Over the past week, I’ve been doing a series on The Sins of a Pastor. These sins are not necessarily unique, but I believe most pastors struggle with them. They are also sins that can be easily hidden, seen as spiritual things, the right thing for a pastor to do and they are often things the church or elders of the church encourage without realizing it.
If you missed any of them, here they are:
Pastors, like any person sin. While this may be surprising for some people as they put their pastors and their wife on a pedestal, it is true. Because of the nature of being a pastor and the life they live, their sins are often not obvious and ones that no one will ever know about. In fact, some of the most hurtful and dangerous sins are ones that a church and elders can unknowingly encourage. These sins are not in any particular order, just the order I wrote them in.
So far we’ve covered:
The fourth sin that many pastors deal with is the sin of the need to be needed. This directly affects what we talked about yesterday and how the pastor and his family are seen.
Many pastors as they become pastors do so out of a sense of wanting to help people. This can be seen in counseling, in discipling people or walking alongside of them. They want to help people.
This can hide for a time any way, the need to be needed. This shows up when a pastor:
Now, I’m not calling for pastors to be lazy. In fact, the last sin we’ll talk about is how lazy many pastors are.
Pastor, take a minute and ask yourself some of these questions:
You may fall prey to the desire to be needed and that may be driving you and your ministry more than Jesus. If so, take a day off, turn your phone off and take a break from preaching.
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Pastors, like any person sin. While this may be surprising for some people as they put their pastors and their wife on a pedestal, it is true. Because of the nature of being a pastor and the life they live, their sins are often not obvious and ones that no one will ever know about. In fact, some of the most hurtful and dangerous sins are ones that a church and elders can unknowingly encourage. These sins are not in any particular order, just the order I wrote them in.
So far we’ve covered:
The third sin that many pastors deal with is the sin of the pastor’s family and the view they give.
The blame for this sin sits with the pastor, his wife and the church. Often equally.
First, many pastors and their wife feels the need to be perfect. They feel that they are on this pedestal and must always appear happy, put together, growing in their relationship with Jesus. No flaws can ever be seen in their marriage, parenting or life. Often, church members want this. They want their pastor and his wife to appear above the struggles they have. Consequently, a pastor and his wife always feel like they are putting on a show, unsure of who they can be real with, unsure of who they can let their guard down around. What quickly happens is anger, frustration, sadness stay pent up until it becomes bitterness and rage that is let out at the worst possible moment.
This gets past on to the kids of a pastor. They feel that they have to behave perfectly, almost like little adults. I remember when we first started Revolution and after a service all the kids, read that again, all the kids in our small church plant were dancing on the stage and jumping off. A woman came up to me and said, “Is it a good idea for your kids to be on stage dancing and jumping off the stage? I’m not sure a pastor’s kid should behave like that?” Notice, there were 12-15 kids doing this. My kids at the time were a little over 1 and 3 and a half. I looked at her and said, “I can’t think of a better thing for my kids to do be doing right now than acting like little kids and having fun.”
This one is difficult because when expectations don’t match up, fights and division occur.
As the pastor, you have to lead on this one. In your home and in your church. You set the tone.
For me, I have friends I can vent to. Friends I can be myself around. Friends I can blow off steam with. Friends that when I get angry at someone, am hurt or frustrated will listen and then challenge me with the gospel. Friends who don’t expect me to be perfect.
Your wife also needs to have friends like this.
As a pastor, you must give your wife permission to be your wife and a church member. We tell the wives of our pastors, we expect you to act and serve like any other mature church member at our church. We think mature Christians will serve and use their gifts, have a quiet time, raise their kids if they have them. This changes with life stage. There was a time when my wife did nothing but help to lead a missional community with me. I had some people ask why she didn’t do other things and I explained our philosophy, Katie’s gift mix and the age of our kids. They were unhappy and left our church.
Your reaction to that last line pastor will determine if you will find a healthy balance in this.
