Category: Pastoral Ministry

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Cultivating Trust with New Church Attendees

Note from Tim: This article originally appeared at Focus on the Family’s The Focused Pastor. You will regularly see articles I have written for The Focused Pastor here. However, I will continue to write articles for both pastors and all Christians. If you are not a pastor but you find this helpful, please pass it on to your pastor!

I have noticed over the years that somebody attending my church and pastoring them are often two different things. Formally, membership is how our church recognizes that somebody has publicly said that our church is their home church. But I have often found that before membership, there is a moment when a new attendee calls you “pastor,” and you know that you have a new sacred relationship that God has allowed you to have.

Sometimes, we build trust quickly, and God places a new sheep right where they need to be. I think of the family who moved to our town from over 1,500 miles away, visited our church the following Sunday, and never left until they moved out of state again five years later. I think of another family who visited our church for about a month before the husband asked if he could go to coffee with me. I couldn’t read them and wondered if he had a lot of questions before they would settle into our church life. He looked at me after the first sip of joe and said with a big smile, “Our family is ready to join your church. We have found our church home.”

I also think of the lady who had to leave a church that no longer believed the Bible was the inerrant Word of God. It took her about a year of attending off and on before we had that same conversation at the same coffee shop.

But I also think of the primarily Spanish-speaking attendee who first called me pastor when I knocked on her door during a snowstorm. She had been attending for about six months, but I still did not have her phone number or e-mail address. I did know where she lived, and I wanted to make sure that she understood that the kid’s Christmas pageant practices were starting in a few days in case her kids wanted to be a part of it. Driving to her house and knocking on the door while the snow fell to make sure we included her in our church family was what she needed to call me “pastor.” As I saw the trust built, I realized I had acted as a shepherd representing the care of Christ in her life. I baptized her about six months later.

There are three main ways I have learned to shepherd new attendees into being part of our local flock.

1. Building trust

 Attendees of a new church need to know that they can trust you as their pastor. Yes, we are only imperfect men who serve a perfect Savior. But they must know if you go to God’s Word to get answers for life and eternity. This will primarily start with your preaching ministry. Recently, new attendees often know how we hold to God’s Word because they have researched us on our website and often watched our live stream or listened to sermons before they visited the first time.

Once they walk through your church doors, trust is built as you or other members or leaders connect with them, and they know that somebody cares they attended your church. We all need to know that God’s Word is taught and that God’s Word is lived out, and that includes welcoming strangers no matter their beliefs or backgrounds. Each new attendee, each new family or individual, needs to move at their own pace as God leads them.

2. Assessing trust 

You continue to build trust Trust as you and your church’s credibility grows in a new attendee’s eyes. Do they know you and the church members will pray for them? Can they talk with somebody about their questions about the church, the gospel, or God’s Word? Sometimes, that trust is built as they continue to attend Sunday after Sunday, and other times, that trust is built more slowly or as they are contacted to check in on them because they have not attended in a while. Even if they have moved on to another church, I have never had somebody tell me that I should not have checked in on them. This includes learning their name or getting them in touch with another elder or leader who will know them and their family and who can start to get them more involved in the life of the church so that they can grow in Christ, be ministered to, and eventually minister through your local body.

3. Cultivating trust

We cultivate trust as we grow together in Christ. The church is a dynamic organism, constantly changing as people move, are born, die, leave, or unite themselves to your local body. Yet a dynamic church is not necessarily seen in how large it is or whether or not it is growing in numbers in any given season. A church that is alive cares for its members, new attendees, and the community, seeking to apply the gospel of Christ to their lives.

Sometimes, that trust is built through serving together. Only members can serve in our children’s ministry, for example, but we let a relatively new attendee participate in helping with our Block Party outreach. Serving together showed her this was a church community with which she wanted to live her Christian life. When somebody is fighting cancer or going through some other hardship, alerting the church membership to how they can serve them is another way we have cultivated trust. We are called to show the love of Christ to all.

There is joy in representing Jesus and in pointing people to the Great Shepherd of our souls. Harold Senkbeil, in his book The Care of Souls, says that a sheepdog always has his tail wagging when he is working, and one eye is always on his master. If your eyes are on the Master, it will hit you as it sometimes hits me: I get the privilege to serve Jesus as his errand boy today—wherever and in whatever way he chooses to take me for that day or that season.

Yet, at the same time, pastoral ministry is challenging. There have been many times I have considered pursuing a different career. Yet there are many more things that keep drawing me back: the glory of Christ and the gospel, the sense I can’t shake that this is what God wants me to do, my wife & pastor friends who share love and encouragement with me, seeing people saved and growing in their walk with Jesus, and a co-worker and fellow church members who love serving God through serving his people.

Near the top of that list, I add the joy of that moment when you realize that under Jesus, you have a new sheep to lead. Keep shepherding each one towards Christ. There is no greater privilege.

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Pastoral Weakness and The Power of Christ

Note from Tim: This article was originally published at Focus on the Family’s “The Focused Pastor.” These ideas came from a talk I gave at Small Town Summits in Vermont, Rhode Island & Connecticut.

I didn’t plan to write a sermon on the power of Christ in weakness with a fever. Yet that is where I found myself this spring, preparing a sermon on 2 Corinthians 12:1-10. Day in and day out that week, I would try to write that sermon and do other ministry I had planned. Day after day, my physical and mental weakness frustrated my plans. Many more than three times, I pleaded with the Lord to deliver me and take the sickness away. Here’s what I kept hearing as I opened God’s Word to prepare to preach: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I have had a fairly healthy last several months, but a fever this morning has peaked as I write this. God wants me to learn again that the power of Christ will rest on me in my weakness. Sometimes God says no to our prayers to work out his purpose, which is greater than we could ever see on this side of Heaven.

For you, it may be much more serious than a fever. It has been a challenging year for me with various trials, but nothing as serious or life-threatening as cancer as some of my church members and a pastor friend are dealing with. Whatever weakness you are struggling with personally or in pastoral ministry, 2 Corinthians 12 teaches us that the power of Christ rests upon us in our suffering.

