A Gift Every Pastor Needs: Courage

October is Pastor Appreciation Month. Geneva’s Assistant Vice President of Wellbeing, Rev. Paul Joiner, develops programs and resources to support the emotional and spiritual wellbeing of pastors through every season of ministry. In this article, he reflects on the weight of pastoral ministry and shares practical ways congregations can encourage their pastors by imparting courage.

“This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover, it is required of stewards that they should be found faithful.” – 1 Corinthians 4:1-2

Now is the time for courageous gospel ministry from empowered local church pastors. This may be the church’s greatest need right now.

A Christian without a pastor is a terrible thing. A church with an unhealthy pastor will become unhealthy itself.

Many of the churches in the United States have seen a steady decline over the last decade. We’ve also seen a steady decline among both the men currently pastoring and those entering pastoral ministry. This is an unfortunate confluence of events: unhealthy churches that are in decline being served by pastors whose overall wellbeing is also in decline.

At the same time, the Lord Jesus has blessed the PCA. We are one of two evangelical denominations that have seen growth over the last few years. While almost every gospel-preaching denomination has seen a decline in attendance, the Lord has been kind to bless the PCA with growth.¹

But this creates an even greater burden on the local church pastors. We have more of the Lord’s people being served by fewer of the Lord Jesus’ servants.

This is a recipe for danger if not disaster. Your pastor needs your support and care. Your pastor deeply loves the sheep and carries your cares around in his heart at almost every hour of the day. The pastor’s calling is well documented as 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. But it is not simply the hours that the pastor works; it is the nature of his calling – he cares for you twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. He cares about you being delivered from sin, growing in holiness and love for God; he longs to see you grow in loving your neighbor as yourself, and he sees the multitude of lost souls and longs to see them come to Christ.

But he is also easily overwhelmed by the cares of Christ and his kingdom. He almost always feels like he is failing at his calling.

So, he needs your encouragement.

To “encourage” literally means “to impart courage.” The history of the word means “to put heart into someone.” It is interesting, then, that courage is not a solo endeavor. When you are discouraged, you cannot draw from the well of your own heart to put courage into your heart. That is like trying to fill a vacuum with a vacuum. Nothing cannot produce something, and a discouraged heart cannot produce courage.

Courage has to come from another

Here are some suggestions for ways to impart courage to your pastor for Pastor Appreciation Month:

• Set your expectations rightly. “This is how one should regard us…” Paul is keeping them from being disappointed in him. He is instructing their expectations of him so they won’t expect him to be something that Jesus doesn’t ask of him. Your pastor is primarily a minister of God’s Word. Don’t expect him to be a CEO or an event planner, or even your chaplain. He is deployed by Jesus to speak on his behalf from his Word, and anything else is a little extra that your pastor does because he loves you. And when your pastor stewards the mysteries of God, the most amazing power is unleashed in your life.
• Receive the Word of God from him with eager anticipation. He is not primarily your servant, but rather a servant of Christ. “This is how one should regard us, as servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God.” And as a servant of Christ, he has been given primary responsibility to steward the riches of God’s Word for your benefit. He labors over God’s Word with you in mind and then steps forward from Jesus’ throne to steward those riches toward your heart and mind. There is nothing more encouraging to a pastor than a person who is ready to receive those riches of grace with eager anticipation.
• Pray particularly for him in his ministry of the Word that it would come with boldness. Your pastor loves you, but he also loves your opinion of him. It is hard to overcome that. He longs to be so rooted in the love of Christ for him that he is not captivated by your approval. But he isn’t there yet; it is a daily struggle. So pray for his boldness to say things you may not want to hear, but need to hear.
  “[pray] also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. (Ephesians 6:19-20)”
• Pray that the Lord Jesus would guard him and his family from the Evil One. He is a roaring lion seeking to devour anyone (1 Peter 5:8), but his most strategic target is the pastor and his family. If Satan can devour a pastor’s wife, children, or marriage, he can infect the whole church. Jesus has dominion now and forevermore (1 Peter 5:11), but he works through the prayers of the saints. So pray for your pastor’s family and then tell them what you pray for. You will make them bold knowing that the sheep have their back before God’s throne.
• Write him a note telling him how you have grown in Christ because of his ministry. Every pastor I know has a file where he keeps encouraging notes like these. And he goes back to them when he needs courage. Those notes pay dividends for decades.

Our churches need courageous pastors, and courageous pastors need encouragement. This October, take a moment to pray for your pastor, thank him for his service, and remind him of the ways God has used his ministry in your life. Small acts of encouragement often bear fruit far beyond what we can see.

Geneva Benefits Group supports the wholistic wellbeing of those called to ministry. To explore more of Geneva’s resources for pastors, visit genevabenefits.org/wellbeing.

^{1 https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/just-how-bad-is-denominational-decline}