Five Principles on How to Love Your Pastor the Way Christ Loves You

Sharing is caring!

Shepherding a church is a unique task, especially in today’s culture. While there are many blessings that come in pastoral ministry (I couldn’t believe people actually paid me to study the Word of God when I was a pastor), there are also many “dangers, toils and snares” that come with it as well.

All believers want their pastor to love them. But many believers don’t know how to properly love their pastor. Knowing a few simple principles can go a long way toward fostering a growing love between a pastor and his church.

Principle #1: Understand your pastor.

Understand that your pastor carries a unique spiritual burden. He is personally under the constant threat of spiritual attacks that often come unannounced. On top of his own spiritual battle, he is? acutely aware of the battles his flock is facing. When you go to church, you see people worshiping. When your pastor goes to church, he sees people struggling.

Understand that your pastor carries a unique emotional burden. He often deals with emotional extremes, such as weddings and funerals, sometimes on the same day. He cannot allow his emotional state to dictate his performance in the pulpit, even though just before the service someone has criticized him for not making sure the church lawn has been mowed. In fact, he frequently interacts with people in his congregation who are annoyed with him or oppose him.

Understand that your pastor carries a unique social burden. He knows he is always being evaluated and will never please everyone. He also knows expectations are higher for him than for others. When he goes out in public, he is always on display, as are his wife and children.

Understand that your pastor carries a unique physical burden. He is on call 24/7, even on vacations. He typically works 50 to 60 hours a week or more. He has little time to work out and he tends to deal with stress by eating too much.

Understand that your pastor serves in a unique cultural environment. Sixty years ago, our general cultural norms supported what pastors were saying from the pulpit. No longer. Now, every conservative, evangelical pastor is swimming upstream. As a result, pastors no longer have the high social standing they once had. This lack of respect bleeds over into the congregation. Believers have much less loyalty to their church, especially with the advent of mega churches and TV preachers who raise the expectations of what local pastors can and should be. And finally, believers increasingly come from extremely chaotic homes, with the attending social and emotional problems that often manifest themselves in church.

A pastor who knows that there are at least some people in his congregation who understand what he is going through has a genuine source of strength and comfort to help him face whatever is thrown at him.

Principle #2: Release your pastor.

Take your pastor off the performance treadmill and release him to love you by remembering this important truth: your pastor does not exist to please you. Your pastor exists to please the Lord. And those are two very different things.

The way you take your pastor off the performance treadmill is by practicing unconditional love with your pastor just as you would with anyone else. Give your pastor the freedom to be who he is in Christ instead of insisting that he be what you or the church thinks he ought to be. (Usually what you think he ought to be is just like the pastor who preceded him.) Accept the fact that your pastor has personal foibles and limitations just like every believer does.

And here’s a thought: do away with annual performance reviews. Tell me, how did your wife do on her annual performance review this year? Now tell me how you did sleeping out in the backyard after you gave your wife her annual performance review! Of course, no husband gives his wife a performance review because our marriage relationship is based on love. Only a business relationship is based on performance.

The relationship between your pastor and your church has business elements in it, to be sure. But it is more like a marriage than a business. It’s based on love, not performance. Annual performance reviews are a business practice, not a Scriptural practice. My suggestion is that the board replace performance reviews with annual church-wide reviews. The issue is not, “How is our pastor doing?” but “How are we as a church doing?”

Principle #3: Protect Your Pastor.

The way you protect your pastor is by making sure criticism directed toward your pastor is being handled appropriately. Your board should never allow pastoral criticism to be voiced in official board meetings until the individual making the complaint goes to the pastor privately, in accordance with Matthew 18.

You should respond to any criticism of your pastor that you personally hear by insisting that the person go to him in private. I suggest you say something like this, “Why are you telling me this? Is it because you want me to go with you when you talk to him?” God considers grumbling and slander terrible sins (1 Corinthians 10:10; James 5:9) that have dire consequences on a congregation if not handled well. I’m not saying that criticism should be swept under the carpet, but simply that it should be dealt with properly.

Principle #4: Pay your pastor.

And the Bible says well. Pay your pastor well. “The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching,” Paul tells Timothy in 1 Timothy 5:17. The Greek words for “double honor” here can also be translated “double pay.” In other words, the way you honor your pastor whose work is preaching and teaching is to pay him well.

So I suggest you ask your board if it is using sound objective criteria for staff salaries and make sure your pastor doesn?t have to ask for a raise each year. Church Law and Tax has an excellent website on pastoral compensation.

Also remember that vacation time and days off are different for pastors than for those involved in secular work. For example, a pastor never gets a three day weekend. For a pastor, three day weekends are always interrupted by a Sunday service. And for someone working in a secular job, one week of vacation equals nine consecutive days: a two day weekend, five workdays, then another two day weekend. But for a pastor, a week of vacation is only seven consecutive days: five weekdays off and then a weekend either before or after.

And here’s a suggestion for small churches that can’t pay a full time salary for their pastor: research what an appropriate full time salary would be for your bi-vocational pastor if he were full time and set that as a goal for the church. Just knowing that his church is aware of what he should be paid goes a long way toward encouraging a bi-vocational pastor.

Principle #5: Fire your pastor.

Yes, there are times when a church should fire it’s pastor. But it’s critical that a church understand that there are times when a church should not fire it’s pastor too, even if it’s tempted to do so. Here are some examples:

Offending people is not a reason to fire your pastor. Your pastor is supposed to offend people. ?Woe to you when all men speak well of you,” Jesus warned his disciples in Luke 6:26.

People leaving the church is not a reason to fire your pastor. People leave churches all the time, sometimes in droves. People left the ministries of Jesus, Paul and John (John 6:66-67; 2 Timothy 4:16; 1 John 2:19).

Poor preaching skills is not a reason to fire your pastor. Paul and Moses were poor preachers (2 Corinthians 10:10; Exodus 4:10). Someone even fell asleep and died in one of Paul’s sermons!

Poor interpersonal skills is not a reason to fire your pastor. Timothy had poor interpersonal skills (2 Timothy 1:7).

There are only three reasons I can think of to fire a pastor:

1. Heresy?your pastor holds beliefs that contradict crucial doctrines of the Bible and historical Christianity.
2. High-handed sin?your pastor is in open rebellion against God.
3. Total incompetence?your pastor has not discovered his spiritual gifts, is not succeeding in any major area of ministry, and does not exhibit a validated call. This is really a fault of the church that called him.

Hopefully, your church will never have to fire it’s pastor. But if it does, make sure it’s done Scripturally and with compassion.

Just remember, one of the greatest assets your church can have is a long-tenured pastor. Understand him, release him, protect him and pay him and he will love you for it.

So what do you think? Did I miss something? If you’re a pastor, let us know.

_______________________________________________________________

Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom

and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.

_______________________________________________________________