Being a Pastor, part 2 (My Epiphany)

I remember when I came into my first church, I was told, "In this church, the Deacons are the leaders, not the Pastor. The Pastor is to preach and visit shut-ins and leave the decision making to the Deacons and the Committees."

I suspect that this same conversation has been held with a lot of young pastors over the years. I attended a Minister's Conference several years ago where the leader explained that in a typical small church the job of the Pastor is to preach, visit, pray, visit, do funerals, visit, perform weddings, and visit.

Don't get me wrong, any Pastor worth his salt is going to spend at least some of his time out visiting. I remember when I was in a Hospital making a visit and I ran into Dr. David Uth (at the time, he was the Pastor of a congregation that was running more than two thousand every Sunday). I remember thinking then that if a Pastor with his responsibilities could find time to go to the hospital to visit, then anyone could.

I also remember when I was in High School, and my grandfather passed away. My grandfather had been heavily involved in our church for decades, and yet when he died, the Pastor never came out and visited with my grandmother once, not one single time. My parents were upset, to put it mildly.

One of the basic qualities of a good Pastor is that he loves his people. Dr. Uth went to the hospital because someone he cared about was sick. When the Pastor never came to my grandmother's house, people wondered (reasonably) if he really cared. (In his defense, I believe that the Pastor did care about his people in general and about my grandmother in particular. He simply was not very comfortable working with people one on one. This proved to be a hinderance to his ministry.)

The problem is that after a while if visiting is all you do, being a Pastor comes to resemble the game "fetch," where the Pastor runs back and forth and everyone looks on with admiration. He never really accomplishes anything, but because he stays busy everyone assumes that he is doing a good job as Pastor.

For years, I played that game. I measured my success as a Pastor by how many miles I put on my truck for that particular month. However, after a while I began to wonder what the whole point was.

Then I had my epiphany.

A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to sit in on a conversation involving a young lady in our church that was feeling led to lead our Youth Ministry. I had arranged for the two of us to meet with a friend of mine, Eric Ball, who has trained and equipped Youth Ministers for a number of years.

As the two were talking, Eric was explaining how Jesus had spent most of his time equipping twelve men for ministry. Yes, he ministered to the sick and the dying. Yes, he performed miracles that even his opponents could not deny. However, the bulk of his time was spent working with the 12 disciples, twenty four hours a day, for about three years.

Eric went on to explain how Jesus was a mentor to those men, and that as a Youth Minister, this young lady needed to be a mentor to the youth. He encouraged her to start working with the two or three that we had, start with them, and allow the ministry to grow naturally.

When Eric used the word "Mentor," a light bulb went off in my head. I realized right then and there that I had been going in the wrong direction for years. For far too long I had tried to be the kind of Pastor that everyone else wanted me to be and for some strange reason, it just wasn't working.

When Eric was explaining about how to mentor someone, I realized that this was what a Pastor is supposed to be in a church. Not just a teacher, not just a preacher, not just a shut-in visitor, but a mentor. All of a sudden, my life got a whole lot easier.

I realized that it is not my job to do whatever needs to be done around the church, but rather to help others learn to do whatever needs to be done around the church. I realized that my job is not to grow the church, but to help grow people.

As soon as that sunk in, I reevaluated my entire approach to being a Pastor. Right then, I started looking at all of the different ministries in the church, and I asked myself two questions: 1) who is the leader of that ministry, and 2) what can I do to help them learn how carry out their ministry?

As I did this, Ministry got a LOT easier and, frankly, all of a sudden it was fun (not a word you usually hear about being a Pastor).

I began to start meeting one on one with the various leaders of our programs. I shared with them the vision that God was giving to me for the church and we discussed how their ministry could be a part of this. Once I did that, I was able to step back from a lot of the things that were really stressing me out, and I immediately became more comfortable with my role in the church.

Does this mean that I don't make any decisions any more? No. I still make decisions, but they are more about the overall direction of the church. Do I step back completely from the different programs and ministries? No. One of my goals for this year is to meet one on one with each ministry leader at least once a quarter just to review what has been going on and where things need to go from there. Also, I keep an eye on what's going on week to week, but I try to avoid stepping in unless I absolutely have to.

My wife has noticed that since I started doing this I am a much happier person. I look forward to each new day more than I did before, and while I had considered leaving the ministry several years ago, I am more content than ever at being a Pastor.