Thursday, 18 October 2018

What Your Pastor Won’t Tell You (But Wishes You Knew) about Pastor Appreciation Month

An open letter to congregants.

Dear churchgoer,

You may not know it, but this is a significant month for your pastor. October is Pastor Appreciation Month, bringing with it a complex mix of conflicting thoughts and emotions for most pastors.

A few weeks ago, I spoke with a pastor friend about his recent day off. He was shopping at Home Depot, quickly grabbing a few items for a home project. After checking out, he bumped into a congregant in the parking lot. You can probably guess what happened—a short greeting turned into a much longer conversation. The congregant shared a number of difficult things happening in the church and in his own spiritual life. Each question from the pastor uncovered five new frustrations. Forty-five minutes later, they finally parted ways.

I asked the pastor how he felt in that moment. “It was my day off,” he said, “but I don’t really have a day off. I mean, when am I not a pastor?” This always-on, week-in, week-out grind takes a toll on pastors and their families. It’s why leadership guru Peter Drucker said this:

Over the years I have made a career out of studying the most challenging management roles out there. After all of that I am now convinced the two most difficult jobs in the world are these—one, to be President of the United States, and two, to be the leader a church.

Ministry is an amazing call, full of great joys and significant moments in people’s lives: officiating weddings, presiding over funerals, seeing first-hand how lives are changed for Christ. But it’s also full of tension: intense conflict, unrealistic expectations, relational strain, and, at times, soul-aching loneliness.

I know this firsthand. I served as a local church pastor for 15 years. Now that ...

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