I have had the tremendous honor of serving as Senior Pastor now for nearly 5 years at a church planted by my wife and I. Prior to this time, I had spent 4 years as an itinerant Evangelist and singer, traveling and spending many days and nights in numerous Pastor’s homes. My father, is also a Senior Pastor, so I’ve had the privilege of seeing the multiple functions of a Pastor from that perspective as well.
In today’s culture, the demands upon a Pastor all too often exceed what they really should be. The Pastor is traditionally considered a local church’s head “Everything”. He’s most often the spiritual and administrative head, the sole minister, the legal corporation president – and basically the know-it-all, do-it-all, man on the job. In many small churches, the Pastor will conduct the services, lead the praise and worship singing, do most if not all the preaching, handle all of the visiting, counseling and spiritual matters, while he may also have to take care of the office work, accounting, business matters, and possibly even the janitorial, maintenance, building repair and lawn care.
In my years of traveling to nearly 100 different churches, I have found many Pastors to be some of the hardest working, most versatile, multi-skilled people I have ever met. And for the most part, they pick up all these skills out of the necessity of their circumstances, as they have no funds to hire staff and usually have very few willing and committed volunteers to help with these matters. In too many cases, the Pastor has to do far more than he was ever called for, much less trained for.
This really isn’t the way that it should be. Ideally, the Pastor should be the spiritual overseer of the church, devoting his time and attention to the higher priorities of prayer and ministering the Word, while delegating the load of administrative tasks, details and responsibilities out to lay-ministers, assistants, elders and deacons.
The early Apostles faced this same dilemma. They received complaints that some of the widows of the church were not being cared for as they should be. So, they selected qualified persons to delegate these tasks, so they would not be distracted away from what God has really called them to do – to be men of Prayer and of the Word. “…It is not desirable that we should leave the Word of God and serve tables. Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Ghost and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the Word”. (Acts 6:2-4)
The rewards of being a Pastor are many. Without question, there is no other position in the world that has a higher honor, than to be called of God to be a Pastor. However, it is a vocation of extreme contrasts. It can be sometimes wonderful and sometimes terrible in the same package. Despite potential blessings of leading souls to Christ, the job of Pastor is one of the most difficult, agonizing tasks there is.
Some of the greatest challenges of a Pastor are:
1. Being Misunderstood ~ For the most part, the life and ministry of a Pastor is not understood by the average layman. A Policeman once told me the same thing about Law Enforcement Officers. He said, “The only one that really understands what a cop does is another cop”. I could completely understand what he was saying. Sheep really don’t have any idea what it’s like to be a shepherd – only other shepherds. The average layman has little concept of what a Pastor is, what he really does, the hassles he deals with and so forth.
Being a Pastor is not a job. It’s what a person is. When God calls a person to be a Pastor, He places in him a shepherd’s heart, nature and characteristics – to love and care for his flock. He is a Pastor 100% of the time. It’s what he thinks about, what he lives for, his purpose for being on earth. It’s not possible for him to go home at the end of the day and leave his ‘job’ behind the way that most people can. His, is an all consuming task. The Pastor is on duty twenty-four hour per day, seven days per week three-hundred and sixty-five days per year. He frequently receives phone calls from early in the morning until late at night. Most of his home activities are related to the church. Most social calls or relationships are church related. A large percentage of his conversations with his family revolve around the church. His home should probably be a refuge to rest or to have a life of his own, but it’s usually the only place he can hide himself long enough from interruptions, to pray for the church and to study sermons that he must preach and Bible studies he must teach.
2. Coping With Criticism ~ Like most other public figures, a Pastor and his family live in the public eye, like a ‘fish-bowl’ or a ‘glass-house’ where people watch them constantly, frequently viewing them with criticism and cynicism. People who enter the ministry must be prepared to face much criticism, sometime of a brutal and cruel nature. However, all those who have risen in leadership or accomplishment know well the sting of their critics. It has been said that “the only way to avoid criticism, is to Say Nothing, Do Nothing and Be Nothing”.
People frequently find disappointment with Pastors, largely due to a lack of understanding of what Pastors do. Rarely does a church ever have a written description of duties for the Senior Pastor, and if they do, it’s usually too vague to help much when a new Senior Pastor arrives for duty. And it seems that so many have a different opinion of what the Pastor should do. They usually hand him the keys to the church and assume that he’ll take care of everything that needs to be done – without realizing the hundreds of details that it may all require.
3. Faced With An Overwhelming Task ~ It’s been said that 80% of the work of the church is done by 20% of the people. But when realize that the majority of American churches have fewer than 100 people, you can imagine that the Pastor and his wife and/or family often make up a great portion of that 20%. As I have mentioned, in many of those churches, the Pastor is often faced with having to do jobs that he was never trained for – everything from plumbing to desktop publishing to accounting… and besides this, he must also be the well-studied preacher and teacher. Beyond these demands, his life will be one of constant distractions, receiving countless calls each day and expected to always drop whatever he’s doing to sympathize, counsel, or encourage those who ask for help. The Pastor seldom has enough time to do everything – time is always one of his greatest needs.
