Saturday, August 23, 1997

Ideas on the care and feeding of a pastor

By MICHAEL O'CONNOR Abilene Reporter-News

The church I belong to will receive a new preacher this week, something many other churches already did this summer.

Our old preacher is off to bigger, better challenges, and I'm sure he leaves behind some members who are saddened to see him go but wish him well in his new responsibility, and some members who thought he should have left some time ago and don't believe he'll be a blessing to his new church.

I've never known a minister who didn't leave a church under the same circumstances - including, I assume, myself. A lot of factors account for this bipolar reaction.

Preachers, pastors, ministers, or whatever your church calls them, inevitably have the opportunity to minister in a crisis, which endears them to a family and its friends. They also inevitably miss an opportunity to minister that alienates them from members.

Mostly, however, preachers are saddled with the impossible task of trying to meet members' expectations - expectations that are rooted in a variety of traditions that vary from congregation to congregation. Most of these expectations are, quite frankly, unbiblical.

The New Testament makes it clear that the priesthood model of ministry of the Old Testament came to an end. The priesthood belongs to all believers. God gifts certain believers to enable the rest of the community to minister to one another and to the world. Ministry was never intended to be invested in one office or made the responsibility of one man or woman.

As someone who has lived on both sides of the pulpit, here's a little advice to churches on the care and feeding of their preachers.

- Remember your pastor is human. Ordination does not confer special holiness; it simply signifies the faith community's recognition that an individual seems to have God's call and the gifts and graces to fulfill that call.

Your minister will feel the same emotions you do, react to stress more or less the same way people in the congregation do, and will fail to be perfect, just the way you do. He may be cranky or opinionated or depressed. She may believe her ideas are better than yours, and she may be right.

- Make sure your minister's time off is really time off. He needs to get away from the pressures of the job as much as you do. When he has a day off, don't bother him unless it's an emergency. If she's away on vacation or at a continuing education conference, don't call her back - even if she leaves instructions to do so. Someone else can perform the funeral or sit in the waiting room during the surgery. Whether your pastor realizes it or not, he needs some time when he is not indispensable. Make sure he or she gets that time.

- Watch your complaints. Don't tell the preacher to visit more, go visit yourself. Tell the member you are there on behalf on the church, not just as a friend. If you find yourself balking at performing this or any other ministry, saying "Oh, I really don't enjoy that or do it well," consider that the preacher may well be in the same position.

Don't withdraw your support or finances from the church if you don't like the preacher and then blame him because the church is suffering a loss of attendance or money - that makes you part of the problem, too.

Before you complain to another member, sit down with the pastor and tell her, politely, what your problem is and see you can come up with a solution together. And remember that the solution is not that you tell her what to do and she does it.

- Finally, be grace-ious. The church is founded on grace. We are all sinners saved by grace. Learn to be forgiving when your minister lets you down. Believe or not, you've probably let him down as well. What is it we pray - forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us? The book of James tells us that God will judge spiritual teachers against a tougher standard than the rest of believers, they don't need the censure of the congregation.

Welcome to town, preacher. May your tenure be a blessing to you and to the church.

Michael O'Connor is Online Editor for the Reporter-News and is an ordained United Methodist minister. He can be reached by e-mail at religion@abinews.com.