Category Archives: Healthy Leadership

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Communicating God’s Word

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One of the best parts of being a pastor (or a Christian for that matter) is seeing God use you. There is nothing like using the gifts God has given to you.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of the weights and joys of being a pastor to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

Being a pastor is unique. It isn’t harder than another job, just different.

If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you, God using you and What God thinks of you.

Joy #4: Communicating God’s Word

While this is a weight that pastors carry, this is also a joy.

To have the ability to open God’s Word and share it with others is a huge joy. To have people come to hear what God is saying through his Word and you is unbelievable. It is humbling, holy and scary all at the same time. For me, because teaching is one of my top gifts, I love being able to preach every week.

I love to see the way God chooses to use the work that I have put in and the time I have labored on a talk. It is something that is difficult to describe. It goes back to God using us.

For me, a sermon starts about six to eight months before I preach it. I lay out where I feel God is taking our church over the coming year and begin meditating on those passages, researching, finding articles, books and commentaries to see what others have to say on those topics. By the time I get up to preach something, I have been sitting with that topic for quite some time. To see more of how I prep a sermon, you can read that process here.

I am always blown away at how, even though we plan in advance, our church seems to be in the place where what I’m preaching on is what they need. Countless times God has shown up where we are going through what I’m preaching on. I used to be surprised.

By far this is more work, but at the same time it is so worth it. To be a part of God’s work in the world in this way makes what I do worth it.

Too many pastors, while they enjoy preaching, get lazy at it. They don’t plan ahead, they are trying to figure out Saturday night what to say instead of getting a good night’s sleep. They simply download someone else’s ideas instead of doing the hard work of figuring out what God wants to say to the church they serve. Or, they get up and say too many things instead of doing the hard work of editing.

Preaching is a weight, and according to the New Testament something you will get judged twice for. So if you preach, it is a joy as well as a weight. If it is not a joy, do something else in your church, or ask God to make preaching a joy to you.

When you see this task as a joyful weight, you finally get it. In that moment, a lot changes as a communicator. You are humbled by the opportunity, how God works but also that God will move through your prayers, confession and study. Those are never wasted in this weighty joy.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: What God Thinks of You

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When God thinks of you, what comes to mind?

This is a hard question for many of us to answer. We often think the answer is failure or disappointment or unloved.

Yet, none of those are true.

What you believe the answer is to that question shapes much of your life. This is especially true if you are a pastor.

There is a weight that pastors feel that I don’t know translates into other jobs. I think that people in churches can know about it, but not fully understand it. I know that as a youth pastor, I didn’t truly understand the weight of pastoring until becoming a lead pastor. For no particular reason, it just worked that way.

While there are many weights that a pastor carries, some of them are just human weights that others carry (including parenting), but I thought up five that I think pastors particularly carry on a daily basis because of what they do each and every week. There is an important distinction here. These are not pains; they are the weights of pastoring. There is a huge difference between pain and weight (so no one misses that).

I’ve been sharing these weights and joys recently so that those who attend a church know what it is like to be a pastor and how to best support their pastor. When those two (a pastor and the congregation) work together, some amazing things happen. When they work against each other, it is a disaster.

To see the other weights and joys, you can read them by clicking on the links: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change, People under you are counting on you and God using you.

Weight #4: What God Thinks of You

Pastors do not answer to their churches, boards or anybody else. Ultimately, they answer to God. Even though it is incredibly biblical, most Christians don’t like to hear it.

While pastors do answer to boards in their job, we ultimately do not answer to people. I remember having a conversation once with a guy who was upset about something we decided to do, and he said, “I give here. You answer to me. I should get to say what happens because I give here.” It is a whole other post, all the inaccuracies in that statement. I looked at him and said, “I don’t answer to you. I answer to God, and that scares me a whole lot more than the idea of answering to you.”

While this is true and biblical, most Christians do not like this idea. (Side note: This isn’t a ticket for pastors to do whatever they want.)

And it should scare a pastor to death. It should keep him humble and on his knees.

The idea of God judging how I lead Revolution, how I preach, how I shepherd, scares me. But I think it is a holy fear and one that should drive all pastors. Will God approve of what I did? Will God be glorified with what I did?

Before many pastors can answer those questions, though, there are some things they feel but never deal with. Many pastors get into ministry to help others, but many carry around approval idols. Not dealing with this causes them to put the emphasis on what people think of them instead of what God thinks of them.

