October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and I want to urge you to encourage your pastor. Being a pastor is an incredibly rewarding vocation, but it can be difficult as well. I visit with pastors every week who are discouraged, frustrated, weary, stressed and lonely. What a pastor does in his ministry and the things he experiences and must navigate can be very challenging.
Pastors must make decisions they know will not make everyone happy. They often mediate conflict within the church. There can be a heaviness in conducting funerals and ministering to those in grief, helping couples with serious marriage issues and walking with parents having problems with their children.
It hurts a pastor when people leave the church. It weighs on him if the church isn’t growing very much or has financial troubles. Pastors cut vacations short and work on their day off when needs at the church arise. They work long hours and many of our pastors work multiple jobs. They are expected to be very proficient in a wide range of skills—preaching, counseling, people skills, leadership/administration, just to name a few. Many pastors face criticism and have terrible things said to them and about them by the very church members they love and want to serve.
After the Apostle Paul enumerated the many ways he suffered persecution and hardships for preaching the gospel and carrying out his ministry, he said, “And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28). Every pastor I know can relate to that statement. On top of all the things he deals with, a pastor carries a great burden for the well-being of the church.
In addition, being part of a pastor’s family can be difficult. The expectations often placed on the pastor and his family members and the scrutiny of living in a glass house are hard to live up to. Since they are always supposed to “have it all together,” it’s difficult for them to talk about problems or seek help when needed. Pastors and their family members can feel alone and isolated fearing the judgment and scrutiny of others. The demands on a pastor can make it difficult to manage his time, stress, spiritual life, self-care and proper priorities all of which strain marriage and family relationships. The pastor’s family is a prime target of Satan. He has brought down many pastors and drawn them away from the ministry by attacking his marriage and family.
Guard against your church having unfair and undue expectations of the pastor and his family. Allow them to have struggles. Support and encourage them often. Sadly, many a member of a pastor’s family has been embittered against the church or even God because of the harsh, ungodly behavior of the church against their family.
I want to ask you to be intentional in encouraging and supporting your pastor and his family. Pray for them. Make an effort to say an encouraging word, email, card or text. Give them a gift that is a tangible expression of your appreciation for them. There’s a good chance your pastor is dealing with something difficult right now. Help lessen that burden and be an encouragement to him!
