The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Pastor

I recently shared a Facebook poster that a friend tagged me in on my personal Facebook page. You can see a copy of it on the left.

The truth is pastor's are not appreciated because only other pastor's know what they actually do and what they often sacrifice to do it. Now I am not talking about the pastor's of the large mega-churches who have large specialized staffs, research assistants, and the like. They have their own set of special issues. I am talking about the pastor of the average local community based church. You know, the church where the local pastor does the marrying, burying, preaching, nurturing and is the main educator in the church. He visits the sick, comforts the hurting, and attends virtually every community meeting and every church meeting of every kind. He does all of that and lives off of a meager salary, wears nice clothes and gives a tithe to the church and participates generously in all the special offerings as well as helping people who are in need.  All of that and he never complains.

Then of course there is the added fact that he has virtually no one in whom he can confide. It takes a very special person to be a pastor's confidant. A pastor's confidant must be loyal and not flighty; he must be stable emotionally; but most of all he must be able to keep a confidence. In a sense he has to have some of the same qualities we require of a pastor and keeping a confidence is vital.

I was reading through my journal recently . . . revisiting some of the more challenging times in my ministry. Times where I had to carry the weight of responsibility for something because I could not, no, would not, share things I had received in confidence. There were other times when things I had shared in confidence came back to bite me. Truth is, every pastor, including myself have had close friends everywhere they served as pastor. But no matter how close their friendship the pastor carried burdens, sometimes his own but most often those of others, that he dared not share.

I remember hearing of the pastor who was complaining that some of the men in the church were out to get him. His friend said, "Oh you're just being paranoid." To which the pastor replied, "Yes, I am being paranoid and with good reason." The point being not many people are really suited to be a pastor's confidant. For that reason he avoids getting too close to members of the church and denominational leaders. Instead he generally relies on friends he made in college and seminary and they number in most cases fewer than five people. Among those five only one will be his closest confidant with whom he shares his deepest burdens, hurts and concerns.

My father was one of those kind of people whom his pastor could us as a confidant. Dad had many qualities that I admire, he was loyal, he was generous, he was kind and he could keep a confidence. I knew early on he had served as a confidant to my own pastor growing up because I was around when some of those conversations took place.  What I didn't know until after his death when an older preacher friend told me shortly after my dad died, "I'm going to miss your Dad, you know he was more than a friend to me, he was the one person in my life other than my wife that I could tell anything, anything at all, and know it was safe." He went on to tell me that he and two other local pastors used my Dad as a "safe" place to unload a heavy hurting heart without fear of it ever being repeated. He was right, telling my Dad something was like placing into a galactic black hole.

Unfortunately, people like my Dad are few and far between. In most cases even people with the best of intentions will let something slip especially around folks who are skilled at ferreting out information they don't need to know. Another unfortunate thing is that few pastors have a friend like my Dad who could listen without judging or offering unsolicited advice.

However, just because you can't be your pastor's confidant does not mean you can't support him. You can, as the above poster suggests, pray for him. Even if you don't think he's the best pastor or even a good one you can still pray for him. I remember hearing Ed Young the pastor of the Second Baptist Church in Houston say that he had a business man come by his office to let him know that he was going to join his church. Ed said that he knew the man to be a Deacon and leader in the First Baptist Church and so he asked him, "Why do you want to join our church?" The man went on to list a number of things he was unhappy with in his church: The preacher was not preparing as well as he used to do; they music was not to his liking . . . too modern; the deacons were always being disagreeable etc.

Ed said after listening to him for a while he said to him, "We'd love to have you as a part of our church but before you join our church I want you to do something."  He went on, "I want you to go back to your church and I want you, over the next several months, to pray for your pastor that he'll preach better sermons, and that the minister of music will do a better job with music selection and that the deacons will become unified and if after a few months you still want to join our church just give me a call and come on over." Well, long story short the man agreed and did as Ed suggested. After a few months Ed said he received a cell from the man saying he had done as Ed suggested and had decided to stay where he was. Ed asked him, "What changed your mind?" The man replied, nothing short of a miracle, Dr. Bisagno is preaching terrific sermons, the music is wonderful and the deacon's meetings are a real joy to attend.

The moral of that story is if your pastor is your best friend the best thing you can do is pray for him. If you pastor is your least liked acquaintance pray for him. It is a truism in Christian circles to say that "Prayer changes things."  When you pray for your pastor you are helping make him a better pastor. When you pray for your pastor you will find your attitude toward him changes and you become a better person. Remember, one man cannot be all things to all people but he can excel in some things and be, as a preacher friend of mine says. "be adequate" in the others.

Pastor's need an adequate salary and family time but what they need more than anything else they need church members praying for them. I assure you if they are like my mentor and like myself they are praying for you. We used to sing a little course that said,

 

Keep me true. Lord Jesus, keep me true
Keep me true. Lord Jesus, keep me true
There's a race that I must run
There are victories to be won
Give me power, every hour, to be true

Remember, You Hold the Keys