Don’t miss this: Whichever one you think is more important will have an enormous impact on your leadership and the kind of church you lead.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: God Using You

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One of the best parts of being a pastor (or a Christian for that matter) is seeing God use you. There is nothing like using the gifts God has given to you.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of the weights and joys of being a pastor to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

Being a pastor is unique. It isn’t harder than another job, just different.

If you’ve missed any of the weights or joys I’ve covered, you can see them here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people, God’s call on your life, Seeing life change and People under you are counting on you.

Joy #3: God Using You

This joy is much like joy #1. The fact that a holy God would use us is crazy.

For God to use us, we need to have a posture that allows him to use us. God does not force you to allow him to use you, but he does draw you to himself so that he can use you.

This also gets at our stories. Too many Christians are embarrassed by their stories and what they were like before God saved them. God does not waste stories. While we should not glory in our sins, we also need to see them as things that God wants to use right now. Our stories are not mistakes. God did not save us too late; he saved us at the right time.

We also need to have a level of humility that will allow God to work through us. I think too often, especially as pastors, we want to control everything. We cannot control the way God is moving and how he is working. We need to go along for the ride. Whether that is in a service, a sermon or a conversation, we need to be open to how God is moving and whom he is moving. This is scary because we give up control, but that is when the greatest things happen.

There is nothing like being in the middle of God working and being a part of it. There is nothing like seeing someone get it, seeing someone cross the line of faith, get baptized, come out of addiction. There is nothing like it.

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Pastor, If you Burnout…

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burnout

Pastor, if you burnout, you have no one to blame.

I know, that sounds absolutely depressing and accusatory.

But for pastors it’s true.

Why?

Before I answer that, let’s back up.

Why do leaders burnout?

Why do leaders burnout?

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They burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well.

10 reasons most pastors burnout.

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So, whose fault is this?

Well, if you suffer from these, your first response will be to say that your church puts a lot of pressure on you (which they might), your elders have high expectations for you (which they do), so it must be them.

Your kids want to be in every sport, and you and your wife want to make sure your kids get all the things you didn’t have.

So if you burnout, whose fault is it? If you are tired, whose fault is it?

Stop for a minute and imagine you and you alone are standing in front of a mirror.

If you burnout, that’s your fault.

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That’s whose fault it is.

That’s who’s responsible.

Re-read this paragraph: Pastors burnout because they don’t get enough sleep, they say yes to too many things, they don’t eat properly, they preach too many times a year, they have too many meetings, they don’t recharge themselves well, they don’t do anything relaxing or fun, they don’t take a Sunday off, they work too many hours and they don’t deal with the emotional side of ministry well.

All of those things are on you.

Does anyone make you get up at a certain hour or stay up until a certain hour? Does anyone make you say yes? Who puts food in your mouth? Who decides the preaching calendar? Who makes your meeting schedule? Who prevents you from doing something fun? Who keeps you from taking a Sunday off? Who decided not to have a friend outside of their church they could vent to about the emotional side of ministry?

The answer to those questions?

You.

Let me give you an example if you are still skeptical.

Right now you’re reading this blog (thanks for that). Does your church know what you are doing? Does your church know if you are reading a blog to better yourself, working on a sermon, counseling someone, taking a nap or researching for fantasy football?

They have no idea.

Your church doesn’t know what you eat, when you sleep and how you recharge. And for the most part, they don’t care, because they expect you to be responsible and care for yourself.

You are responsible for your health, your relationship with God, your emotional and physical energy, for making sure you relax, take your days off, take a vacation. You are responsible for that.

So if you burnout, that’s on you.

Maybe another example will help.

This happened to me recently. I had over-scheduled my preaching calendar (so I preached too many weeks in a row), I had too many trips on top of each other, our kids were in a lot of activities, I was angry and hurt at a few people that I didn’t deal with as quickly as I should have, and I had put too many meetings on my calendar.

I was tired and I got upset, blamed some other people and talked about the high expectations that people have for me. Then my wife reminded me that I’m in charge of all that stuff.

So are you.

Take responsibility and control of it.

Remember: too many pastors give control of their lives and calendars to others.

Too many pastors give control of their lives and calendars to others.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: People Under You are Counting on You

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Recently I’ve been sharing some joys and weights of being a pastor. While being a pastor isn’t necessarily harder than other jobs, it is different. In fact, I cringe when a pastor says that they have the hardest job in the world, but that’s another topic.

