A few weeks ago I was asked to speak on the topic: "What do today's pastors obsess on?" I was intrigued by the question. Having spent the last 20 years of my life talking with pastors and editing a journal for them, I reflected on the recurring and revealing comments I've heard from church leaders that provide a clue to their obsessions.
Here are two obsessions that I've observed:
REWARDS
By rewards, I do NOT mean financial. Most pastors don't get into the ministry for the money, and they're amazingly satisfied with the salaries they receive even though they're below the level of other professions requiring comparable education. (A survey by Leadership indicates that 68 percent of pastors consider themselves "well paid" or "fairly well paid," and only 32 percent are "underpaid" or "severely underpaid.")
But my observation is that pastors are most definitely seeking a reward. Whenever I ask, "What motivates you?" or "Why are you in ministry?" I frequently hear pastors say, "I just want to hear those words from the Lord: 'Well done, good and faithful servant!'"
Those words, of course, come from Jesus' parable of the talents (Matt. 25) in which the Master commends the faithful stewards and condemns the one who didn't invest the resources he'd been given.
If pastors obsess on anything, I'd say it's on trying to be found faithful—asking themselves: "How am I doing with what God has entrusted me?" In the parable, the reward for fulfilling your responsibilities is getting more responsibility. And also joy: "Come and share your Master's happiness."
Those who don't do anything with what they've been given are judged by the Master to be wicked, lazy, worthless. In ministry, success is not automatic; it's possible to fail in this stewardship. The real success in ministry comes from investing what you've been given. The parable seems to suggest that the reward is in the risking, not in playing it safe.
And the pastors I know obsess on how they can invest themselves and their congregations for the good of the kingdom. And because this investment involves risk, faith-stretching, and taking people beyond their comfort zone, this leads to a second obsession I've seen in pastors.
RELATIONSHIPS
Relationships are the source of the most satisfaction and mostfrustration for pastors.
As editor of Leadership, I frequently explore fresh article angles by sitting with pastors and asking, "When was the last time you couldn't sleep because of some aspect of ministry?" Almost always, the occasion was both (1) recent and (2) related to a strained relationship.
Relationships are both the personal and professional preoccupation of pastors. Contrast this with the attitudes of politicians, who are satisfied with a 51 percent approval rating. Many pastors lose sleep if there's one individual who is upset, not responding well, or on the warpath.
Every pastor finds ways of coexisting with those voices, based on prayer, a deeper understanding of the nature of ministry, and re-embracing the concept of "the calling." But almost every pastor I know has lost sleep at some point over a relationship that's been strained as a result of trying to lead the congregation to higher levels of commitment and discipleship.
The art of leadership is to stay in touch with where people are (as one pastor put it, "If a leader gets too far out in front of his troops, he's mistaken for the enemy!"), but not to let them camp in complacency right there.
What do pastors obsess on? They obsess on their responsibility to lead people closer to God, which can be risky and hazardous to relationships; and the reward that Jesus promises of one day hearing, "Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master's happiness."
Marshall Shelley, editor of Leadership journal, is a featured speaker at the National Pastors Convention in February 2002.
Check out http://www.NationalPastorsConvention.com/for all the details, to request a free brochure, and to register.
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