A personal pastoral weakness

Second Corinthians is a highly personal letter. Paul is writing to a church he had spent at least 18 months planting and establishing. He knew these people. He loved these people. He had shared God’s Word and the gospel with them. Yet false teachers, whom Paul sometimes called “super-apostles” in a tongue-in-cheek way in this letter (2 Corinthians 11:5-6), had come in and brought false teaching. They received an audience from the Corinthian church by discrediting Paul as an apostle, but not in the way we might expect. It was through personal attacks like making fun of his appearance or saying, “He’s so tough in his letters, but wait until you meet him in person.” (See this idea in 2 Corinthians 10:10)

We need to put ourselves in Paul’s shoes to realize how personally difficult it would be not only to have someone in our church giving us a hard time, as we’ve all experienced, but even making fun of us. Yet to make matters worse, it seems that part of what the “super-apostles” were using to discredit Paul is that he had so many weaknesses. As you read 2 Corinthians, you can almost hear them taunting, “If Paul is a true Apostle, then why does he have so many difficulties?”

The power of Christ tabernacles with us in our weakness

Yet Paul found that his “thorn in the flesh,” as difficult as it was and as much as it was a messenger of Satan (2 Corinthians 12:7), was being used by God to keep him from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the spiritual revelations he had received. The word “thorn” in 2 Corinthians 12:7 is strong—it can mean a stake. His revelations and visions threatened to puff him up, so God sent a thorn to burst his bubble and make him humble.

Brothers, here is the hard but important truth we will sometimes experience in ministry: God is more concerned with our character and spiritual growth than our comfort. The discomfort is often how he meets us. Paul explains in 2 Corinthians 12:8-9a, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness…”

Sometimes God chooses not to deliver us from the trial but through the trial. And here’s the beautiful thing that can’t be missed—in our weakness, the power of Christ rests upon us in a way that we would not experience if we were not in that trial.

When Paul writes at the end of 2 Corinthians 12:9, “…Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me,” there is an important phrase used. “Rest upon me” at the end of verse 9 is the vocabulary of the Tabernacle, from the time when God pitched his tent with his people (Exodus 40:34). It is also the language used of Jesus when “the word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) Jesus tabernacled among us when he came to earth, just as the glory of the LORD tabernacled with his people through the Tabernacle and later the Temple.

The breathtaking truth of 2 Corinthians 12:9 is that the all-powerful Christ “pitches his tent” with his people in their weakness. He rests upon you in his strength when you are weak. Your pastoral weakness is where Jesus pitches his tent with you.

Do you not know what to say to that difficult theological question? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.

Do you not know what to do or say when a family in your church goes through tragedy? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.

Do you feel weary in ministry, wondering if you can continue to handle the pressure? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.

Are you or someone in your family battling an illness? The power of Christ pitches his tent with you in your weakness.

Whatever you may be facing today that shows your weakness in pastoral ministry, it is an opportunity to experience Christ resting upon you. The only requirement is that you are weak because Jesus is strong!

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The Secret to Loving Your Wife Better: Love Jesus Better

Note from Tim: This article originally was published at Focus on the Family’s “The Focused Pastor” ministry. The content applies to non-pastor husbands as well!

This post was also featured in Tim Challies’ A La Carte.

I recently heard somebody say that one of the ways to endure well in ministry is to realize that ministry is not about you. It’s all about Jesus. The same is true of marriage. When you embrace that marriage is about Jesus first and you and your wife second, one of the secrets of a joyful, enduring marriage comes to light: love Jesus better, and you will love your wife better.

As pastors, it seems we should know this instinctively. Our calling is directly tied to helping others know Jesus better. But we are no different than our church members. We must constantly remind ourselves that marriage is about Jesus first and works best when we love Jesus first.

As I have studied what the Bible says about marriage – both for my growth and for those I shepherd – I have become convinced that Christ’s relationship with the church is the controlling metaphor that God has given us to help us understand marriage. A controlling metaphor is a word picture that explains something for an entire work of literature. At the beginning of the Bible, when God created marriage in the Garden of Eden, He initiated a human covenant relationship that He knew would reflect the relationship between His Son and His people. Even so many years before Jesus, even in the Garden, God pointed ahead to his Son.

The Marriage Supper of the Lamb

At the end of the Bible, when God plans a celebration feast for the consummation of the ages, he describes it using what term? The marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:7, 9)! When we love our wives like Christ loves the church, we play our part in a story that has been told since the beginning of time, a story that all creation will continue to celebrate at the end of time as we step into the beginning of forever.

Paul points this out in Ephesians 5:31-32, when he quotes Genesis 2:24, and then explains there are depths to marriage we can only begin to understand on this side of eternity: 

“‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.” 

Marriage refers to Christ and the church. God embedded marriage in culture as a quiet pointer to the gospel. So, when we love our wives well, we point to Jesus. But also, when we love Jesus well, we love our wives better.

Closer to Jesus, Closer to My Wife

After two decades of marriage, I have noticed a pattern: when I am closer to Jesus, I am usually closer to my wife. Why is this? Paul David Tripp helpfully explains in his book, What Did You Expect?: 

“A marriage of love, unity, and understanding is not rooted in romance; it is rooted in worship…No marriage will be unaffected when the people in the marriage are seeking to get from the creation what they were only ever meant to get from the Creator.”

This applies to pastors as much as anyone else. Yet, there are certain dangers inherent in our vocation. We may think that because we serve Jesus daily as part of our job, we are naturally close to Him. But one test of a man’s walk with Christ is how he treats his wife. This is not to say that if we are close to Jesus, we will always be close to our wives. The fact that you are a sinner married to a sinner in a world groaning under the curse means your marriage will have ups and downs. But making your relationship with Christ a priority is the start of finding the freedom and power to love your wife humbly and selflessly as Jesus loves us, no matter what is going on in your relationship or ministry. 

Order Your Love Rightly

When you remember that Jesus is your first love (see Revelation 2:4-5), his love naturally overflows out of your life and into your wife. It’s not that loving Jesus and loving your wife are commands from God that are at odds with each other, it is that we can only love others rightly when we order our love rightly. 

Jesus explained how loving God results in loving others: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:37-39) Your wife is your closest neighbor, so Jesus’ words remind us of our priorities as shepherds of God’s people: love Jesus, love your wife, love your kids, and love others, including your church family and community.

