Pastor Appreciation Month: Who Do We Appreciate?

It’s October, and that means churches are celebrating Pastor Appreciation Month. It’s certainly not a requirement, but I’m sure your pastor and his family would enjoy some display of appreciation this month. A small note of encouragement, a gift card, a brand new car…

 

Anyway, back to reality. I don’t really want to tell anyone how to appreciate a pastor, though. Instead, I want to address a glaring issue in the Church. Some pastors don’t ever receive the appreciation they deserve while others haven’t really earned the appreciation they seem to expect. I’m starting to fear that churchgoers don’t know what to expect from a pastor and what they should look for in one of the good ones.

Pastor Appreciation Begins With Qualifications

All pastors have to achieve the bare minimum found in the Bible. Admittedly, the qualifications for a pastor are high, and the “bare minimum” is nothing to scoff at. On the other hand, they are, by definition, the entry-level qualifications, are they not? So, what qualifications must a man meet to be a pastor?

The Bible lays out the qualifications clearly in 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and Titus 1:5-9. A pastor should display the following attributes.

1. A man (sorry, ladies)

2. Blameless

3. A faithful husband to one wife

4. Sober-minded

5. Self-controlled

6. Respectable

7. Hospitable

8. A good teacher

9. Not a drunkard, being sober

10. Gentle, not violent

11. Not quarrelsome

12. Not greedy or over-concerned with money

13. Manage his home well

14. Not a new believer

15. Have a good reputation in the community

Undoubtedly, these are high standards, but how is your pastor living out his qualifications? Is he even qualified? Far too many churches focus nearly exclusively on teaching ability while ignoring all the qualifications about the man’s character. Teaching well and knowing the Bible doesn’t inherently make a man godly or qualified to lead a church. Yet, having committed many verses to memory and speaking well tend to be the only things congregants appreciate. They take everything else for granted, but that can lead to supporting some pretty awful men.

The Fallen And Disgraced

I can’t list every pastor who has fallen from grace, so to speak. Frankly, I don’t have the time or resources to find them all. Let’s take a moment, though, to recognize some men who have been held up as the best of the best among pastors because they were dynamic speakers, pumped up membership numbers, or had that X factor we can’t seem to define. Meanwhile, these men lacked the character of godly leaders.

Steve Lawson

Lawson was lead preacher at Trinity Bible Church of Dallas, founder of OnePassion Ministries, and a dean at John MacArthur’s The Master’s Seminary until a couple of weeks ago. What happened? Lawson, 73, was discovered in a five year “inappropriate relationship” with a woman in her twenties. He has been married for over forty years and has four adult children.

His moral failing has hit reformed Christian circles particularly hard. Lawson was known as an excellent expositor of the Word, and many believers have benefited from his books, teaching, and ministry.

Mark Driscoll

Driscoll became famous for telling it like it is and uplifting men. He was the kind of pastor you either loved or hated. Eventually, the tides turned against him when people publicly accused him of spiritual abuse. He also used church funds to buy a large number of his own books to boost the sales numbers. Moreover, Driscoll used crude and provocative language while discussing women online under a pseudonym. There’s a lot to the story. You can hear about it on The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill podcast.

Bill Hybels

Hybels is the founding pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois. After a series of sexual abuse allegations, he acknowledged his behavior and resigned in 2019.

James MacDonald

MacDonald was the pastor at Harvest Bible Chapel, a megachurch in the Chicagoland area. He was also incredibly popular on the radio. On a personal note, I regularly listened to his radio ministry, Walk in the Word, after I got saved in 2009.

MacDonald was fired from Harvest Bible Chapel for a “substantial pattern of sinful behavior.” Allegations against him included sexual harassment, bullying, and lack of financial transparency. He has since been charged with two felonies for beating up a fifty-nine-year-old woman after hitting her car. She was in the hospital for twenty-one days as a result of his attack. The last articles I have seen said he is fighting the charges by claiming he has PTSD.

I Guess All Pastors Are Bad

If you follow Christian news or social media, then it can feel like leader after leader is caught up in a scandal and turns out to be, well, awful.

Keep this in mind. Many of these men are celebrities. Shame on us for turning men who should be humble servants of the Lord into Christian royalty. And shame on them for leaning into the celebrity trap.

