet Sunday rolls around every week and the pulpit won’t wait.

There’s an insecurity many pastors hide deep within, worried they can fulfill their calling. Who could imagine they could stand in the gap between this world and the next, between the temporary and the eternal, and make a difference in the lives of people who treat church attendance as if it were optional?

Not feeling well? Beautiful weather and a good day to hit the lake? Long week and you want to catch up on your sleep Sunday morning? Pastors do not enjoy the luxury of skipping church on a whim.

The pressures real and perceived to deliver relevant, timely, and interesting messages over and over again, carrying the concern of your flock’s souls, worries about lost folks, dealing with antagonism & conflict, managing multiple expectations, planning worship services, balancing other responsibilities, these all can overwhelm anyone soon enough. Few people knock on the pastor’s door asking how they can help, they knock on the door and ask you for more -- if you wonder about pastoral burnout, you don’t have to ask if it’s real.

Ministry truly is a labor of love; it’s complex, demanding, draining, demoralizing at times, yet it’s wonderfully fulfilling and rewarding. Sadly not every pastorate is as wonderful as our family’s experience is these days, but now that you have a better glimpse into pastoral life, hopefully you will feel sincere in showing your pastors you appreciate them. Too many pastors only hear from those who express their disappointments, so if you have a pastor please prioritize telling them how much you appreciate all they and their family do.

Does your faith...?

For years, I noticed every congregation had its fringe members. People who would show up late only to leave early, those folks who sat in the back but rarely got involved. When I was a younger minister I thought these were just lazy “pew-packers.” Nowadays my guess is there’s a history I’m unaware of, like they’ve probably suffered from abuse or burnout -- I’d bet they are doing the best they can just to get by.

A hard reality for churches to face is the fact that 80% of our work is done by 20% of our people, and as long as this trend continues we can expect more and more of our burdened people to drift towards the backdoor. As churches we are partly to blame for the walking wounded, some of those folks left frayed by their faith are our responsibility.

Believe it or not serving can skew our focus, even distract us from knowing God. We need to be cautious about confusing self-importance with submission, so don’t ever confuse your participation with God’s presence. For example, “But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me.” (Luke 10:40) If you are amazed to hear that Jesus doesn’t congratulate Martha for her selfless dedication, you should read the rest of that story and examine Jesus’ surprising response.

While Ministerial staff members are at a high risk for burnout (it ravages the pastorate), if the truth be told, when it comes to balancing out serving and resting, we who preach and teach often set the worst examples for the flock. Burnout leads to fallout; for example just recall Boxer from Orwell’s “Animal Farm.” So much of this world/life drains us, but our faith shouldn’t. Churches will wear you out if you let them, regardless of which side of the lectern you’re standing on.

Sure, when it comes to church work some people are hardwired to serve like a Border Collie and they’re “all in.” We should be active, but we shouldn’t deceive ourselves either -- there are graveyards filled with congregants who thought their local church couldn’t continue without them.

How did we get so far off track? Well, for far too long we’ve underestimated the value of solitude and quiet meditation. While we’ve treated our faith like it was a sprint, we’re in a spiritual marathon for which we seem poorly trained. We’ve refused to acknowledge our need to rest, as if it were a weakness or some sort of sin. We've sabotaged the concept of a Sabbatical, and as a result, we’re exhausted too early and too often.

Jesus clearly instructed His weary disciples to take a break, “And he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat.” (Mark 6:31) And elsewhere Jesus also said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matt 11:28) God values rest, it’s a necessary gift.

Psalm 127:1-2 firmly establishes a worthwhile, holistic perspective in all of this: “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives to his beloved sleep.” In other words, if God isn’t the driving force then our efforts are pointless anyway. And at the end of the day, faith should leave us feeling rested.

We should feel excitement about our kingdom work and church involvement should energize us. We shouldn’t dread serving, it should be a priority not a problem. In the end, ask yourself: Does my faith refresh me or does it drain me? If your faith continually drains you, taking its toll on you, it’s not healthy or fulfilling and it’s not what David wrote about in Psalm 23:3 when he says of God, “He restores my soul...”