Fellow pastors and ministry leaders, don’t forget that there is one time the Bible commands you to get drunk: “…Be intoxicated always in her love” (Proverbs 5:19). God wants you to be drunk with love for your wife. This is best for you, her, your kids, and your church, and it glorifies God. Pursue her simply for the joy of pursuing her and because you love her. But don’t forget that you will love your wife better when you love Jesus. Root your pursuit of her in the fact that Christ has pursued you. Embracing this secret can be the secret to embracing a joy-filled marriage.

Rekindle your love for Jesus, and be in tune with his heart for reflecting the gospel in your marriage. Then your marriage will be like a fire that keeps you both warm and gives light to others.

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A Loving Life: A Book (and a Life) that Small-Town Pastors Need

This article originally appeared at Small Town Summits Articles. I serve as the Content Manager for Small Town Summits Articles.

There are books, both in the Bible and on your shelf, that can sometimes take you by surprise. They are books that God uses to shake you up, to comfort you, to strengthen you, or to show you blind spots in your life or ministry. The book of Ruth and a book about Ruth, A Loving Life: In a World of Broken Relationships by Paul E. Miller, both did that for me recently.

The book of Ruth has left our church, and me, changed. A Loving Life left me in tears as I read the last page, something that hadn’t happened to me in a long time.

I had planned to preach the book of Ruth for Advent this year, and about a month before I would begin preaching it, I was at a Small Town Summits Leadership Retreat. One of our co-founders, David Pinckney, recommended A Loving Life, a study of Ruth, and said that it was one of the best marriage books he had ever read that isn’t really a marriage book. Since I love studying the topic of marriage and was going to be preaching the book of Ruth soon, I ordered it that week. A month later, I ordered it for our Elders and Deacons to read and encouraged their wives to read it as well, and ordered another copy for our church library. It’s that good.

There was something about studying the book of Ruth at this season in our church’s life that was just exactly what we needed. Church members were encouraged to see God working in ordinary lives in a small town through ordinary means of kindness and hard work. There was a freshness to the gospel as we saw how God prepared the line of King David and ultimately the line of King Jesus to come through Ruth and Boaz. We marveled at the patience and mercy of God in bitter Naomi’s life as she thought she had returned to Bethlehem empty, but then experienced the fullness of God’s grace by the end of the book. And we were challenged and inspired by Ruth’s kindness and chesed love as she reflected the covenant steadfast love of Yahweh over and over and over again throughout the book.

A Loving Life helped me to process the book of Ruth in bite-size chapters that explain a small portion of the text, with robust application and illustration for today. Here are three reasons that the biblical lessons from A Loving Life are especially relevant to small-town pastors. 

Reminders that God Works Through the Small and the Ordinary

God’s providence is all over the book of Ruth and because of this, all over A Loving Life. It is impossible to read these books and feel that God is distant or uninvolved in small places and ordinary lives. Bethlehem was not Jerusalem—yet this is where this great drama that ultimately leans towards God’s plan of redemption in Christ takes place. Ruth went to work gleaning in a field to provide for her and Naomi while Naomi grieved—and through that ordinary act of work God provided food, a husband, a baby to continue the family line, and a place for Ruth and Boaz in the kingly line of Christ!

Small-town pastors need to often be reminded that God works through the small and the ordinary. We need to hear what Miller writes: “To love is to limit…Ironically, the experience of love, of narrowing your life, broadens and deepens your life….Love always involved a narrowing of the life, a selecting of imperfection. So God’s love for us lands. It landed in Bethlehem sometime in the fall or winter of 5/6 BC as a little Jewish boy. God’s love is so specific it boggles the mind.”[1]

Reminders that God Works To Humble Us and Then Exalt Us

In one of the most significant chapters in the book, “The Gospel Shape of Love,” Miller explains how God often brings resurrection through death to ourselves. He explains how we are not trapped in a pagan view of the world, a cycle of life and death. Rather, because of the gospel our lives literally move through a “J-curve” of life, death, and then resurrection.

This is not only about eternity, because many times this is how God works in our lives as followers of Jesus today. We are called to die to our dreams and desires to live for what God has called us to. For small-town pastors, this often means humbling ourselves to be content with a small, hidden place of service, knowing that God sees and knows and cares. When we don’t work to exalt ourselves but to exalt Jesus where he has sovereignly placed us to serve him, we are in exactly the place he wants us to be. As Miller describes this spiritual principle: “As we go downward into death, we are active: active in seeking humility, in taking the lower place, in mindless, hidden serving. This is the journey Jesus took…We can do death. But we can’t do resurrection. We can’t demand resurrection—we wait for it.”[2] In dying to ourselves, in exalting Jesus, he lifts us up, giving us contentment today, occasional vistas of his work through us today, and ultimately invaluable eternal reward in heaven.

Reminders that God Works Through People Committed to Love

Over and over again, we see Ruth absolutely committed to loving others, and in particular her mother-in-law Naomi, whose God she now serves wholeheartedly. By studying the life of Ruth, we are challenged to love others more like how God calls us to—whether that is through loving your spouse, your children, a widow, a foster child, that difficult church member, or the person in your small town who hates the presence of your church in the community. The kind of love Ruth displays again and again is a quiet pointer to the love of her greatest descendant, “…the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20b)

A Loving Life is one of those rare books that I felt I could have just dipped in highlighter. I hope that you will read it and be challenged and encouraged and changed. I hope that you will share it with your leaders so that you can all grow into excelling still more at living lives of love. I’ll let the very end of Miller’s book leave you with the last word:

Everything Ruth does—from walking through the gates ignored and unthanked to giving her newborn son to Naomi—is a function of her love for Naomi…You simply can’t beat love. You can’t out-humble it. You can’t suppress it, because you are always free to love no matter how someone treats you. If others are putting nails through your hands, you can forgive them. If someone is shouting curses at you, you can silently receive them. Love is irrepressible.

Faith and hope will one day pass away, but not love. Love is forever.[3]

[1] A Loving Life, p. 74.

[2] A Loving Life, p. 71.

[3] A Loving Life, p. 156.

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To My Friends Who Are No Longer Friends With Jesus

This article was featured at For The Church and shared as part of The Gospel Coalition’s “Around the Web” articles.

To my friends who are no longer friends with Jesus: I want you to know that if I am aware of you walking away from Jesus, I have prayed for you and even cried for you. A couple of years ago I was reading The Last Battle from C.S. Lewis’s “The Chronicles of Narnia” to our kids. I came across a passage that took my breath away and filled my eyes with tears. Tirian, the last king of Narnia, is meeting the former kings and queens of Narnia:

‘Sir,’ said Tirian, when he had greeted all these. ‘If I have read the chronicle aright, there should be another. Has not your Majesty two sisters? Where is Queen Susan?’

‘My sister Susan,’ answered Peter shortly and gravely, ‘is no longer a friend of Narnia.’

‘Yes,’ said Eustace, ‘and whenever you’ve tried to get her to come and talk about Narnia or do anything about Narnia, she says, ‘What wonderful memories you have! Fancy your still thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children.’

The reason I got a lump in my throat and then looked at my wife Melanie and saw that wewere both tearing up is because we were thinking of you, friends. Walking away from Jesus is not child’s play. At the end of The Last Battle, it is revealed that there has been a crash and the kings and queens are in heaven. They are safe, eternally. Susan is not. But there is still time. 

It seemed that you used to be friends with Jesus. You sang to him, you read his Word, you prayed to him, you talked about him with me.

Only God, and maybe you, know if that faith was genuine. But I do know this: the Jesus you used to confess with your lips is the same Jesus who can save you today. It doesn’t matter if it has been years or months of walking away from him, Jesus died and rose again not to make it possible for us to earn our way back to God, but to bring us to God. He will still do that for you if you will come to him.

You are not the first disciples of Jesus to deny Jesus. Do you remember Peter, one of Jesus’s closest disciples and friends? He denied Jesus three times, when Jesus most needed someone to come alongside of him and stand up for him. 

Decades later Peter wrote in 1 Peter 5:8-9, “Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world.” It has never been easy to be a Christian. What stood true two thousand years ago stands true today: there is a great enemy of your soul.

Peter knew that Satan is active in the world today, and he didn’t just think of the devil like a roaring lion. It’s like Peter was remembering how he had felt that enemy breathing down his neck on the night that he denied Jesus.

But there is someone else described like a lion in the Bible, the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Jesus is the One who was promised to come and save us. He came and represented God to us as holy and righteous and yet as willing and ready and able to forgive for when we have failed him.

Precious Words of Promise

Some of the most precious words in the Bible are at the end of the Gospel of Mark. After Jesus has risen from the dead, the angel tells the women at the tomb, “…go, tell his disciples and Peter…” (Mark 16:7)

The other disciples had failed too. They had also said they would follow Jesus all of the way. But only one of them, John, stood at the cross at the end. God made sure they all received the message of Jesus’s resurrection— “Go tell the disciples…” But he also put this nugget of grace on the angel’s lips: “…AND Peter.” Peter was a disciple. But God was already moving towards Peter specifically in his specific sin, preparing his heart for restoration.

I don’t know what God has been doing in your lives recently. But reading this article is a start. There is some reason you clicked on it. 

When Peter denied Jesus, Jesus looked at him. If you sense the Lord looking at you right now, you have two choices. 

You can try to run from the gaze of Jesus just like Adam and Eve tried to run from the eyes of God. Or you can run to the gaze of Jesus and see that there is forgiveness and acceptance and restoration in his eyes. 

This is what Peter experienced when the resurrected Jesus came to them later, when Peter had gone back to fishing. When Jesus appeared on the shore, Peter didn’t hold back. Peter couldn’t wait to be near Jesus again. He couldn’t wait for the boat to get to the shore. Peter jumped into the water to go towards Jesus.

He didn’t walk on the water this time; he simply threw himself into the water to get to Jesus. That may be what repentance looks like for you, what coming back to God looks like for you. Just throwing yourself towards Jesus. 

If you do that, I know that Jesus will be waiting for you. Jesus himself promised it and sealed it with his redeeming blood: “All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37) 

Friends, if you come back to Jesus, he will welcome you home as his friends, now and for eternity. I hope to see you there.

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A Sabbatical For a Small-Town Pastor? The Why & the How

This article was featured at Small Town Summits Articles. Tim is the Content Manager for Small Town Summits Articles.

This summer, I had more focused time than I’ve ever had with my wife and kids. We made memories we will never forget and built into our relationships. I rested more than I have in years. I went for prayer walks just because I wanted to enjoy the beauty of God’s creation and to spend some extra alone time with the Lord. I studied for a writing project without interruption and made progress on a book idea that I could not have made if it were not for the focused time. I never felt guilty or like I was behind on ministry responsibilities for 10 weeks. I refocused on my identity as a child of God rather than as a pastor. This was possible because my church gave me a sabbatical, and it is not only possible as a small-town pastor, but beneficial.

How It Helped
I want to first convince you that especially if you have been at a church for seven years or more, a sabbatical will be good for you and your church. Then we will look at some “nuts and bolts” of how to plan a sabbatical that will be a time of intentional rest, refreshment, and reset for you and your family, as well as your church.

Improved Health

At the start of sabbatical our family had the opportunity to go to Florida due to the kindness of our church family and of a couple in our church who owns a home in Florida. It was there that I began to realize how badly I had needed the sabbatical but also that I needed to change patterns when I returned. Multiple times in the first two weeks, when we were getting ready to go do something fun I began to have symptoms of severe anxiety. This went away with rest, showing me how tired I was. I did my best the entire sabbatical to get a full night’s sleep and at the end of the 10 weeks I had a noticeable difference in even having conversations with people—being more alert and able to focus more on them.

I also began to run again, something I used to enjoy and had not regularly done in over a decade. Post-sabbatical, I feel stronger and more efficient at work due to these health changes. While I’m still struggling to manage my schedule and get enough sleep, I now know what it feels like to be healthier. I’m working towards that and I’m still making time to run. What could God do for your physical and emotional health during a sabbatical?

Reset in Ministry & In My Personal Walk With God

I had a church member tell me just the other day that since sabbatical, there has been something different—in a good way—about me as a pastor. What we think we put our finger on is that in just over two months of being away from our church and ministry responsibilities, I was able to dig deeper into my identity as a child of God rather than first as a pastor. This has given me confidence as a leader, an area that I needed to grow in. I feel more freedom to lead because my roots are deeper in caring more about what God thinks about me and my leadership than what others may think.