The temptation to sin is strong for everyone, but I think pastors are under an extra level of attack from the Enemy to discredit their ministry. Add celebrity to that immense amount of responsibility and pressure, and can we be surprised at the sad results? Furthermore, men who seek to build little kingdoms for themselves don’t seem like they have a Christ first mentality. But, hey, that’s just me. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a bit cynical. I’m also correct a lot…

The Good Guys

There are so many more pastors who live quiet lives in service of the Lord. They love their church, get involved with the community, care deeply for their children, and are faithful husbands. Are they perfect? No. Do they razzle and dazzle every Sunday morning with social media friendly sound bites? Doubtful.

But these pastors you’ve never heard of preach the gospel and faithfully teach God’s Word. They pray for their congregants by name and make house calls and hospital visits. If you call them at 11:30 at night with an emergency, they pick up. When your husband unexpectedly passes away, they tearfully preach at the funeral and encourage the church to rally around you.

We don’t always recognize the pastors we should appreciate because these celebrities take up all the oxygen in the room. Not all celebrity pastors are problematic, but are those men your local pastor? I think we should challenge ourselves to be less impressed by celebrity pastors and look for what we can appreciate about the men God put in our churches. We should appreciate our own pastors.

What Pastors Do That Is Worthy Of Appreciation

1. Don’t just preach

Pastors should know that their job doesn’t begin and end at preaching. Oh yes, it’s a significant part of the pastoral role, but shepherding takes so much more than speaking a few times a week.

2. Preach for the audience

Speaking of preaching… Have you ever heard a pastor preach a message that sounded completely out of sync with his audience? In my husband’s case, he started preaching by sharing everything he knew on the topic that day, and he used his big ol’ seminary words. The problem? His congregation was middle America, middle class, and often blue collar-workers.

Eventually, he changed his sermons to be small bites of important biblical truths in language his listeners could understand. We’re in rural Wisconsin now, and I think most of our church appreciates Sundays aren’t a graduate level class. I think of it as “home cookin’ preaching.”

The message isn’t to show off. Speak to be understood.

3. Know the congregation

The pastor should be accessible. Apparently, Carl Lentz of Hillsong infamy, would be whisked away after his sermons to a V.I.P. access area that accommodated high priority members and visitors. That’s not a pastor. That’s a guest speaker!

A pastor should know the people who attend his church. What are their strengths and weaknesses? Do they have prayer requests or special needs? The pastor should know. He shouldn’t separate himself from the church he serves. Rather, he should remember that he is a member of the church family.

4. Have a personal spiritual life

Pastors need a spiritual life that includes more than preparing sermons for other people to hear. They require a personal prayer life, Bible study, and men in their lives who can offer mentorship. It’s cliché, but it’s true. You can’t pour from an empty cup. Besides, what can a pastor teach about a robust Christian life if he doesn’t have one himself?

5. Offer grace to congregants

Believers undergo sanctification over the course of their lives, and pastors would do well to remember that. Christians aren’t all at the same place in their walk in the Lord, and pastors who hold their congregants to unreasonable standards only hurt their sheep.

Pastors worthy of our appreciation meet us where we’re at and help guide us to stronger and more faithful Christian lives. They don’t condemn us for not meeting their expectations.

6. Prioritize their own families

Too many pastors exchange their families for ministry. Even some Christian “heroes” neglected their wives and children in service of God. For instance, A.W. Tozer was away and traveling to speak often, and he was known to hide away in a room apart from his family to study when he wasn’t traveling.

Personally, I have known many grown children who have described fathers who seemingly loved their church more than their families. Some of these grown children are faithful followers of Christ today, but plenty more have completely walked away or rebelled as a response to the poor leadership and lack of godly parenting.

Congregations want and need to see their pastors creating boundaries to protect their families. Churches need men in leadership who understand their closest neighbors live under their roof. Pastors should model biblical manhood, and that certainly includes loving and caring for their wives and children.

Final Thought

Friends, if your church celebrates Pastor Appreciation Month, then good on you. I’m sure your pastor is thankful for that. However, can we make sure that we thank him for the things that truly matter? And really thank him! But also thank him when November comes around…and December…and January…and…

Pastor Appreciation Month is a nice thought, but I pray we don’t lose sight of our local pastors’ value throughout the year because they don’t have a highly acclaimed national ministry. Appreciate their daily sacrifices and the personal care you receive.

How do you show your pastor you appreciate him?

Image courtesy of Hanny Naibaho via Unsplash.