I’ve been sharing these so that those who attend church can have a better understanding of what their pastor walks through and how to best support their pastor, but to also help pastors process what they live with and how to handle it.

To see the weights and joys I’ve already talked about, go here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people and God’s call on your life and Seeing life change.

pastor

Weight #3: People Under You Are Counting on You

While everyone has people in their lives that are counting on them, I’ve noticed a different feeling among pastors. While you have those who work for you, you have to worry about their livelihood, paying salaries and the bills of a church. You also have your board that you are a part of who oversees you.

There is also the unwritten expectations that people have in your church. These are always the most dangerous and toughest to handle.

Whether it is from their last church, what they think the Bible says about a pastor or what they saw someone on TV say or do when it comes to preaching, all of these things converge in people’s minds, and they want you to be all of these things and more. The reality is if you had your church list five things a pastor is supposed to do, you are only gifted at one or two of them. While team ministry is the biblical approach and the one that works, it doesn’t make it any easier.

Everyday a pastor ends his day with this knowledge: there is someone else I can call, someone else I can counsel, another meeting I can go to, I can write/research more of my message. There is always one more thing.

Whether this pressure actually comes from people, our own thinking, or both, it is real.

One area this bleeds into and can cause a great deal of pain is in the pastor’s family. Expectations that people have for the wife and kids of a pastor are often so overblown it is crazy. The pastor’s wife is not an employee. If she is, then she can do her job, but if she isn’t paid, she is just like everyone else in the church. I’m often asked what a pastor’s wife should do in a church. The answer: what everyone else does. She’s a follower of Jesus like everyone else is. Yes, her role is unique and different from others, but she is a follower of Jesus before she is anything else, so that shapes what she does.

One thing I’ve learned is to be very honest about expectations (as honest as I can be). I once ran into a situation where a group of leaders had an expectation for me that actually went against what the Bible calls pastors to do. This happens a lot and is very difficult to bring up.

Here are some things you can do:

1. Know who you actually answer to. What does your immediate supervisor ask of you? As long as they are on your side and feel like you are hitting the agreed upon expectations, that can save a lot of pain.

2. You need to have some clear boundaries. Too many pastors have absolutely no boundaries when it comes to their schedules, meetings, e-mails and phone calls. On my day off, on family day, the computer stays off, the phone is off and I don’t have meetings. This can bleed over into being lazy, but for me, when it is time to work, I come with my game face on and throw down. But when it is sabbath time and family time, I enjoy every moment of it.

3. Teach your church. You will also have to teach your church what a pastor does, what they are supposed to do and what the church is supposed to do. Many of the things people think a pastor should do, in reality, the church is supposed to do those things. If just the pastor did those things, we would actually rob the church of being able to use their gifts.

4. Talk with others who understand. No matter what job you have, it is helpful to spend time with others who have the same role and responsibility. Only a lawyer can really understand what it is like to be a lawyer. The same is true for pastors. Get some friends who are pastors so that you can have someone who understands what you are walking through and can give wisdom from that perspective.

5. It’s not your church anyway. At the end of the day, while this weight is real, we as pastors often make it heavier than it is supposed to be. It is not your church. Those are not your people. Yes, you are responsible and accountable, but it isn’t yours. You aren’t building it, you didn’t die for it, you didn’t rise from the dead for it. Stop acting like you did.

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How to Create Your Ideal Year

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Do you know where you’re going next year? Do you know what you hope to accomplish?

It’s that time of year when people sit and make New Year’s Resolutions, dream up possibilities for the coming year, or pick a word or a verse for the year that will guide their way.

Sadly, most of the resolutions and dreams made right now will be over and done with by February. It doesn’t have to be that way. It is possible to think through the coming year and accomplish them.

next year

Before jumping into the next year, though, it is important to look back. In his book The Catalyst Leader, Brad Lomenick has some helpful questions to review your year:

8 questions to ask yourself at the end of the year.

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  1. What are the 2-3 themes that personally define me?
  2. What people, books, accomplishments, or special moments created highlights for me recently?
  3. Give yourself a grade from 1-10 in the following areas of focus: vocationally, spiritually, family, relationally, emotionally, financially, physically, recreationally.
  4. What am I working on that is BIG for the next year and beyond?
  5. As I move into this next season or year, is a majority of my energy being spent on things that drain me or things that energize me?
  6. How am I preparing for 10 years from now? 20 years from now?
  7. What 2-3 things have I been putting off that I need to execute on before the end of the year?
  8. Is my family closer than a year ago? Am I a better friend than a year ago? If not, what needs to change immediately?

8 questions to ask yourself at the end of the year.

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Here are six ways to set goals, keep them and accomplish them.

6 ways to set goals, keep them and accomplish them.

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1. Be realistic. If your goal is to lose weight, losing 20 pounds in two weeks isn’t likely or realistic. It’s possible if you just stop eating, but that sounds miserable. The excitement of what could be is easy to get caught up in, but the reality that you will all of a sudden get up at 5am four days a week when you have been struggling to get up by 7am isn’t realistic.

2. Set goals you want to keep. I have had friends set a goal, and they are miserable. Now, sometimes our goals will have some pain. When I lost 130 pounds, it wasn’t fun to change my eating habits, but the short term pain was worth it. The same goes for debt. It will require some pain to get out of debt. You have to walk a fine line here. If it is too painful, you will not want to keep it. This is why our goals are often more of a process than a quick fix.

3. Make them measurable. Don’t make a goal to lose weight, get out of debt or read your Bible more. Those aren’t measurable. How much weight? How much debt? How much more will you read your Bible? Make them measurable so you can see how you are doing.

4. Have a plan. Once you have your goal, you need a plan. If it’s weight loss, what will you do? If it’s debt, how will you get there? What are the steps? If it’s Bible reading, what plan are you using? No goal is reached without a plan.

5. Get some accountability. Equally important is accountability. One of the things I did when I weighed 285 pounds and started mountain biking was I bought some bike shorts that were too small and embarrassing to wear. This gave me accountability to keep riding. Your accountability might be a spouse or a friend, but it needs to be someone that can actually push you. Maybe you need to go public with your goal and invite people to help you stay on track.

6. Remove barriers to your goals. Your goals have barriers. That’s why you have to set goals in the first place. It might be waking up, food, credit cards, working too late or wasting time on Facebook. Whatever it is that is going to keep you from accomplishing it, remove it. Get rid of the ice cream and credit cards, and move your alarm clock so you have to get out of bed. Whatever it is, do it. Life is too short to be miserable and not accomplish your goals.

How to create your ideal year.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: Seeing Life Change

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As with any job, there are highs and lows. Being a pastor is no different. There are joys and weights, as I call them.

Recently I’ve been sharing some of those to help people who attend church understand what it is like to be a pastor and how they can support their pastor and his family, but also to encourage pastors to keep going and not give up, as so many do.

You can see the weights and joys I’ve shared already here: Preaching God’s word every week, You can’t change people and God’s call on your life.

Pastor, if you’re forgetting why you’re a pastor, here’s a reason why.

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pastor

Joy #2: Seeing Life Change

All the critics, things not going as you planned them, sermons flopping, services falling apart, electronics or videos not going as planned. All of these things happen and are inevitable.

Seeing lives changed, marriages saved, singles choosing integrity, people getting out of debt, Christians being baptized, people finding God, addicts getting out of addiction.

Makes it all worth it.

I think too many pastors stay focused on the negative and never get to see lives changed. Another reason pastors and churches don’t see lives changed is because they don’t expect it, they don’t pray for it and they don’t sacrifice for it. Seeing life change is messy. It is not clean. There are no defined categories. You will have people in your church who swear (at church), who smoke (at church), who will talk about getting drunk, sleeping around and getting high (like everyone is doing it, which in their world, everyone is doing it).

To see life change you must expect it, pray for it, put up with the critics and then see God work. I love getting phone calls from people at Revolution who tell me with a huge smile, “I didn’t get drunk last night,” “I haven’t gotten high in three days,” “I haven’t looked at porn in a week.”

It never gets old.

While those might seem like small steps, and many would think, “They shouldn’t anyway” (which is true), those are big steps for the person.

I think too many times as Christians we spend so much time focusing on brokenness and sin and not enough time focusing on life change and grace. This isn’t a way of being soft on sin, but think for a minute how much time you spend focusing on God’s grace versus God’s judgment.

That focus comes through in your preaching, your counseling and your outlook on people. Do you expect God to work in someone’s life? Do you expect change to happen? Do you believe it is possible for yourself and for those you lead?

If you don’t, then you are missing out on one of the joys God has for you as a pastor.

Some encouragement for pastors today.

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How to Maximize a Retreat Day

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Do you ever take any time for yourself? Do you ever sit before God in silence, listening? Not leading or doing, but resting and being.

Do you ever take any time for yourself?

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For all of us, resting is crucial. Stopping, letting go, not using a list, not thinking about the future, projects, people or vision is important, but we seldom make time for it.

If we do, it feels awkward and clumsy.

retreat day

The question becomes, how do you maximize a sabbath or a retreat day?

How to take a retreat day as a leader.

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I was asked recently by a campus ministry leader how to unplug for 48 hours and recharge. As I thought about it, I thought I’d share some of those ideas with you:

  • Have an idea of what you hope to get out of it.
  • Make sure it is realistic so that you aren’t depressed afterwards if you don’t accomplish that.
  • Are you trying to rest, recharge, connect with God? Have a clear goal for it.
  • Turn off everything electronic. I would start this before the retreat day or time off.
  • Have a plan for what you will do after the retreat day to reengage work and relationships. The reentry can be the hardest.
  • Go somewhere that is recharging for you. I like to go up to the mountains and walk around and sit.
  • If you’re going to read a book, read one that enriches your soul, not a ministry book.
  • Listen to music that connects you to God and helps you to worship.
  • Schedule it, block it off and don’t let anything interrupt it (unless it is a massive emergency).

I’d also encourage you to use this time to evaluate yourself, your heart, your leadership, etc.

Here are some questions I’ve used that might be helpful (some of these came from The Power of Full Engagement: Managing Energy, Not Time, Is the Key to High Performance and Personal Renewal):

  • On a scale of 1 to 10, how fully engaged am I at work? What is standing in my way?
  • How closely does my everyday behavior match my values and serve my mission? Where are the disconnects?
  • How fully am I embodying my values and vision for myself at work? At home? In my community? Where am I falling short?
  • How effectively are the choices that I’m making physically – habits of nutrition, exercise, sleep and the balance of stress and recovery – serving my key values?
  • How consistent with my values is my emotional response in any given situation? Is it different at work than it is at home, and if so, how?
  • To what degree do I establish clear priorities and sustain attention to tasks? How consistent are those priorities with what I say is most important to me?
  • How do my habits of sleeping, eating and exercising affect my available energy?
  • How much negative energy do I invest in defense spending – frustration, anger, fear, resentment, envy – as opposed to positive energy utilized in the service of growth and productivity?
  • How much energy do I invest in myself, and how much in others, and how comfortable am I with that balance? How do those closest to me feel about the balance I’ve struck?
  • How much energy do I spend worrying about, feeling frustrated by and trying to influence events beyond my control?
  • Finally, how wisely and productively am I investing my energy?
  • What’s my current word from the Lord? (It’s not new, but what is God whispering to you lately?)
  • What’s my current obedience to the Lord? (There can be sacrifice without obedience, but there can’t be obedience without sacrifice.)
  • What is my current awe before the Lord? Will I get on God’s agenda and trust Him to take care of my agenda?
How to maximize a day off.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: God’s Call on Your life

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Recently I’ve been sharing some joys and weights of being a pastor. While being a pastor isn’t necessarily harder than other jobs, it is different. In fact, I cringe when a pastor says that they have the hardest job in the world, but that’s another topic.

If you’ve been reading along, you might think that being a pastor is only misery, but there are a lot of joys that go along with being a pastor.

In fact, if you are a pastor this might be just the reminder you need.

pastoring

Joy #1: God’s call on your life.

One of the many joys of being a pastor.

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While there is a call on all Christians lives to live a certain way, for a certain goal and to invite others into this, scripture is clear that God calls certain ones to lead his people. It does not mean that pastors are better than everyone else; they are just called to lead the people of God. In fact, this calling means they get judged twice. (James 3:1)

God’s call on your life (in any capacity) is humbling. That God would ask me to do anything is crazy. If we’re honest, we would all agree that God should call someone else or come up with a plan B. But we are plan A without a plan B. That God would even think I can fulfill his call and fulfill his will is humbling.

God’s call also gives us a specific way to live and a specific thing that we are trying to accomplish. It means life is not an accident, that we are not mistakes, but that God has set us apart from others. This means that as a follower of Jesus, God has placed a call on your life to do something. Your role is to figure out what it is and then do it.

God’s call is also important as a leader because when life gets tough, when critics get loud, when God’s voice seems silent, your call is what will keep you going. There have been countless times for Katie and me that the only reason we stuck with being a pastor was because of God’s call on our lives.

Another aspect that too many leaders miss is that your personal call must also be your spouse’s call (if you are married). In fact, I would venture to say that your spouse almost needs to feel this call more than you do. They will feel the pain more than you do, they will want to defend you, they will feel the hurt more than you do. When something happens to you, you can brush it off. But when something happens to someone you love, it is hard to brush it off. Too many pastors get into ministry and drag their spouse with them and use God’s call as a club to say, “We have to. God called me.” He may have, but you also chose to get married, and they need to be on board with it. Your call must be their call, or you will not be in ministry or married for long.

I know that last paragraph makes this seem like a weight instead of a joy, but that is one of my soapboxes because we have talked to countless pastors who dragged their spouses into ministry.

If you are unsure of God’s call on your life to vocational ministry, that doesn’t make you a second class Christian. All Christians aren’t called to be pastors, but that doesn’t mean God hasn’t called you.

If you are tired right now as a pastor, worn down and are unsure if you can go on, your call to ministry is one of the things that will get you through. Remember that moment, that clarity, that excitement. Cling to that and the one who gifted you and called you to what you are going through and what is ahead.

God’s call on your life will get you through the difficult times of pastoring.

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The Weight & Joy of Being a Pastor: You Can’t Change People

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There is a weight that pastors feel that I don’t know translates into other jobs. I think that people in churches can know about it but not fully understand it. I know that as a youth pastor I didn’t truly understand the weight of pastoring until becoming a lead pastor. For no particular reason it just worked that way.

While there are many weights that a pastor carries, some of them are just human weights that others carry (including parenting), but I thought up five that I think pastors particularly carry on a daily basis because of what they do each and every week. There is an important distinction here: these are not pains. These are the weights of pastoring. There is a huge difference between pain and weight (so no one misses that).

Over the coming months I wanted to share some of the weights and joys of pastoring.

The weight of being a pastor.

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Weight #1 for a pastor has to do with preaching and the responsibility of opening God’s Word.

pastoring

Weight #2: Seeing people make bad decisions and living outside of God’s design for life.

This does not mean that pastors don’t make stupid decisions or even make decisions so that we live outside of God’s design for life. I make plenty of stupid decisions. However, as a pastor you have a front row seat into people’s lives, whether it is through conversations at church, in a meeting or in a counseling session. You often get to watch the sin unfold in people’s lives, and you know that they know they are making a bad decision.

Why being a pastor can be so hard and painful.

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It is like watching your child make a dumb decision, knowing they are making a dumb decision, but not wanting or not being able to stop them.

I remember numerous times talking with someone about a problem in their life, seeing the pain in their eyes, hearing them talk about wanting freedom, only to have them come back in a week and tell me they were back in it. To see people decide on instant gratification instead of integrity. To see people do things that make you scratch your head and think, “Are you serious?”

Pastors get a bird’s eye view into others’ lives, and because of that we often see the end before it starts. We know how most stories end because we’ve seen so many play out.

At the same time there is also the pain of feeling helpless while watching people bring pain into their lives or experience pain because others have brought it into their lives. We can’t stop people; we can pray and counsel, but ultimately people live and make their own decisions.

This is hard for anyone.

In Luke 15 Jesus talked about the prodigal son and how he left his family and went to a far off country. Sometimes the people around us (and sometimes we) need to go to a far off country. It’s hard to let them. We want to stop them. Change them. Fix them.

Luke 15 brings so much comfort to a pastor or a parent.

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But that isn’t our job.

Our job is to be there when they come back from that far off country.

That’s weighty. That’s painful and difficult. It opens us up to hurt and pain. Many times a pastor will meet with someone and know exactly how it will end and what will happen, much like a parent watching their child make the same choices.

Like a parent who wants the best for their child, but who also knows their child must make choices as they grow older.

If you’re a pastor, this is what you signed up for. Don’t forget that. Don’t overstep that and try to work your way around it.

If you’re a pastor, this is what you signed up for.

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