If you are a church member, expect your pastor to live out the qualifications of an elder, but don’t expect him to be Jesus. Your pastor did and will not die on the cross for you and rise from the dead. He cannot be Jesus. He doesn’t need to be Jesus, we already have a Jesus and he is perfect and amazing and worthy of our worship. Not your pastor.
Here are a few more things to do:
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I am coming off of my summer preaching break at Revolution. When we started the church 5 years ago, I preached almost 100 times in the first 2 years. While it seemed necessary at the time, it was not unwise and certainly not sustainable.
It is always interesting to me when pastors hear about the break I take each summer. They often tell me how they could never do that or what they would do if they did that. I’ve talked to church members who don’t know what to do with a pastor taking a break. I get quizzical looks and then they say, “It would be nice for me to take 4 weeks off.” Which totally misses the point, but it would be nice to take 4 weeks off.
Here’s what I do on my break & why you as a pastor should take one:
If you are an elder or a church member who has the power to encourage your pastor to do this, do it. The benefit to your pastor, his family and your church is enormous. If you are a pastor, stop making excuses about this. Educate your elders, vision cast and lead up. I had to at the beginning as my elders didn’t understand why I’d do this. To them it felt like I was taking a month off. That’s okay, but don’t let that stop you.
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From time to time I’ll meet a couple. He feels like God has called him to plant a church, but she isn’t so sure. Sometimes, it is just fear on her part.
What will it look like? What will being a pastor’s wife feel like? Will my friendships change? How will this affect my kids? Where will money come from?
Many guys, because they are visionary, excitable, wanting to serve God with their whole lives either ignore these questions or simply give answers akin to, “We’ll figure it out.”
When I meet a couple, if she does not feel called to plant a church, I tell them to wait.
If a couple is truly one and if God is calling one of them to plant a church, he will make it clear to the other one that they are both called to plant. If they plant while one is still on the fence or opposed to it, disaster for them and the church awaits them.
When I say this, I get a stunned look from many guys and they reply with, “If I do that, I won’t plant. What am I supposed to do then? I’m sinning if I don’t do what God has called me to.”
Here are a few thoughts on that question that you may have right now:
Many pastors don’t want to admit this truth, but it is true. One reason we don’t like to admit this is because when you do, someone might say, “Oh, you’re just watering down the gospel.” Which admittedly can happen.
If you don’t keep your audience in mind when you preach, you will miss them and it won’t matter what you say.
When I preach, I try to keep a few groups in mind:
What about everyone else? The Christian who has followed Jesus faithfully for 20 years? Everyone I didn’t mention? I’ve found if you preach to these groups of people, you will hit everyone else in the room.
I’ve also found that most pastors don’t preach to these people. It is hard for me to always keep them in mind.
When I write a sermon, I often imagine having that sermon as a conversation with one of my friends who fit into these categories and how I would present it to them. What I’d want them to know and the questions they would have about it.
Don’t miss this though: your words reflect who you think is there. Whether you believe it or not, your audience determines your language because your language determines your audience.
I love books. This isn’t a secret if you’ve been around my blog for a long time. You can see what I’ve read recently here and read my book reviews here. When I meet other leaders and pastors, at some point what they are reading comes up. I get some funny looks from some guys about what I read, as I don’t always read books written by Christians or books from my theological stream. Which made me think about how many leaders limit themselves in their reading, much to their detriment.
So, here are 8 ways to know if you are limiting your reading.
What would you add to the list to know if your reading list is too narrow?
I love movies. As a family, it is the same. Every week, we have family movie night. The child who had their daddy date that week gets to pick family movie night. This past week, we watched The Rise of the Guardians.
If you haven’t seen the movie, here’s a quick synopsis:
When the evil spirit Pitch launches an assault on Earth, the Immortal Guardians team up to protect the innocence of children all around the world.
One of the ways that we’ve learned to communicate the gospel to our kids is through cultural pieces like movies and stories. Every movie and story mirrors the story of God.