Most years I attend other churches on Sundays during vacation two or three times. Visiting other churches Sunday after Sunday was deeply refreshing to me. I took sermon notes every time simply for my own soul’s growth, not for my next sermon or teaching opportunity. I also wrote down a few take-aways from every church we visited so that I could bring back helpful ideas to incorporate into our own church. After sabbatical I heard from many church members that one of the best things for them was to realize that even though they missed me and my family, that they could still be the church without me. If a sabbatical helps your church to focus on the fact that you are not Jesus, your sabbatical could be just as spiritually important for them as it is for you.

Family Relationship Investment

An entire article could be written on what this special time did for the relationships between my wife and me, and our kids. The three main sabbatical goals we had expressed to the church from the beginning were relationships, rest, and writing. Relationships were the most important. As you know, ministry has a way of stretching us and ministry in a small town often requires wearing more hats. We went into sabbatical with gratitude, realizing that our son leaves our home in four short years and trying to be intentional about time with him. By God’s grace, my wife and I planned for some time away and also as a couple at home both while the kids were at camp and with trusted friends for a few days so that we could focus on our marriage. Time with your family is never wasted time. It is good to work hard in ministry and with excellence for God’s glory (1 Corinthians 10:31), but it is also good to rest and play together (Genesis 2:1-3). When was the last time you had weeks where you hardly spoke about church and ministry other than in prayer? For us it had been way too long, and sabbatical gave us the space to do that. It was also good for our church to know that we were intentionally focusing on our marriage and parenting.

Writing or Study Project

Many pastors plan time for a writing or study project during sabbatical. I found this to be special time that made a genuine difference in my book idea. I made progress that was the fruit of having consecutive days to concentrate and see how concepts and Scriptures tie together. My only caution would be to plan this time in carefully, and no more than a week per month off. You and your wife know your situation better than anyone else, but I had a pastor friend who recommended two weeks of writing time during my two months off and I wish I had listened to him rather than planning for three. The important thing is to plan for a project that is life-giving and not an assignment you have to turn into your church when you return. They will be excited to know what you’re working on during this time, but set expectations so that they realize it is time for God to feed your soul whether that is through reading, writing, or a combination.

How We Planned It

Discussion with leadership

In my situation, the church had offered a sabbatical after five years but the timing (2020) was not right. So I discussed it with them and we agreed that 10 weeks was about the right amount of time given that I took a sabbatical after seven years and given the church’s schedule, staffing, and ability to bring in other speakers. We discussed logistics and problem-solved beginning about 18 months out and found this gave us enough time to plan well.

Communication With Congregation

Another elder, rather than me, communicated with the congregation about the sabbatical a little over one year out. We found that having another leader be the point person for the sabbatical gave him the chance to explain why a sabbatical was needed for me and how it would work, while also giving the congregation an opportunity to share excitement as well as concerns that could be addressed. I did help in the communication by writing a PDF that explained what the focus of our sabbatical would be and what our current plan was for the church, but he e-mailed it out for me so that I could still communicate with the congregation about sabbatical but with his help and support in discussing it with the congregation.

Intentional Budgeting and Church Life Planning

Part of those discussions first with leadership and then with the congregation included intentional budgeting. We budgeted to bring in enough pulpit supply that we could have half sermons from our own staff (if you don’t have another pastor on staff, elders and other leaders could preach as their gifts and desire allow even if it’s only a couple of times), and half sermons from pastor friends and ministry leaders. We planned to give the special speakers a gas/food stipend and to put them in a local Inn, in addition to an honorarium, so that we could bring speakers from further away who could still be rested and ready to serve our congregation well. We also planned the sabbatical during a time that many regular church ministries were already taking a pause for the summer.

Intentional Planning With Your Wife

If you are married, the most important one to plan sabbatical with is your wife. Listen to her. Hear her heart and value her thoughts and desires as you plan. Talk through every aspect of it, even well before sabbatical discussions with leadership. Talk and pray about what your goals and needs are, and how you can intentionally plan for maximum good effect on your marriage and your kids. We found our plans changing over time because I was turned down for a sabbatical grant but then on their own initiative and without our knowledge our church took an offering so we could do things we could not have done otherwise with my pastor salary. It was fun and marriage-building to dream and pray together about what God could do in our lives during the sabbatical. Because of this planning, it was even a joy to work on house projects together that had been left on the back burner too long due to our normal ministry schedule. 

Enjoy!

I once heard a pastor encouraging younger pastors to plan in regular sabbatical times even if they are only every seven years or so. He explained that after several sabbaticals at his current church and long ministry there, somebody said to him, “It must be nice.” He knows that he works hard, and that he is fulfilling the ministry God has for him, and that a sabbatical is good for him, his family, and his church. So with some of that confidence in God that can come with sabbatical time, he simply smiled and replied to his church member, “It is nice.” Fellow small-town pastor, if you are overdue for a sabbatical, I hope that you will be saying the same thing soon.

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The Lord Does Not Despise the Day of Small Things

This article originally appeared at Small Town Summits Articles. I serve as the Content Manager for STS Articles.

“Oh, that’s good that you’ll be in a small church for your first Lead Pastorate,” the well-meaning former church member commented. “It will be a great opportunity before God expands your ministry.” In the context of our conversation, the idea was that a small church would be a place of growth until God called me on to bigger and better things. They weren’t trying to be rude or demeaning, but the insinuation was that a small church in a small town was a good place for a pastor in his mid-thirties, so that God could use him in a bigger place when he was older and wiser and could handle more responsibility.

My friend did not seem to know that being a pastor of a small church means that you have to wear more hats and be more of a “Renaissance man” than you usually have to be in a larger church. I was going from an Associate Pastor role with five full-time or part-time support staff members who partly helped my ministry through administration, copying, scheduling or helping with e-mails, to being the only staff member. My first week in the new church office, my first week preparing and copying the bulletin on my own, my first week sending out the Children’s Church volunteer e-mail and checking the church post office box, my respect grew exponentially for all of the small-town pastors who have to broaden their skills and manage their schedules to handle a more diverse set of responsibilities. No matter how much you delegate, the rubber-meets-the-road reality of being a small-town pastor will sometimes mean that the joke I once heard is true: “Happy ‘Small-Church Pastor Day.’ Here’s a plunger.” 

