THE DISCOURAGED PASTOR
It is hard for me to imagine a more discouraging job than being the pastor of a church.
Now, I understand that this statement is incredibly biased as currently I am a discouraged pastor of a church. I’m sure other people in other jobs experience other people being upset with them, gossiping about them, insulting them, and ending relationships with them.
I know that this is true. So, I’m not trying to get into any kind of debate about whose job discourages them more. Honestly, that sounds like a depressing conversation anyway.
But our job as pastors declares that we are to keep watch over the souls of our people and that we will have to give an account to Jesus for the way that we do it (Heb. 13:17). So, when we feel like we are not doing a good job in our job as pastors we don’t just feel the weight of the world on our shoulders, but actually it feels more like we may be disappointing the very Creator of the world Himself! Now, wait, before you argue with me, I know we are not. I’m a Gospel guy, I swear. I know I am approved, accepted, and inseparably loved by God in Christ. I know that. Trust me I’m clinging to it very tightly right now…
I’m only talking about how it feels. It’s a deep, deep level of discouragement that really doesn’t have a lot of comparisons. It’s the kind of discouragement that makes you actually sit at your desk fantasizing about working in a cubicle all by yourself, away from all people. It’s the type of discouragement that the common encouragements just don’t fix. Things like “don’t listen to the critics” or “not everybody is going to like you” or “sometimes people just move on” all seem to lose their power. They ricochet off a discouraged pastor’s heart like bullets off of Superman. They break and shatter on a pastor’s heavy mind like beautiful, fragile, fine china on a solid, cold, cement floor.
So why am I writing this?
I honestly don’t totally know. I think I started it to just get how I was feeling off of my chest, but as I continued I thought I’d probably end it on a real positive note about my identity in Christ or all the awesome ways so many people encourage me every day. Because people do encourage me all the time! That is absolutely true, maybe I’ll do a second post about the encouraged pastor. But as I’ve thought about sharing this with others, part of me is thinking I am just writing it for sympathy or to get people to feel bad for me or maybe just to take it easy with their criticisms of me for a little while. And if I’m honest, that’s probably partly true. But I also think there is more to this than just a manipulative, passive cry for help.
See, I’m not depressed. I’m not mad. I’m not bitter. I’m not spiraling out of control. I’m not planning on falling into some big sin in some sort of subconscious way of getting out of this job. Mark my words, I’m definitely not going to quit. I love my job, my church, my staff, my elders with all of my heart. I’m not going anywhere until the Lord retracts His call on my life or returns to take me Home. Or I die, haha, there’s always that.
I’m just discouraged. Some very specific things happened that led to this discouragement, things that involve people that I love and care deeply about. Sometimes I wish I was stronger, less emotional, tougher and more thick-skinned. Or even sometimes I wish I could pretend better. Maybe I could fake it just a little bit ya know? Honestly, I just wish I was better at acting like it didn’t bother me. But it does. And everyone around me knows it. Ask my wife or my staff or my elders or really anyone around me that I believe cares about how I’m doing. When my heart is heavy my face always shows it.
But what’s the alternative?
Become a cold, detached, apathetic pastor? A Sunday-speech-giver that isn’t close enough to people to actually know them let alone to get hurt by them? A CEO-type that views shepherding a church like running an organization where turnover is expected and success and numbers trump friendship and repentance and forgiveness? If I’m honest, on some days those options are awfully tempting, but in the end, I know they’re not for me. I love the church. I love my church. I love the people in my church. I love being their pastor. And I know that this means sometimes I’m going to wake up on Monday morning feeling hopelessly discouraged, just like any other pastor. Until there is a perfect church there will always be pastors that will get discouraged. So maybe there is no such thing as a “discouraged” pastor in the end. Maybe there are just…pastors. Because it seems discouragement is simply a part of the call to pastor and a unique way that we get to share in Christ’s afflictions (Col. 1:24). And it will surely be this way until the day when the Bride of Jesus stands before Him dressed in white, spotless and beautiful (Rev. 21:2).
So, like all things in this life that remind us that Jesus has not come and made all things new yet, feeling discouraged as a pastor is a reason to mutter that three-line prayer that the Apostle John prays at the close of Revelation: