Thank You, Pastor:
Reflections on Shepherding for Pastor’s Appreciation Month
In church circles, October is recognized as Pastor Appreciation Month. This year, I had the idea to publicly recognize certain pastors who have personally impacted me. Throughout the month, I will occasionally name pastors and ministries and identify something I am grateful for. The reasons will differ because the people and relationships differ, but the heart of each post will be the same: “Thank you, Pastor.”
As I write this, I am both committed to moving forward with that plan, and aware that my feelings are mixed. To be sure, I have no problem with appreciating pastors; the classic encouragement is apt: “give honor to whom honor is due” (Rom. 13:7). Yet within the encouragement to honor is also a call to discernment. To give honor to whom it is due, one must first ask, “to whom is it due?” In this case, to honor pastors requires that we first consider what the term pastor means.
I have thought about that quite a bit.
Today, we typically understand pastor to be the primary leader of a church. Often, the responsibilities are preaching and organizational management, with other tasks included. In the United States especially, pastors are also understood as the chief executive of the business side of the church. Whoever holds this position is usually titled “Lead Pastor” or “Senior Pastor,” and then other “pastors” work underneath this person to fulfill other leadership duties. While I could say much about that, I succinctly offer that our modern understanding of the term and the position of pastor often does not match the Bible’s intention for it.
Biblically, the word pastor carries the image of a shepherd, which itself has considerable weight in Scripture. From the days of ancient Israel up to the church age, God has always appointed shepherds to watch over His people, or flock (see Numbers 27:15-17; 2 Samuel 5:2, 7:7; 1 Chronicles 11:2; Psalm 78:70-72; Isaiah 44:28). The position, though, is never without a certain expectation – to be a shepherd, you must, well, shepherd.
Paul tells the elders at Ephesus to “shepherd the church of God” that Christ purchased with His own blood (Acts 20:28). Similarly, Peter instructs elders to “shepherd God’s flock,” in a way that is not domineering or controlling but humbly serving as examples of godliness (1 Peter 5:2-4). Hebrews warns that leaders entrusted to “watch over souls” will give an account for how they do so (Hebrews 13:17). Even in the Old Testament, God chastises and opposes leaders who shepherd poorly by caring only for themselves, not the flock (Ezekiel 34:2-10).
What are we to make of this? Simply, there is a difference between being a pastor – or pastoring – and merely occupying a pastoral position. Faithful pastors feed and lead the sheep, guarding them from harm and guiding them in truth and love. Yes, they should do so through teaching the Scriptures, but they are also do it through prayer – not only praying for people, but with people. Like shepherds with sheep, pastors are to meet their people where they are, whether that be ensnared in sin or succumbing to suffering (or both!), and seeking their good through a combination of correction, comfort, help, and patience (1 Thessalonians 5:14).
“There is a difference between being a pastor – or pastoring – and merely occupying a pastoral position.”
Jesus set this example, and in more than one place in the Bible He is called the Good and Chief Shepherd (John 10:10-11; 1 Peter 5:4) precisely because He modeled all these things. Jesus knew His sheep, led them, protected them, and, ultimately, laid His life down for them (John 10:11-15). When Jesus looked at people, He was moved with compassion because they were “like sheep without a shepherd” (Matthew 9:36). His compassion was evidenced by how He moved toward people rather than keeping distant from them (Mark 6:34). Whatever pastoral ministry entails, it ought to bear recognizable resemblance to the Shepherd whose name pastors carry.
If that sounds like a high standard, that is because it is. Calling, character, conviction, and care truly matter in ministry. Neither giftedness nor longevity equals faithfulness, and the ability to teach or lead does not remove the need to shepherd. Richard Baxter famously warned ministers to “take heed to yourselves first” in his classic, The Reformed Pastor, and Scripture sets genuine standards for those who teach and lead (James 3:1; 1 Timothy 3:1-7). No one should treat the pastoral calling lightly, especially those in it.
That includes me. I write as someone who has served in ministry for longer than most people originally expect, and I am currently the pastor of a church plant. I am convinced my ministry intentions have largely been sincere and that, by grace, I have been faithful in many areas. But I am also certain there are situations I could have handled differently and ways I have fallen short. Whatever convictions I have about pastoral ministry are ones I am earnestly seeking to apply to myself, even when that is, quite frankly, freaking hard, and requires more of me than I sometimes want it to. The standard is high, indeed.
At the same time, the Bible also reminds us that none of us is perfect, including pastors. When pastors fail, whether in dramatic, public fashion or in everyday, private settings, it reminds us that all of us are sheep. Pastors still need the Chief Shepherd. As they shepherd others, pastors must remain dependent on the correction and comfort of God. Pastoral failure of any degree should never be minimized, but it should never surprise us that pastors are still ordinary people who need to repent, receive grace, and be restored through Christ, whether or not restoration to ministry is appropriate in extreme situations (1 Peter 2:25; Hebrews 4:14-16).
One temptation of evangelical culture is to turn pastors and leaders into heroes, attaching ourselves to voices, ministries, movements, and personalities that meaningfully impact us in some way or another. I believe this starts with appreciation but, over time, turns into allegiance (we do this with political leaders, too, but that’s for another article…). Yet, more recently, the temptation has equally been to conclude that nothing about a pastor or leader is worth following once we discover – or experience – their humanity and imperfection.
Neither seems like a particularly Christian response. In fact, Scripture itself rarely assigns such extremes to God’s servants. Peter is both rebuked and restored, David is both the sweet psalmist of Israel and the adulterer who harmed many, and Paul both commends Barnabas and sharply disagrees with him (Acts 15:36-40). The Bible is remarkably willing to tell the truth about people without requiring its readers to reduce them to either their greatest strength or their greatest failure. In turn, we, too, can be candid while resisting the temptations to either canonize or condemn people.
Therefore, what I hope to do with this exercise is something I increasingly aspire to. I used to call it my ever-elusive pursuit of balance, but today I call it my sincere hope for humility. Humility allows us to receive good things from imperfect people, and sometimes, to acknowledge that people who harmed us also contributed something genuinely good to our lives. This doesn’t mean we condone abuse or wrongdoing, abandon appropriate boundaries, or rush to positive interpretations of genuinely negative events. In some circumstances, we may need to name wrongs and pursue justice. But the principle remains: discernment and humility go together. Discernment helps us tell the truth, and humility helps us receive what was good without pretending everything was good.
“Humility allows us to receive good things from imperfect people, and sometimes, to acknowledge that people who harmed us also contributed something genuinely good to our lives.”
With that said, the posts that follow should be understood as I intend them. They are neither full endorsements nor intended criticisms, but honest reflections on how these pastors and ministries impacted me, and sincere expressions of my gratitude. Proverbs describes “a word spoken at the right time” as something beautiful and fitting (Proverbs 25:11), and Ephesians encourages us to speak “what is good for building up someone…so that it gives grace to those who hear” (Ephesians 4:29).
My prayer is that these posts do just that.