Most days I don’t mind this reality, and today I am helped in some of those responsibilities by volunteers or part-time staff. But other days I need God’s help to see that not only does God not want me to despise the day of small things, but he does not despise it either.

This glorious reality became fresh to me again in a recent Men’s Bible Study through the minor prophets. We were studying Zechariah and we came to chapter 4. I was floored by this verse: “For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice…” (Zechariah 4:10a)

Zechariah was a prophet to the nation of Israel during a difficult time. About 50,000 Israelites had returned from exile in Babylon to rebuild the country that had fallen into ruin for 70 years. But opposition from enemies and apathy from within God’s own people had caused the work to be abandoned for 16 years. When the foundation of the temple had been completed, the young men who had never seen it in its former glory rejoiced greatly, but the older men who remembered its prior greatness wept out loud. Now, years later, the faithful were hopeless, having seen God start to work but wondering if they would ever see the completion. And many of God’s chosen people were there in person but just didn’t seem to care in spirit.

God sent both Zechariah and Haggai to stir up his people. Part of their mission, like the mission of any faithful preacher today, was to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted. God promised that what was started with the temple would be completed, even soon. What seemed impossible would happen because the Lord of all the earth would accomplish it: “Who are you, O great mountain? Before Zerubbabel you shall become a plain. And he shall bring forward the top stone amid shouts of ‘Grace, grace to it!’ Then the word of the LORD came to me, saying, ‘The hands of Zerubbabel have laid the foundation of this house; his hands shall also complete it. Then you will know that the LORD of hosts has sent me to you. For whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice, and shall see the plumb line in the hand of Zerubbabel.” (Zechariah 4:7-10)

What seemed impossible would happen because the Lord of hosts would accomplish it. Those who had despised the day of small things would rejoice. But here is the truth that you and I need to see, fellow small-town pastor or ministry leader: even though God promised that a day of rejoicing would come when the work on the temple would be accomplished, that temple was so much smaller than the temple during Solomon’s splendor. It would be a great work, but it would be a small work.

It would bring rejoicing even from those who had despised the small beginnings before, but it would still be small. And God was pleased with it.

God was saying in effect, “Don’t despise what I am pleased with.”

This call to both long for God to do great things and yet to be content with where God has our church and our work in our small places today can seem impossible sometimes. How can we both want revival more and yet need it less, as Small Town Summits co-founder Stephen Witmer calls us to?  

The secret is in Zechariah 4:6: “Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the LORD of hosts.”

Fellow laborers in small places, you have an even better word than Zechariah received because you are a minister of the New Covenant. You not only have the promise that God will accomplish his work in small places because of his Spirit’s work, you actually have the Holy Spirit living in you to bring you God’s power and strength and joy for each new day.

And if you have ever despised the day of small things, be still before the Lord and seek his heart for your small-place ministry. Hear him say to you, “Whoever has despised the day of small things shall rejoice.”

That rejoicing can begin today. God’s Spirit guarantees it.

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5 Reasons I Love Being a Pastor

My article first appeared on the Baptist Convention of New England’s blog.

Being a pastor is difficult. I remember my mentor in ministry telling me when I was in my early twenties that if I could do anything else, I should do that. He warned me there would be days that I wished I was working in any other sort of job. He was right. I can tend towards dwelling on the difficult and the negative some days because they are what so often are calling for our attention: solving problems, considering the next step in loosening or tightening COVID restrictions, wondering how this next phone call or meeting will go, remembering that I forgot to check in with somebody undergoing a trial. The list goes on.

But there are also many blessings in being a pastor. There are so many reasons I count it one of the greatest privileges of my life, so many reasons to thank God for being a pastor and so many reasons I love being a pastor.

In keeping with Paul’s admonition to think about “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things,” (Phil. 4:8) I want to list five of the many reasons I love being a pastor.

1. I get to teach and study God’s Word as part of my job.

For all of the stresses that being a pastor entails, and the pressure of the Sunday morning sermon deadline, and all of the spiritual battles that come my way, every week I get to – and am expected to – spend hours studying God’s Word and preparing to teach it. This is an inestimable privilege.

I once heard an older pastor say that he couldn’t believe that he gets paid to study God’s Word. That is a perspective that I need to keep in mind and thank God for weekly. It is a joy to spend time in God’s Word and be filled up with it and challenged by it so that I can have the joy of equipping, encouraging and stretching God’s people with it. May I never take this for granted.

2. I get to be there for people’s highs and lows in life.

Some of my favorite moments in pastoring are being right there for the ups and downs of people’s lives and being used by God in those situations to “rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15).

It is a joy to pray with new parents while holding a newborn baby, and it is a joy to see the radiance in the eyes of a couple getting married while standing right behind them. It is also a different, somber kind of joy to be able to help a couple apply God’s Word to their marriage struggles when the need for counseling comes. It is something I would never trade to have the privilege of praying with a newly bereaved relative thanking God for the life of their loved one, sometimes while the body is still in the room.

These intense times of ministry bond me with God’s people and remind me each time of some of the unique reasons I love being God’s hands and feet. It is also special to be able to often minister during these highs and lows in people’s lives with my wife as she uses her gifts with me. May I never take this for granted.

3. I get a front-row seat to God’s work.

Another benefit to being a pastor that I love is getting a front-row seat to God’s work. The average church member does not have the joy of seeing some of the mercy ministry that goes on in secret in the life of a church. It is a holy privilege to know about an act of love in Jesus’ name that only God, myself and the other person involved know about due to confidentiality. It is a distinctive joy to not only ache at marriage problems but also to rejoice with a couple who is now reaping the benefits of following God’s ways in their relationship. I alone get to “see the lightbulb come on” in the middle of a sermon for that person who has been trying to figure out what they believe about Jesus. I alone sometimes get to see tears of repentance over sin or tears of hope due to longing for Heaven and being reunited with a beloved spouse or child.

I know that God is always doing a million things and that we are usually only aware of a few of them at any given moment, but as a pastor I literally get to see God’s invisible hand working out his plan for His glory and His people’s good every week, if I have the eyes to see it. May I never take this for granted.

