A Basic Truth Concerning Pastors

The idea for this post was born a few weeks ago while I was listening to a friend of mine talk about his church. From our conversation I realized there are a few misconceptions about what the Pastorate is and what it isn’t. So I scribbled down a few blog post ideas on the subject. This is the 3rd.

So if you are visiting this blog for the first time or are here because you followed a link to it from www.farmingtonbc.org please know that FBC is a wonderful church and has great people in it and this post is not a reflection in anyway on them.

That said… here we go….

There are several truths we tend to over look that scriptures teach about the position of a Pastor in a church. Here’s the first…

Basic Fact #1 – A pastor is called to a church to be its Pastor, he does not choose the church he wants to Pastor and his call does not originate from the church body it comes from King Jesus our Shepherd.

When a church “votes” on a Pastor for their church they are saying they understand God has called him to be their Pastor.

A Pastor does not come to a church the same way a “church member does”. Nor can he leave the same way other church member’s leave. In fact there is more at stake when a Pastor leaves than when a church member leaves.

When a Pastor leaves it has a bigger impact on the church and the community around the church than most realize or even want to admit.  When a Pastor leaves it becomes  part of  the “talk of the town”.  If a church member leaves it rarely makes it to the barbershop.

Now this post is not about degrading church membership or church members, please do not take it that way.  I value church members and love them.  This post is  about the contrast between a church member and the called position of Pastor.

This is an important topic, because there are times in a Pastor’s life he feels he should quit, give up and leave the ministry.

I know I have had those days…

and it has been the call of God that made me stay with it.

You see a church member can wake up on Sunday and “not feel like attending church” roll back over and go to sleep. A Pastor can’t do that.

A church member can choose to go to sunday school and not to the main worship service.  A Pastor doesn’t have that option.

They can choose to withhold their tithe and service from the church.  Again a Pastor can’t do that for the ramifications of doing that is more destructive than when a church member does it.

They can talk about the Pastor in a negative manner, treat him like a hired hand or a slave that should respond to their every wish and whim. And when he doesn’t respond they can either cause trouble or up an leave to go to another church where they will do the same sort of thing to another Pastor.

When this type of “junk” is thrown in a Pastor’s direction he shouldn’t throw it back. Remember, there is a lot at stake.  Our role is to protect others from damage, and even if damage occurs it must not be because of our careless actions.

To stay sane during these times we must go back to the unwavering call of God on our lives.  Our Shepherd who is King of our lives wants us to be there, He has called us to do a job and we must stand on that calling regardless of what may be thrown in our direction.

So…

We let them say whatever it is they want to say. Handle the things that have the potential to hurt the direction God wants the church to go in and disregard all the other stuff that is meant, by Satan, to get our eyes off off the direction Jesus is leading the church toward.

We are called…

The Job was not given to us by the congregation we shepherd…

It was given to us from King Jesus

and that’s a high calling

and one you can stand on.