Tag: Pastoring

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Brothers, Take (and Enjoy) Your Vacation Time

I originally published this article at The Focused Pastor, a ministry of Focus on the Family.

I remember the first time I took a few weeks off as a Lead Pastor. I almost felt guilty. We were a small church. I had been there about a year, and with no other staff, I struggled to cover everything that needed to happen every week. But I also remember the joy and refreshment from having special time as a family and stepping away from the burdens of ministry and the grind of sermon prep. My sermons were sharper when I returned. I felt ready to tackle ministry again. My family and I were closer.

I no longer feel guilty taking vacation time. Now, I can hardly wait, knowing that rest and investment in family relationships are good gifts from God. Brothers, take your vacation time. Enjoy your vacation time. You need it. Your family and friends need it. Your church needs it. Let’s look at four reasons pastors should take and enjoy their vacation time.

1. Because You Are Not God

Why did God take a day of rest after creating the world? Of course, there are many theological reasons, but one that is no less theological than others is that he created a pattern of rest for humans to show us that we need rest and refreshment. In enjoying the good gifts that God has given, such as family, friends, recreation, and even sleep, during intentional times of rest, we are reminded that we are not God.

When we leave ministry behind for a day off or for weeks during vacation time, we remind ourselves and others that we are not God. Pastors are important and gifts to the church, but they are not Jesus. When we try to always be there at all times for all of our members, and we don’t think they can continue in their walk with God without us for a few weeks, we are functionally telling them and ourselves that we are God. If taking your vacation time reminds you and your church that you are not Jesus, then it is time well spent no matter what you do during your time away!

2. You Need to Take Your Vacation Time Because of Your Family and Friends

Pastoral ministry can be all-consuming. There is always more to do because there are always people who need to be discipled and evangelized. While the flexible nature of our schedule can be a blessing, it can sometimes also mean that you are often “on” when most people are “off.” We count it a privilege to walk through life’s difficulties with church members, but the heaviness of a broken world starts to weigh on us after a while.

I have heard from others and experienced that the first week of vacation time for a pastor is often the week when our bodies and minds are with our family, but our minds also keep wandering back to what we didn’t get done and the ministry and challenges that lie ahead. This is why I strongly recommend the “two-week vacation principle.” If possible, pastors should try to take at least two or three weeks of vacation time at once so they have this unwinding time plus additional time to be fully present.

Maybe you could keep going in ministry mentally and emotionally without a two or three-week break, but your family and friends need you to be fully present sometimes. Your kids need memories of you focused entirely on them and not distracted by what is happening at church. Your wife needs to have regular time during the year when she gets you, not “you, the pastor.”

3. You Need to Take Your Vacation Time Because of Your Church

When I had been in my current role as Lead Pastor for about a year and a half, my wife and I went on a pastor’s and wives regional retreat. While not a vacation, it was time away from home and church responsibilities in a beautiful place that we had never been to—Cape Cod. When we returned that Sunday, I was exhausted. I had been unable to complete my sermon early in the week when I was in the office due to other ministry, so I was up late each night of the retreat, plus the night we returned. One of our deacons approached me after I preached and exhorted me, “I appreciate your hard work, but I can tell you’re tired after the retreat. Next time, get someone else to preach the Sunday after the retreat, and just rest and enjoy your time away. It will be better for everyone.” He was right. I’ve done that every year since, and my wife and I look forward to that special time of fellowship, rest, and fun together.

Your church needs you in the pulpit at least some of the time without the brain fog that slogging through sermon preparation and ministry week after week can bring. It also needs you to be rested sometimes and able to put things in the proper perspective, which happens when you’ve had time away for physical, emotional, and spiritual refreshment.

I have had pastor friends who struggle with the sense that they don’t have enough vacation time or time out of the pulpit to feel they have been able to receive the refreshment they need each year. I would encourage you to discuss with your church leadership why you could use an additional annual week or so of vacation time if this is your situation. You may need to use more annual vacation time than your leaders or church members who are not in pastoral ministry because of the strain that ministry puts on you.

4. You Need to Take Your Vacation Time Because of Your Joy & Endurance in Ministry

Our lives are more integrated than ever before. My grandpa was a pastor for over four decades, and I know that he enjoyed ministry but that it could be draining like it is for all of us. But my grandpa never made a phone call to a church member while he was driving. My grandpa never had his vacation time interrupted by a text from a church member. This is not all bad. Some of our technology and way of life today make us more efficient. But it is good to remember that the realities of pastoral ministry today mean we need our vacation time more than ever to be joyful and endure in ministry.

It’s not that we get our joy and endurance in ministry from a good vacation. Some of our family’s most restful vacation time has been when we couldn’t afford to go anywhere but enjoyed a good “staycation.” But sometimes, intentional time away from pastoral ministry gives us the perspective that we need to see God and enjoy his gifts. Brothers, take—and enjoy—your vacation time!

