God calls men into the pastorate to build people. Unfortunately, many pastors are guilty of using people and the platform God gives them for self-promotion and self-ministry. God divinely assigns people to His pastors to whom the pastors are spiritually responsible before God. The wise pastor is a good steward edifying believers entrusted to him. He cares for them as a “shepherd” cares for his sheep.
The same is true for the
church. Churches are sometimes guilty of
not caring for God’s man. The Holy
Spirit sends a man into ministry. The
church recognizes this and releases him to do the work God calls him to perform
in the framework of the Lord’s local church.
The pastor does more than work a couple of hours a week. When people ask me how they can get a job
where they work only two, maybe three, hours a week, I say, “Get right with God
and you can.”
The pastor’s job is not
simply to preach, to administer the ordinances, perform funerals and weddings,
or simply lead the staff and administer the affairs of the church. It is the pastor’s solemn and signal duty to
care for his people, to “shepherd the
Part of Pastor’s Appreciation
is furnishing the pastor with generous resources to shepherd. There are those who have the philosophy,
“Lord you keep the preacher humble, and we will keep him poor.”
I had affiliation with a
church that was guilty of holding back on a visiting preacher. The church announced that a pastor would be
coming to do a week of revival. The host
church’s pastor and members of budget and finance committee agreed to pay a
certain amount for each service and to take a love offering for the visiting
pastor.
The revival came. It was a wonderful revival and the love
offering was very generous demonstrating true revival. The member of the budget and finance who
wrote the checks informed the pastor that the visiting pastor did not get the
love offering. When asked why, the member
said that budget and finance chairperson told her not to do so.
The host pastor
investigated. The chairperson told the
pastor that the love offering was more than the visiting pastor deserved. The pastor reminded the chairperson that the
church voted to designate the love offering to the visiting pastor and that
that was where it was going. The
chairperson refused until the pastor explained the legality of the situation. The pastor said one call to the State Board
of Missions, the IRS, or to the legal counsel of Samford law school could make
the chairperson rethink the situation.
The chairperson asked if the
visiting pastor had a church and if that church paid him while in revival. The pastor said yes to both questions but reminded the chairperson that was immaterial.
The pastor told the chairperson that the amount of the love offering was
irrelevant. The pastor said that there
was a man in the congregation known to place a $1,000 check in the love
offering designated to the visiting preacher.
If the love offering was $1.00 or $10,000, it was going to the visiting
preacher.
Had the visiting preacher
been aware of the conversation of the pastor and the chairperson, he would have
refused it. Knowing the visiting
preacher as I do, he would have authorized the check and gave it back to the
church. The visiting preacher would have
said, “Here you need it more than I do.”
I know this because the visiting preacher had a pastor friend who did
just that.
Most pastors trust that the
church will do the “right thing” in the matter of compensation. Many pastors live frugal lives to afford some
of the good things of life. Some churches
act as though the pastor is to be a “hireling” of the church. A God-called pastor does not work for the
church. He has a higher calling.
But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd,
whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and
fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep. The hireling fleeth, because he is an
hireling, and careth not for the sheep (John
Be generous to those called
to shepherd you.
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