Random Thoughts As I Reflect on My Time as a Pastor

Today I thought I’d write from a slightly different perspective. These are some of the lessons I learned, often the ‘hard way’, and with difficulty and sometimes pain in my years as a pastor. Again, these are in random order, simply as they come to my mind.

1.                  It hurts when people leave the church – It doesn’t matter the reason for leaving; some move away and some join other local churches. In both cases it hurts. For me those who left to join another local church, their leaving hurt exponentially worse. Through the years I’ve had people leave for all sorts of reasons: The church is too big (this is impossible if there are still lost people around your church), my criticism of Joel Osteen (I stand by every word I ever said. If Joel and his wife understood more of scripture and less of self-help positive thinking techniques, I doubt my criticism would have been necessary), to my being upset that 3 weeks after a man started as Music Minister at the church I was pastor at he was giving his resume out to other churches. In every one of these instances, people who I counted as dear friends left the church and it hurt. To put this in other words, criticism from inside the church always seemed to hurt much more than that which came from outside the church.

2.                  If you faithfully preach the whole counsel of God’s Word at some point there’s going to be a disconnect – This one was really hard and still is. As a pastor I knew it was my responsibility to preach the entirety of God’s counsel in His word. Yet no man can completely live the Word and so there was this friction between preaching what you knew the word said and then knowing the shame internally when you were not able to live up to what you were preaching. Many times I stood in the pulpit preaching what I knew to be truth but also knowing how short of that standard I was in my own personal life.

3.                  Fighting pessimism, depression, and bitterness are every pastor’s battle at some point in ministry – At times as a pastor you struggle with believing in God’s provision. At other times you resent people in your church for things they have said or done to you or one of your family members. And like the prophet Elijah at the Brook Cherith, every pastor I know has had what St. John of the Cross called the “dark night of the soul” where depression and feelings of loneliness are a pastor’s constant companions.

4.                  When you leave a church, you leave many friends as well – In leaving Alpha after 10 years then Eastwood after more than 14 years, at both places I left behind many dear friends. Even with the best of intentions it is impossible to stay connected as close friends. For some it’s a matter of miles … distance simply causes you to grow apart. For others it’s a matter of your job title … for them friendship is based on what you do and who you are. When you stop being “their pastor” things just change. Either way seeing friendships change is hard!

I will likely write more from this perspective later, but those are some of the things I reflected on today.

Tom