Tag Archives: Pastors

The Way He Works

February 5, 2010

What would you expect to happen if God called you to become a pastor and led you to a certain church so that you could feed His sheep?  Well, I can tell you from my own experience and from the reported experiences of many of my friends in ministry that you would expect to see some fruit from your labor.  After all, most pastors have to sacrifice a lot to follow this call of God: we go to school long enough to be doctors and yet we accept pitifully low salaries in proportion to our education level, and we often move great distances away from our families.  Not only that, but we also put in long hours of work that is both mentally and spiritually taxing.  So it is natural to expect to see some kind of results.

Why then does God so often start us out with heartbreaking failure?  That’s the question that Moses asked after his first encounter with Pharaoh in Egypt: “O Yahweh, why have you done evil to this people?  Why did you ever send me?  For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all” (Exodus 5:22-23).

Can we say that our response would have been different if we were in his shoes?  Moses left the land of Egypt as a murderer running for his life.  He had settled into a very happy, comfortable, and prosperous way of life out in the wilderness of Midian.  He had no desire to come back to Egypt and do the kinds of things that God was asking him to do, and yet he finally surrendered to God and set his whole life on this course to do God’s will.  God had even appeared to him and spoke audibly to him telling him that this was his calling and purpose: to tell Pharaoh to let God’s people go.  So we understand Moses’ frustration when he does what is required and things get worse for everybody.  Pharaoh just dismisses him, absolutely refusing his demand, and then the Israelites get smashed with extra work just because Moses came, leading pretty much everyone to hate Moses.

A lot of pastors have a similar experience.  We come out to these churches that God has called us to and we seek to do what He has commanded us: we preach His Word.  But what we expect to happen doesn’t happen.  We have read Isaiah 55:11 that says that God’s Word will not return void, but what we find is that people start leaving.  It turns out that a lot of people don’t want to be taught the Word.  So Moses’ complaint becomes our own: “Why did you ever send me?”  “I was happy where I was!  I didn’t need this!”  What are we missing here?

What we’re missing is the glory of God.  Moses forgot that God told him that “the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand” (Exodus 3:19).  What we’re missing is that if Moses would have stalked right up to Pharaoh as soon as he arrived, demanded that the Israelites be freed, and then got what he asked for, it would have looked as if Moses had the mighty hand to compel Pharaoh.  He would have been the hero of the people.  As it was, Moses’ strength and aptitude (small though this was) had to decrease so that God’s glory and the display of His power could increase.  God doesn’t need to throw ten miraculous plagues and shine forth His glory if His human servant can accomplish it all with a short speech.

And so why should we as pastors expect any different.  If we were to walk into a struggling church, preach a few Sundays, and then all of a sudden start to see amazing growth, everyone – including us – would think that we had something to do with it.  God desires to get us to the place where it is obvious to everybody that He is the Great One that deserves all the praise.  He hasn’t called us in vain; He’s just waiting to give the fruit until it is obvious that it could have come from no other source.  To God be the glory!

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The Enemy: Pragmatism

November 20, 2009

The following sobering comparison between what a pastor should be and what he often is in most churches comes from the book, The Courage to Be Protestant, by David F. Wells.

Across much of evangelicalism, but especially in the market-driven churches, one therefore sees a new kind of leadership among pastors now.  Gone is the older model of scholar-saint, one who was as comfortable with books and learning as with the aches of the soul.  This was the shepherd who knew the flock, knew how to tend it, and Sunday by Sunday took that flock into the treasures of God’s Word.  This has changed.  In its place is the new “celebrity” style.  What we typically see now, Nancy Pearcy suggests, is the leader who works by manipulating the feelings of the audience, enhancing his own image with personal anecdotes, modeling himself after the CEO, and adopting a domineering management style.  He (usually) is completely results-oriented, pragmatic, happy to employ any technique from the secular world that will produce the desired results.  And this leader has to be magnetic, entertaining, and light on the screen up front.

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The Real Preacher’s Task

November 4, 2009

The Real Preacher's TaskIt’s hard do try to do the right thing.  There’s always an easier way that calls to us like a siren’s song causing us to want to justify a different course of action than the one that we know to be the right one.  This is true in all instances where people are given the choice to do the “right” thing or the “easy” thing – no matter what kind of situation or career a person finds himself in – but it is especially true of preachers.

Preachers get a weird reputation.  In some places, they are highly respected for their office, serving as a sort of de-facto leader for the community (although not really anyone’s friend).  In some places they are treated almost like medicine men from some jungle tribe; as soon as someone finds out she’s talking to a preacher, she starts telling him all of her ailments, what kinds of medications she’s on, what x-rays have shown – all as if the poor minister went to med school instead of seminary.  But in nearly every place, preachers are thought of as those guys who don’t do very much work.  Most people think that their job is a social one, made up of house-calls, hospital visits, and golf with the rich folks in the church.  And, for the most part, there are a lot of preachers who fit that description pretty well.

In fact, that’s a pretty successful way to grow a church in today’s culture.  If a preacher just spends his time coddling the people in his church who would gripe and complain if he didn’t, he can avoid a lot of stress.  If he takes a lot of time out to hobnob with the elites in his church, he can make sure they’re always on his side and that they will continue giving to the church’s budget.  If he spends all his time with his social calls, he won’t have very much time left to prepare a deep and thoughtful message from God’s Word, and his people will like him better for it.  “Our preacher isn’t very good, but he’s short” reads one church sign in our county this week.  “Sermons are like biscuits, they are better with shortening” read another one near my old house in Louisville, Kentucky.  Folks who don’t care much for the Bible don’t want to hear about it for very long, and therefore, the preacher who takes the easy way out can actually be encouraged by a positive response from his work.

The problem is that this wasn’t what Christ’s ministers were commanded to do.  When you look at what God expects out of those who are His spokesmen, you see that He commands them to “Feed my sheep” (John 21:17).  He tells them to “Preach the Word” (2 Timothy 4:2).  In Acts 6, the apostles couldn’t even bother serving tables for a few minutes each day because they were so busy in “prayer and the ministry of the Word” (Acts 6:4).  This is far different from what many preachers are spending their time on today.  And for good reason: preaching the Word gets a preacher in trouble.

A pastor will never hear as many complaints from his congregation as when he really tries to feed them from the Word.  “I don’t want to be taught!” says one.  “We want to hear salvation sermons!” say some others.  “This is too far over our heads!  You’re not preaching with enough passion!”  This whole attitude, which is just a part of the fallen human nature, has been further agitated by sometimes years of preaching from those who have taken the easy (read: disobedient) way out.  And so, the preacher who tries to do as he has been commanded will often experience a lack of success.  He gets complaints from every side.  He sees the attendence numbers drop as some run off to seek entertainment elsewhere.  It can be quite depressing.

But the Bible is on the side of the faithful preacher.  Everywhere you turn in Scripture you find the same song sung about the woes of the faithful spokesman of God.  Nowhere do you find the tales of the glittering social butterfly who is welcomed by all his hearers except in the stories about false prophets.  So for those who might sometimes feel like the negative pressure is a sign that they are doing something wrong, I will leave us with the words of God, spoken to the prophet Jeremiah:

If you utter what is precious, and not what is worthless, you shall be as my mouth.  They shall turn to you, but you shall not turn to them.  And I will make you to this people a fortified wall of bronze; they will fight against you, but they shall not prevail against you, for I am with you to save and deliver you, declares Yahweh. (Jeremiah 15:19-20)

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