4. I get to see people come to know Jesus as Savior and Lord and then baptize them.

“I wasn’t sure before, but I know that I know Jesus now,” the 16-year old boy told me in the car as we drove from Subway after getting his monthly favorite sub (ham with black olives – lots of black olives!) and catching up on high school life.

“What’s the change?” I asked, excited as I had been praying for him for years as he had been coming to youth group ever since I became a youth pastor.

“I didn’t care about sin before, but now I don’t want to sin anymore because I love Jesus,” he replied.

I never would have been part of that conversation if God had not called me to be a pastor. Baptisms – whether the believer going public grew up in the church or recently began to attend – are some of the most joyous Sundays on the calendar. When you get to talk about the gospel, make disciples and baptize as part of your job, you are blessed. May I never take this for granted.

5. I get the privilege of serving Jesus as His errand boy.

Harold Senkbeil, in his book The Care of Souls, says that a sheepdog’s tail is always wagging when he is working and that he always has one eye on his master. Too often my tail is not wagging because in those moments or days I have my eyes off of the master. But some days, as I look to the day ahead and ask Jesus for strength and wisdom to serve His church that He has promised to build, it will hit me with a wave of joy: I get the privilege to serve Jesus as His errand boy today – wherever and in whatever way He may choose to take me for that day or that season. May I never take this for granted.

I don’t say it often enough – I love being a pastor.

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Faithful Endurance: A Book Review of a Book Pastors Need in 2021

My article originally appeared at the Small Town Summits website as part of Small Town Summits Articles, for which I serve as Content Manager. This article was also featured on The Gospel Coalition’s “Around the Web” listing.

This past year has found me asking God now more than ever, “Help me to faithfully endure as a pastor. I need your strength. I need your wisdom. I need your grace.” It’s not that I have wanted to quit. And it’s not that we do not see God’s blessing on our church during one of the most difficult years in recent memory. In fact, in 2020 we saw God’s hand on our church in blessing and sustaining and expanding our ministry more than we have in past years. So why did I desperately pray for God’s help so often this year? Simply for the same reason that I hear from my other pastor friends: we are tired. 

We are tired of walking the tightrope between government regulations and freedom of worship. We are tired of the tension of valid health concerns and wanting to do ministry boldly at a time that people need it most. We are tired of trying to shepherd some through masks and others through Zoom. We are tired of facing the stresses and constant changes and challenges of doing our job during a worldwide pandemic—as all in our church are in their work also. 

But there is gospel hope in pandemic fatigue. The same Lord who shepherds our people is the same Lord who stands with us every day as pastors (2 Timothy 4:17). We need powerful reminders of this as we look ahead to 2021 and continue to pray for God’s strength, wisdom, and grace. 

A few months ago, I had the privilege of sitting down for a long chat with a good cup of coffee with my pastoral mentor. There was something refreshing, encouraging, challenging, and strengthening in talking and praying with somebody who has “been there” and who is still in the fight, serving faithfully during a hard season. This is why I picked up Faithful Endurance: The Joy of Shepherding People For a Lifetime, edited by Collin Hansen and Jeff Robinson Sr. I needed more wisdom and strength and grace from God through his faithful servants. I needed what amounts to a long chat with a good cup of coffee with many different pastors on many different topics who have centuries of combined pastoral ministry experience. I would recommend that you do the same in 2021.

The book’s strength is combining well-known pastors and ministry leaders like Tim Keller, D.A. Carson, Dave Harvey and Bryan Chapell with lesser-known but equally faithful pastors and ministry leaders like Mark McCullough, Scott Patty, and Brandon Shields. They are able to speak from a variety of backgrounds on multiple pressing pastoral concerns such as, “Ministry has left me spiritually listless” (Chapter 1), “My preaching always sounds the same” (Chapter 3), “My critics are a burden for my wife” (Chapter 6), “They’ve left, and I’m crushed!” (Chapter 7), “My church has outgrown my gifts” (Chapter 10), and “How am I going to make it financially?” (Chapter 11). This is all capped off with an interview with John MacArthur on the anniversary of his fiftieth year of serving at Grace Community Church.

I had not read a specific pastoral ministry book this year, and as I read I discovered that it was just what I needed to help me faithfully endure. I needed the reminders of godly, gospel-centered pastors to help me look not to them but to the Jesus whom we serve and trust in. I needed the sharpening in some areas, such as my preaching and my practice of a day of rest. After a difficult year, I needed the reminders of how to serve with and lead my wife more faithfully (Chapter 6), and how to keep difficulties such as people leaving the church in proper perspective (Chapter 7). 

I was challenged to look at the difficulties of ministry with eternity in view: “Pastor, that pain you feel, that stinging pain in your stomach that wells up each time you remember the friend who left—convert that aching moment into a reminder that there is a day coming when you will be reconciled. There’s a day coming when closure will happen.” (Dave Harvey, p. 82) I was encouraged with practical steps to grow in my leadership, all the while being pointed to what is most important: “The wise pastor also remembers that the main goal is to lead people to Jesus. We often overemphasize organizational leadership skills and underemphasize the pastoral skills of preaching, having conversations, and praying with people. Keeping the main emphasis on leading people to Jesus doesn’t mean we accept poorly led organizations as the norm, but it does remind us that we don’t have to be able to run a massive corporation to be an effective pastor. We do, however, need to know Jesus and be able to lead others to him.” (Scott Patty, p. 108)

For small-town pastors such as myself, there are gold nuggets throughout the book that will help us to have faithful endurance in 2021 and beyond. But the most significant chapter for you, like me, will probably be Mark McCullough’s chapter (8), “Does Staying in a Small Rural Church Make Me a Failure?” I learned from Keller and Carson, but I received an arm around my shoulder as a fellow rural pastor when I read McCullough’s words of warmth and joy from a man who has served the same rural congregation for almost three decades. McCullough spurs us on to faithful endurance by focusing on three joys that would serve us well to focus on during 2021: the joy of knowing and being known by God, the joy of making God known, and the joy of knowing others.

I pray that you will have faithful endurance in ministry in 2021. We can do this not from looking to our own wisdom or strength, but from looking to the Jesus who has promised us that he is with us always (Matthew 28:20). Faithful Endurance will help you do exactly that.

