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

 

 

 

So Now You Have Prostate Cancer

As many of you know I have recently had to go a round or two with prostate cancer. Fortunately for me I have been monitoring my PSA score for the past ten years. During the first nine of those ten year there was a slow steady increase in the score but nothing dramatic or alarming. In fact it averaged over the nine year period about 2.5 . Then in year ten my annual PSA score came back at 6.0. That means that over a 12 month period it had increased at a rate of  almost 0.2 points per month 3 months later it was 6.5. This indicated it was increasing steadily at about .167 of a point per month.  

Men, this is just common sense. You need to know what your PSA score is as well as you do your golf score. In my case I had no of the usual signs that something was going on with my prostate. In fact I felt good. In fact, I would have never know, until it was too late, that there might be a problem were it not for a simple, inexpensive, painless and harmless blood test. 

However, because the PSA score was above the 4.0 level and because it was steadily going up I decided that I needed to have it checked out. So after going over the test results with my health care co-coordinator I that I wanted a referral to a Urologist to get my prostate checked out a little further. He offered to fax it to the Urologist of my choice and I said, "No, his office is just down the hall . . . I'll walk it down there myself."  

I have to tell you I was a bit uneasy about seeing a Urologist. Mostly because I anticipated what he was going to do . . . .the dreaded digital exam. I 'm not going to lie . . .it was uncomfortable but not nearly as bad in reality as in my mind. Unfortunately, he said that the prostate had a rough bumpy feel to one side and that I should probably get a biopsy. I immediately said, "Let's set it up." 

Now guys, I'm not going to lie about this either. The prostate biopsy is very uncomfortable. If your religious minded like myself you'll be praising the Lord for deadening medicines. This is a needle type biopsy guided by an ultrasound probe. Do not look at it just relax and let the Doc do his thing. With the addition of the deadening medicine it is a painless but less than comfortable process. The Doctor will, as in my case, usually take just 12 samples but depending on your PSA score may take twice that number. No real after affect except some people, (I didn't) will have a little blood in their urine for a day or two. 

When the biopsy comes back from the pathologist the best news you can hear is that apparently you have a benign enlargement of the prostate and you'll just need to continue to monitor your PSA. However, in my case the biopsy came back that I had the most common kind of prostate cancer (adenocarcinoma) and that about 30% of the prostate was involved.  

Now I have cancer. Up until then I always assumed I could have cancer but until it had a name it wasn't real yet. Now it had a name and the really hard choices begin. Fortunately, prostate cancer does  not in most cases demand an immediate decision about treatment regimen. It is at this point where I suggest that you do not get caught up in what I call the "Doctor Merry-Go-Round" but do get the soft tissue scan and the bone scan done to help eliminate any spread of the cancer. Prostate cancer usually spreads to the bone and/or the lung. This is important because it will weight heavily on the course of treatments you will need to decide upon.  

Whatever you do don't be passive . . . take charge. You are the command sergeant in this battle and you must take charge of the decision making. Insist on the Doctors explaining clearly all the alternative available to you. Do your own research. Get opinions from other specialists in the field.   

Fortunately for me I had a friend whose husband was a Urologist in another city to whom I sent my test result. One of the best pieces of advice he gave me was, "Remember, Urologist make their living doing surgery and Radiologist make their living doing radiation treatment." In short, each may be subconsciously biased toward their own approach to treatment based on source of income. 

In my case, once we had determined that it appeared the cancer apparently had not spread my Urologist met with me and my wife for more than an hour explaining all the various treatment options (2 surgery options and several radiation options and a handful of other treatment options) and offered to arrange for me to speak with Doctors in all of the treatment specialties.  

He also explained that each method of treatment had potential undesirable consequences such as incontinence and impotence as well as a few others. He then said that I should, "Take a few weeks and think about it an let me know and I'll help you arrange it." 

This is precisely what I did and I believe it is what everyone should do. You are the Command Sergeant. Take all the information you have gathered, assimilate as best you can, decide on a course of action and then pursue it. Your health is your responsibility do not abdicate decisions that relate to it to anyone. Most people are competent to do this. 

Now I have to tell you that once friends and family discover you have prostate cancer you'll get all sorts of recommendations about what treatment options you should choose. What I have discovered is that whatever seemed to work for someone was the best thing since sliced bread and ice tea. What didn't work, even if it were the same thing, was a bad option. In my research I found that the risk and failure/success rates were about the same for all of the treatment option. However, in my mind doing nothing was not an option.  Do your research and decide on what's best for you. 

For me it was relatively straight forward. I had a cancerous prostate that does not appear to have spread it's cells to any other part of my body so let's get rid of it before it does. However, I had a choice of two approaches to the surgery. I could either have the regular open wound surgery or the Da Vinci (Robotic) minimally invasive. Statistically they have about the same rate of effectiveness. I chose the open wound approach. 

The robotic minimally invasive approach was certainly appealing but was available at only one hospital in my area and the doctor I wanted to use was still training, as were all the others here, on the procedure.  Several factors were involved in my decision:  

·         First, the hospital that offered the robotic procedure was not my hospital of choice and I did not wish to travel to Houston. I wanted to make it easy on my wife and children since the level of care would not be significantly different at M.D. Anderson given my diagnosis;

·         Second, the doctors, including my choice of doctor, were still training on the procedure;

·         Third, the procedure was far more expensive than the open wound procedure;

·         Fourth, my chosen Doctor has done many hundreds if not thousands of these open wound procedures and is considered by his colleagues as among the best in the country.

·         Fifth, my chosen Doctor was on staff at my hospital of choice and was happy to do it where I wanted.

·         Sixth, and this may seem odd but the chaplain at my chosen hospital has been a friend for many years.

 Now I am not suggesting this should be your thought process. I offer it simply to say you need to have a thought process that leads to a decision as to who, how and where to treat you prostate cancer. 

Prostate cancer is the number one killer of men and more men will die from it than women will die from breast cancer. I do not begrudge the ladies one cent of the funding that goes into breast cancer research. I do think that something needs to be done to bring more attention to the risk men face with prostate cancer and the need for greater funding for research.  This is America people . . .  WE CAN DO BETTER!