I woke up on the morning of July 4, 1982 with a strange sensation. I was finding it difficult to move. I felt like a huge boulder had rolled over on top of me. It took all the strength I had to sit up on the edge of my bed. I sat there worrying that if I stood up I would topple over from the weight I felt on my shoulders.
It took me a few months to realize what had happened. It was my first Sunday as a pastor and what I had experienced was the arrival of my own spiritual version of “the burden of the Lord,” the realization that I was now responsible for the fifty souls comprising Grace Bible Church in Hitchcock, Texas.
“Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers,” Paul exhorted Timothy.1 No pressure there! Only the eternal salvation of fifty people.
Over the twenty years I served as a pastor, I grew used to carrying that burden. Sometimes it would feel heavier, sometimes lighter. But even though the callouses on my shoulders were invisible to most everyone around me, that burden was always there.
Since it is difficult for most Christians to imagine what a pastor’s burden is like, I want to describe it in more detail for you and give you some practical ways on how you can help your pastor carry it.
When a pastor looks out over his congregation on Sunday morning, for example, he doesn’t just see people the way you and I do. No, he sees stories. He sees the couple on the verge of divorce, the teen contemplating suicide, the deacon who hates his preaching style, the elderly woman he forgot to visit when she was in the hospital the past week. His job is to preach the Word of God in such a way that he shows them its practicality in addressing their problems. Will they respond to his preaching with faith and obedience? Time will tell.
The church service is just the tip of the iceberg for a pastor, though. He’s spent the week prior to it making sure things are running smoothly. If he’s a solo pastor, then he’s responsible for seeing that the nursery coordinator has gotten the needed volunteers, the Sunday School attendant has his teachers in order, etc. If he has staff, then he needs to oversee them.
Then, of course, there’s sermon prep. Most pastors find this the highlight of their ministry. I know I did. But the pressure to produce sermons that are biblical, clear and relevant is always there and it takes a lot of time.
On top of all that, there’s board meetings, staff meetings, weddings, funerals, hospital visitation, counseling, crisis intervention, and community involvement. And it would be nice if he got an M.Div. under his belt.
Oh, and did I mention that all churches are spiritual battlefields filled with landmines. At any given moment your pastor can step on one and it will blow up on him. He never knows when it will come. But he knows they’re out there and he knows that eventually he will trigger one.
What to do?
Men, here’s the best thing you can do to help your pastor bear his burden: make sure he knows that you are committed to him, that you will never abandon him, that you have his back, and that you are praying for him.
And when an entire men’s ministry in a church makes that kind of commitment to its pastor, I guarantee you that he will carry his burden well and be able to face whatever Satan throws at him.
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
For the past sixteen years New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North American and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt their widowed and single parents in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry
Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church here.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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