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Five Ways to Pray For Your Pastor at This Point in the Pandemic

This article was featured at Small Town Summits Articles.

When we had to make the decision to not meet physically as a church months ago, I thought the hardest decisions were behind us. One of my pastor friends shared a meme of Chris Farley walking down the aisle of a church building, high-fiving and chest-bumping with church members, ecstatic to be there. We all thought our first Sunday back would be something similar, thrilled to be back in church together before long.

But as I write this, many of us are still preaching online only. Others are gathering with drive-in or outdoor services, and a few are meeting indoors with precautions, including capacity limits.

 Every job has stress that has never been felt before right now, new situations that are facing us at work that we never thought we’d be thinking through. Pastors know that we are not unique in this and we are praying for you. But as a pastor, I want to ask you to pray specifically for your pastor and elders. They feel the weight of shepherding and leading the people of God. And the path ahead is foggy. They may be battling a low-grade sense of malaise, of wondering what crisis is next and how they will deal with it from a distance. Here are five ways to pray for your pastor and church leaders at this point in the pandemic.

1. For wisdom
Part of shepherding and leading a church is planning for the future. But it is hard to do that when we hardly know what next Sunday may look like. There are a multitude of decisions facing your pastor and leaders every day right now. Should there be singing in the sanctuary or not? Masks required or recommended? Virtual or in the sanctuary if the outdoor service is canceled due to rain? Should the Memorial Service be planned for mid-July or postponed indefinitely for now, or would it be best to just do it on Zoom? Should small groups begin to be planned for the Fall again?

Every one of our ministries has been affected or canceled and we often don’t know what is best. We certainly don’t know the future. Pray for wisdom for your pastor and elders. They are probably praying often for wisdom, claiming the promise of James 1:5, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.” Can you also ask God for them?

2. For a shepherd’s heart
We want to advance the gospel. We want to disciple people. We want to fellowship. We want to encourage. But it’s hard right now. We are used to counseling people face to face and having difficult conversations looking in each other’s eyes rather than over the phone or by seeing each other in a box on our computer. We want to call everyone on the church list or go visit them in their driveway but decisions we didn’t want to make this week are forced upon us. Somebody goes into the hospital and we try to figure out whether or not we can visit them. Everything we do seems to take longer because all of our processes and routines are off, and we just can’t seem to make it through the list.

Pray that your pastor and elders will have perseverance, and continue to have the same shepherd’s hearts even if how the heart of Jesus is displayed through them looks different right now. Pray that they will know that Jesus is shepherding his sheep just fine. Pray that your pastor will have the patience to face his own shortcomings and trust that God will use his shepherding efforts during this crisis. Pray that he will rely on other church leaders and that they will give him the help that he needs.

3. For peace
Pastors are people too. And people struggle with worry, especially in a time of crisis. It could be that his wife’s job has been affected financially and nobody in the church knows. It could be that the church finances are struggling and he wonders if he will be able to continue serving there long-term even though he wants to, or if he will need to find a part-time job or cut staff. He may be worried about how this has affected his marriage, or whether or not certain new attendees who he has not seen online will come back.

He may be struggling with the right decisions about reopening. Some church members are saying none of this matters and everyone is overreacting. Others say they don’t know if they will ever come back as they have health problems or are caretakers for an elderly relative.

Pray that every day your pastor will find peace in Jesus as he leads others to peace in Jesus (John 14:27). Pray that he and your elders will ultimately care most about answering to God for how they led during this pandemic rather than what the loudest or most powerful church members think. Pray that they will run to God their Father for refuge and strength each and every day.

4. For rest
Pray for rest for your pastor. There may be the rare pastor who has somehow figured out how to pastor during this pandemic with the same workload he had before. But every pastor I know is tired. Many are struggling to take their regular day off. He may get to the end of the week every week and the demands for changing ministries and future planning that may feel futile have all just worn him out. He may be feeling inadequate for the challenges of the new week. It turns out that preaching to a computer in your pajama pants and dress shirt is exhausting.

One pastor friend explained it like this, “I get to late afternoon and I look at what I accomplished, and it seems like it should still be morning. I’m just in a fog.” I was telling someone recently that preaching has been a bit like a driving simulator that has a baby carriage, a dog, and an old lady pop out into the street at the most unexpected times. In a matter of weeks I’ve gone from preaching to a computer screen to preaching to cars to preaching to people on a lawn. I’m grateful for the opportunity to continue to preach God’s Word, but I always wonder if I did the best I could have. I didn’t realize the wind would blow my Bible pages around so much. Should we rearrange it a different direction next time due to the angle of the sun? Who was in that car over in the corner of our Drive-In Service?

Pray that your pastor will find and guard some sort of rhythm of rest during this time, both physically and spiritually. Pray that he will be able to figure out a way to take his vacation time. Pray that, contrary to all he feels, that he will realize that sometimes the most Christ-like thing he could do during this crisis is take a nap (Mark 4:37-38).

5. For his family
I have sometimes been guilty during this pandemic of caring for the needs of so many others and neglecting the needs right under my nose. Pray that your pastor would take the time to go do something outside with his family, and not feel guilty about it. Pray that he would make time in his constantly changing schedule to just be with them. Pray that his wife and children would know his love and care, and know how to support and share him during this crisis.

Pray that they would have unique opportunities to minister together as a family. Pray that they would know the joy of the Lord and the comfort of walking with him each day, step by step. Pray that by a miracle of God’s grace, that he and his family would come out on the other side of this crisis stronger in their relationships with each other.

One of the greatest gifts you can give your pastor is to faithfully pray for him, maybe even with him. At one point several weeks into the pandemic, we had an elder and deacon meeting in which we were making some decisions that could have a major impact towards gospel advance. But the decisions required courage and wisdom. I wanted both but just didn’t have it on Zoom that evening. During our prayer time, one of my brothers prayed for me out loud. Knowing what they were all dealing with at their jobs, it meant so much to hear his prayer for me. But more than that, I experienced the power of prayer for a pastor as I had more clarity of mind and strength in the rest of that meeting than I knew I had left.

 The Spirit works powerfully when his people pray. Prayer is not a ritual, but an actual tapping into the power of God. Be sure to pray for your pastor and church leaders today. They need it.

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