I have been in many a Pastor’s home, joining with him in tearful prayers for God to send helpers, workers and finances to lift the heavy load on him and his wife and/or family. Many Pastors will never know what it is like to have a paid staff and must pray for volunteers to train and delegate responsibilities. Unfortunately, for most churches, the Pastor wears more hats than he should have to endure – both physically and emotionally. According to ministry researcher George Barna, among the most discouraging aspects for Pastors is the extensive range of duties they must fulfill that exceed their mix of gifts and talents.
Author, James Rutz says that the average Pastor often feels overwhelmed and lonely in his task. “He beats out his brains in the pulpit week after week to make a difference in people’s lives and the church. But sometimes he feels like he’s been condemned to a lifetime of futility, trying in vain to motivate a sullen pack of foot dragging spiritual adolescents who never quite seem to see the big picture, never get excited enough to shoulder real responsibilities and never come anywhere close to a full 10% tithe.”
4. Resisting Manipulation ~ For many, this will sound unbelievable. But the Pastor is a frequent target of manipulation and control. Sometimes people unintentionally take advantage of a Pastor’s willing heart, and make requests and demands that begin to dominate his personal life. And then there are others who view the Pastor like a politician, trying to lobby for his favor or influence to attain a position, to favor their opinion, etc. But there are those who have a definite spirit of control, better known as a Jezebel Spirit, who feed on control and domination and if they can’t get the Pastor to do what they want, they’ll often turn on him and try to run him out. A prominent Pastor once said, “There’s an old saying about Pastors: ‘If they can’t run God’s man, they’ll try to ruin God’s man”.
Because of this or other sour experiences with people, Pastors will sometimes distance themselves from having close personal relationships with people. They may even decline offerings and other gifts given directly to them unless given anonymously, since such gifts often have strings attached – perhaps unintentionally, the giver will often expect preferred treatment, recognition or to have a ‘special influence’ in the Pastor’s decisions.
5. Coping With Emotional Conflict ~ During the ministry of a Pastor, he will face challenges and strange conflicts in his emotions that he was never prepared for. This unique man most likely entered the ministry out of his divine calling, and his love for souls. But he was probably surprised to learn that shepherding people was a life filled with wounds, hurts and disappointments.
As the Pastor faces his daily tasks, he will begin to ride an emotional roller-coaster. With each person he counsels or prays with, he will experience a momentary bond with their circumstances or burdens. During the course of a day, he may console someone with a terminal illness, listen to trivial complaints, meet with a couple to discuss their marriage plans or their marriage troubles, hear the voice of those disgruntled with his decisions, sermons or methodologies or find it necessary to deal firmly with someone who’s falling into a sinful lifestyle. He will go from one contrasting situation to another then within a very short period, he will have to find a way to restore his composure from all these concerns to seek the Lord’s heartbeat for the upcoming service and preach the Word as the Lord leads him.
Most others who deal with repeated crisis or trauma eventually learn how to develop a callousness in order to cope with the emotional upheaval of their jobs. Paramedics, Police Officers or Emergency Room Personnel understand this all too well. However, when a Pastor deals with a daily assortment of similar urgencies, unlike other emergency workers, he cannot distance his feelings from the crisis. He cannot allow himself to become callous to protect his emotions from being involved. It’s the nature of his calling and his job to care. His flock expects him to be sensitive, a person of genuine compassion, to feel their hurts and to share their burdens.
6. Coping With Disappointments ~ Furthermore, during his ministry, he will experience many disappointments and heartaches with people. Many will fail to do what they promised to do… Many will fail to follow through with commitments that they have made and the disappointment weighs heavy on the Pastor’s heart. Others will criticize, judge, speak against him, betray him or even seek to ruin him and/or his family. Some will try to gain his friendship for ulterior reasons – to manipulate his influence for their own agenda. Many whom he loves will eventually leave the church for some reason… Some will move away, others may stray from church altogether, others will become offended and some will simply reject his ministry. Dozens of times, he will experience the loss of beloved members of his flock through death. Many, many are the wounds of a shepherd, which the flock will never truly understand or know about.
7. Dealing With Satanic Attack ~ The Pastor and his family are target’s of Satan’s greatest attacks. The enemy’s strategy is highly intelligent. If he can overrun the shepherd with temptations or trials, he can likely scatter the sheep. According to insurance statistics, ministers experience an unusually high rate of stress related illnesses (such as ulcers and nervous conditions), depression, marital difficulties, conflicts with their children or family, financial problems, etc. To complicate matters further, if he does face such challenges, some will criticize him as a spiritual failure.
8. Perseverance ~ There will be numerous temptations for the Pastor to simply quit. He must be a person of tremendous faith and prayer to overcome the many challenges – to set his face as a stone, with unflinching determination and steadfastness. The average layman will never realize the price his Pastor must pay to be his shepherd – the heartaches he will endure to minister to men’s souls. Jesus, the Great Shepherd was a man acquainted with grief and sorrow, despised and rejected and His under-shepherds and Pastors also identify with these same characteristics.
Remember to always pray for your Pastor and his wife, encourage them, show your love and appreciation for them and do your best not to add to his list of wounds.
Just Thinkin’ Out Loud…
Pastor Robbie
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