In the rise of the guardians, the character pitch was thrown out of the guardians. He came back to take over, to fight them. Pitch, played the character of Satan and evil. At one point, the character of Sandman was killed. At the end of the movie, Sandman rose from the dead, and defeated Pitch when it looked hopeless for the other guardians. Sandman, in that way, was similar to Jesus.
After watching the movie, over dinner we asked our kids and talked through:
Communicating the gospel to your kids through movies and stories takes time and practice, but it isn’t as hard as you think. Every single kids movie from Pixar to anything else has this storyline. Just look and then talk about it with your kids. A great way to apply Deuteronomy 6.
Today is Valentine’s Day. Today, countless couples will spend thousands of dollars on flowers, dinner and gifts. And because it’s Valentine’s Day, they will pay more than they should.
Valentine’s Day also reveals something and it could be a problem if you are married. For couples, men will pursue their wives. They will make plans, get a babysitter, buy her a gift and make it a special night, all about her. What’s wrong with that you may ask.
Read that paragraph again and see if you see it.
A couple of years ago, Katie was talking with some other mom’s around Valentine’s Day. All the mom’s were excited about a night away from their kids, with their husband and the things he was doing for her. They asked Katie what we were doing. This year Valentine’s Day fell on a Monday and our date night is Friday. She looked at them and said, “Josh isn’t doing anything tonight for me.” They looked sad, poor girl. She looked at them and said, “He doesn’t need to, every week we have date night so I know he pursues me each week and I have his undivided attention every week.”
Silence.
What if, the energy you spent on Valentine’s Day, you spent that each week for a date night? Now, there’s no way you or I could afford what you spend to make Valentine’s Day special. What if you took that energy and money and spread it over the year?
Here’s a successful date night (at home or going out):
If, like most married couples you choose to do this once every 52 weeks, you’ll have the marriage most married couples have (which isn’t very good).
In parenting, as in all of life, the goal of what you are trying to accomplish matters. It will dictate the decisions you make, how you spend your money and time, what you emphasize and ultimately, if you succeed or fail.
Too many parents, especially those in the church, have the wrong goal. Their parenting is not unique. What does that mean? It means, if you are a follower of Jesus, you should have a different goal and parent differently from those who don’t follow Jesus. Ask this, can you accomplish the goals for parenting or your kids without Jesus? Your kids can be successful, healthy, moral, marry well, have good values, and do all of that without Jesus.
Elyse Fitzpatrick said,
“Most parents who attend church want what most of parents want for our children. Jesus or no Jesus, we just want them to obey, be polite, not curse or look at pornography, get good jobs, marry a nice person, and not get caught up in the really bad stuff. It may come as a surprise to you, but God wants much more for your children, and you should too. God wants them to get the gospel. And this means that parents are responsible to teach them about the drastic, uncontrollable nature of amazing grace.”
Paul tells parents they need to expect their kids to obey, to honor them and to respect them. Many parents do not have this expectation. Whenever I hear a parent count to their child, they communicate, I don’t expect you to listen to me the first time. When I get to 3 will suffice. As kids get older and become teenagers, many parents let their guard down and don’t expect them to speak respectfully. It is easier to let them get away with it than put up the fight. I understand the weariness of parenting, but if God gave you children, it is time to step up to the plate.
Paul ends this section by letting us in on how to raise kids that are respectful and obedient. By discipline and instruction in the Lord. Whenever he uses the phrasing he uses in vs. 4, he is speaking about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. He is calling parents to bring the gospel into their parenting, on all occasions whenever possible.
The word for discipline, means to “nurture, educate, or train,” and the word for instruction, means “calling attention to” or “mild rebuke,” “correction,” or “warning.”
In other words, Paul is saying that the way Christian parents are to bring children up is by nurturing, correcting, and training them in the truth of or about Jesus Christ. Paul is telling parents to daily proclaim the message about Jesus to their children and to warn or rebuke them when they forget to live in the light of what Jesus had already done. He was telling them to tether every aspect of their parenting to the gospel message.
Here are 6 ways to bring the gospel into your parenting:
