Especially for Pastors …
I’ve had a lot of different jobs in my life.
Nothing was more challenging (and important) than being a pastor of a local church.
To seek to embody and make visible the kingdom of God in an actual community of real people in a unique local setting … that’s no small thing.
It requires leaders of wisdom and resilience, and those leaders need behind-the-scenes encouragement from wise mentors.
Every time I read a reflection on the pastorate by Ryan Phipps, I think, “I wish every pastor everywhere could read this.” Ryan is a church planter/pastor in New York. He’s funny and self-effacing (“I suppose the male pattern baldness and greying hair make me appear as if I know more than I really do.”), and exactly the kind of mentor I needed when I was a pastor for 24 years (who shared his premature graying hair and male pattern baldness, it turns out).
Quotable:
Perhaps ministry isn’t about us having a solidified, repeatable formula with which we save the world. Maybe our true calling is to be humble people who are learning alongside those that we teach.
We have so much to learn from each other, and none of us have the full picture or the finished product. We need each other. We also need each other’s struggles.
When Sundays are terrible or our stats are not what we want them to be, remember that these things are carrots on sticks. The best stats in the world will never be enough. We will always want more. What we are in control of, and what our goal should be, is to work as diligently as we are able with humility and love. If we do this, may the stats be what they are.
Know God. Get to know him more every day, even when he seems to be silenced by your approaches. Sometimes silence is exactly what we need from God. It keeps us searching.
If you want some encouragement today, check this out, and share it with a pastor you know.