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The Gratitude Revolution Every Pastor Needs

I originally published this article at The Focused Pastor.

Leaf season just ended here in Vermont. The thousands of “leaf peepers” who inundate our little town for a month and a half every autumn are gone. People are no longer stopping in the middle of the road to jump out of their cars and snap the perfect photo of fall splendor. But traffic annoyances in our sleepy town aside, I thank God for leaf peepers because they remind me to look for the glory around us. Fresh eyes looking at our green mountains turned orange, red, and gold see things familiar eyes may miss. Similarly, cultivating a heart of gratitude for what God is doing in our churches helps us see our churches in new ways. Giving thanks opens our eyes to see glory again.

Being intentionally thankful in ministry has too often not been my default attitude

It is easy for me to focus on the difficult parts of pastoral ministry, the problems in the church, and the difficult church members. It takes an act of the Spirit and me yielding to the Spirit to have a reflex of gratitude. Problems are often in our faces as pastors, and we can be utterly blind at times to what we should be thankful for in our churches. Yet we learn from the Apostle Paul’s pattern that gratitude for our churches and thanksgiving to God for specific church members will give us new lenses through which to view our churches. This attitude can be revolutionary in our view of ministry as we follow Paul’s example.

Colossians 1:3-5 is a paradigm for pastors that can change our default from grumbling to gratitude. “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven…” (Colossians 1:3-5a). First, Paul says he always thanks God for the Colossian church when he prays for them.

Do you thank God persistently and specifically for what He does in people’s lives?

Look at how specific he is. In these three verses, Paul gives thanks for their faith, he gives thanks for their love for the saints, and he gives thanks for how they are growing in their understanding of and appropriation of the gospel. Paul sees the salvation and sanctification of the Colossian believers as a direct work of the Holy Spirit (Colossians 1:8), so he thanks God for His work in them.

Fellow Pastors, do you give thanks specifically for the work God is doing in people’s lives?

Do you give thanks for the kids and teens growing in their faith? Do you give thanks for the marriages that reflect the love of Christ better than they used to? Do you give thanks by name for the seniors in your church?

If I don’t purposefully stop and give thanks for the work I see God doing in or through specific people, I am missing out on an opportunity to worship the God who is at work. Many people give thanks this time of year, but part of how gratitude becomes Christian thanksgiving is when we express it to God.

We’re not talking about a secular optimism that tries hard to see the world through rose-colored glasses but ignores significant difficulties or issues it needs to deal with. Rather, the apostolic example for us as pastors is that because of who God is, and because of what God indeed does, we have reasons to give thanks.

Most of the beginning of Paul’s epistles start with him giving thanks for the church he writes to (Romans 1:8, 1 Corinthians 1:4, Ephesians 1:15-16, Philippians 1:3-5, 1 Thessalonians 1:2-3, 2 Thessalonians 1:3, 2 Timothy 1:3, Philemon 4-5). Notice the pattern. Paul thanks God for them and then tells them. It’s like “gratitude dynamite” when we thank God for somebody and then tell them so. It helps them to see the miracle of Almighty God at work in them.

The thanksgiving for the church in Corinth sticks out as a way to give thanks no matter what is going on in ministry at any moment. In all the other passages, Paul thanks God for something specific. But when he writes to the church in Corinth with all their problems, he thanks God for His grace in them. He’s unsure what to thank God for in that church, so he thanks God for His grace in their lives.

Paul shows us that we can thank God for what He is doing in our churches now rather than waiting to thank Him if they become more of what we want them to be. It is an act of worship to thank God for what I see Him doing now, even in the difficult seasons of ministry.

Don’t let pastoral ministry harden you

In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Eustace becomes a dragon. It takes the painful and persistent clawing of the Christ figure, Aslan the lion, to remove Eustace’s scaly, hard dragon skin so that Eustace can be a soft-skinned boy again.

It could be that you are like me. At times, the relentlessness of issues in pastoral ministry can harden you. Problems may be blinding you to blessings. One of the only ways I have found not to let the stress harden me is to continually pursue a heart of gratitude. When I am not thanking God for His work in people’s lives, my church, and my family’s lives, I begin to look more like a dragon than a pastor. But a miracle happens when I pursue gratitude, especially when I continually thank God in prayer for what He is doing. I become soft toward God again, excited about what He is doing in my church. Gratitude is the tool Jesus often uses to painfully help me to shed my scales and enjoy doing again what He has created me to do: glorify him, be a normal person (not a crusty pastor), and use my gifts to shepherd others well.

Sometimes, in the act of thanksgiving, God gives us new eyes. God sees everything, and when we obey God in praying with thankful hearts, sometimes He will show us something else He is doing that we couldn’t see before we gave thanks. Gratitude begets gratitude. Thanksgiving turns into prayer, which turns into praise, even when I don’t feel thankful.

It could be that a gratitude revolution is what you need. According to the pattern in the epistles, it is what we all need.

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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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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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