I think Simon and Garfunkel described the feeling of some pastors today when they sang, “When you’re weary, feeling small.” (Interestingly, the words come from “Bridge over Troubled Waters,” an apt metaphor for much of pastoral ministry.)
The weariness I see among some clergy is not usually full-fledged burnout. It’s the slow buildup, like wax on a kitchen floor, of too many evening meetings, too many conflicts, too few days off.
The “feeling small” comes out in conversations. Recently I was with two pastors who serve vital congregations-one of 300, one of about 200 people. According to the church-growth statisticians, these two ministers would be the envy of 90 percent of America’s pastors. But they don’t feel that way.
One said, “Our church is only about 200.” The other said, apologetically, “We’re just a small church.” Something about their demeanor said, “I’m just a pastor of just a small church.”
I thought about the conversation later, and the more I did, the more it bothered me.
Would we say, “I’m just an Olympian” or “I’m only a ceo” or “I’m nothing but a new parent”?
Why, then, the apologies for our role or our congregations?
Have we come to believe the implications of conference brochures (ministers are valuable only if their
churches are large)? Or the made-for-tv movies (ministers are scalawags or wimps)?
The New Testament knows no such thing as “just a pastor.” And you’ll never read “just a small church,” though some assemblies receiving an inspired epistle were tiny.
Today, then, what seems like pastoral modesty may border on blasphemy.
Each church is a gathering of God’s carefully chosen and loved people. A summit meeting of royalty. Part of what Jesus Christ solemnly promised to build. The only institution worthy to stand not only in this age but the next; even marriage can’t make that claim. God longs to receive “his glorious inheritance in the saints.”And the leaders of such a holy endeavor are worthy to receive “a crown of glory that will never fade.”
Since the Holy Spirit made you an overseer (Acts 20:28), to feel “I’m just a pastor” is to criticize God’s wisdom, using a scale of comparison he never devised.
I went to a conference last summer, and during the closing worship service, people prayed for each participant. During prayer for me, one woman said simply, “Thank you, Lord, that you have entrusted him with the gospel of Christ.”
Entrusted. I came away feeling the lofty privilege it is to represent the Lord, to speak for him and with his words.
So to anyone tempted to feel like “just a pastor of just a small church,” resist the temptation. Banish the phrases from your vocabulary. Hear again Paul’s words, “Stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.”
Kevin A. Miller is editor of Leadership.
1996 by Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP journal
Last Updated: September 17, 1996
