O the beauty of the modern day Pastor!
They know how to run the organization of the church.
They have administrative skills, people skills, sense of humor and a desire to see people love Jesus!!!
All awesome things.
But...
does he minister the Word and pray for his people?
I have been convicted and challenged as of late.
I realized that the high majority of my time is not spent in study, preaching, teaching and counseling of God's Word. Nor is it spent in prayer for God's people.
But in organizing parents to provide snacks, setting plans for missions trips, organizing fellowship gatherings and finding people to serve in nursery.
All of these things are helpful and even needed in the local church. But they keep pastors from doing the very task God has called them to, the ministry of the Word & prayer.
In Acts 6 we have a prime example of this.
An issue arose among the early church were there were some widows who were being neglected in the daily distribution of goods. Undoubtedly many looked to the apostles to solve the issue. So they did. They called an all-church meeting and addressed them with the following...
"It is not right that we should give up preaching the Word of God to serve tables. Therefore brothers, pick out from among you seven men of good repute, full of the Spirit and of wisdom, whom we will appoint to this duty. But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the Word."
-Acts 6:2-3
The apostles sent an important message to the church that day. They set a standard that our modern day church needs to heed.
Each Christian must play their position!
The pastors are to shepherd, the deacons are to serve, and the people are to support.
Ephesians 4:11 says,
"And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ"
The work of the ministry isn't only for the pastors to do, but for the saints too.
What is it that you are expecting your pastors to do for you that isn't within the bounds of their God given responsibilities?
What is it that you could be doing to support your pastors so they can do their God given responsibilities well?
Imagine what our churches would look like if our shepherds had the time to truly devote themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word.
Better preaching
Better teaching
Better counseling
Better advice
Better discipleship
Better examples of godly leadership
Better theology
Better ecclesiology
Better vision casting
Better implementation of that vision
More time to shepherd
More time to disciple their families
More time to train the saints to handle the Word of God for themselves.
Which means more biblically informed congregations and better accountability, better church unity which leads to more Christ-like lives!
It would be a church lead by Spirit-filled men!!!
Not only that, but the people of the church would have a sense of ownership over the overall ministry of the church, for they would have a direct role in all the daily happenings of the gathering.
Its kinda like the advice Jethro gave to Moses in Exodus 18:13-27
Pastors are burning themselves out with non-pastoral work. No wonder so many pastors leave the ministry. I am no exception to the rule. I need to be a better recruiter and delegator of non-pastoral work in my ministry. I need to study, preach, teach and pray more than I do.
What could God do in our churches through congregations who play their position? What could God do in our country through well educated and scripture saturated leaders?
Pray that the Lord would raise up more faithful servants in our church. People who desire to play their position in order to let the pastor play his.