I love being a pastor. There is no other job where you can serve the Church of our Lord so personally and with so much focus than as a vocational local church pastor. But as wonderful as this calling is, I have seen many brothers leave pastoral ministry over the last couple of years. Some were called to other vocations. Some were more or less running away from the pressures of pastoral ministry. Many were a combination of these. While I genuinely understand and support new callings, I hope to persuade struggling pastors to endure the trenches until the Lord restores the great joy of serving Christ’s Church. To do this, I’d like to offer a few words of encouragement and a few warnings.
Encouragements
The call of local church ministry is to personally and vocationally love and serve the local church. My job every day is to give myself to the precious members of our church, Christ Covenant, a people whom Jesus loves deeply and whom He has kindly called me to shepherd. I have the opportunity to give my full effort to help these members know God more fully, love one another more deeply, and use the gifts that God has given them for His purposes more faithfully. The further I get into this work, the more I see Jesus and His love for His people, which is indescribably rewarding.
The call of local church ministry is to serve God’s people in a variety of ways. I am struck by the fact that I can serve as a teacher, counselor, strategist, small business operator, creative, ambassador, and more, all in the same day! The pastor is the modern-day renaissance man as he serves in such diverse ways daily. Therefore, I see the whole church body working together in various ways. The more I see the different parts of the body of Christ at work, the more of Christ I see, and the more I understand His wisdom, love, and beauty.
The call of local church pastoral ministry is an invitation to intimate and sacred moments. I remember one such moment while performing a wedding early in my ministry. Before we went out to have the ceremony, it hit me that I was standing with a father and son during their last moment together before the son was to be married. It was one of those moments where the intimacy and sacredness of the moment hit so hard that I almost felt out of place. Why did I get to be a part of this moment?
But this calling to the sacred moments of life is an incredible part of pastoral ministry. You are invited to deathbeds, difficult marriages, and heartache and loss, but you are also invited to engagements, weddings, the birth of children, graduations, love stories, and moments in a person’s life in which they are radically changed. It’s in these moments that the presence of Jesus is tangible. You can truly understand the glories of His mercy and compassion and wonders of His love and joy.
The call of pastoral ministry is a call into the hearts of people in your community. As a local church pastor, even in a secular place like Midtown Atlanta, I am regularly asked by people for prayer, advice in marriage, or what I think God thinks about this or that. All Christians represent Jesus in their communities, but pastors have more unique opportunities to give people spiritual advice and pastoral care. There are many people that I work out with, that my kids go to school with, and that live in my neighborhood who don’t know the Lord and to whom I get to “pastor.”
God places different vocational callings on all His people. I admire people who are called to business, medicine, service, education, engineering, and so many other vocations. The church is strongest when its men and women serve in all sorts of vocational ways. Personally though, I can’t imagine a better and more rewarding calling than vocational pastoral ministry.
Warnings
While I love this call, I recognize that there are certain idols that may pull me and many others away from the call to ministry. I have seen these idols derail faithful brothers and sisters; and while they aren’t scandalous, they are more insidious and subtle. They are idols that we need to be warned of if we desire longevity in vocational pastoral ministry.
The first idol is the obvious idol of wealth. You probably aren’t going to make as much money as your friends if you are called to pastoral ministry. Next to my desk hangs a picture of my pledge class from my college fraternity. Even though I made better grades and had more student involvement than most of them in college, they all make more money than I do now. I love my calling and feel no jealousy or bitterness, but wealth is an idol we all face in a wealth-driven culture. The call to pastoral ministry is not a call to poverty, but it is a call to not finding your identity in wealth.
The second idol is the idol of ease. Local church pastoral ministry is complex. In pastoral ministry, someone will always be disappointed in you. In local church ministry, you often enter into broken, painful, and difficult situations. You not only need to be aware of this reality, but you also need to know that amidst all the pain and complexity of pastoral ministry, there is beauty and hope because of the power of the resurrection. Oftentimes, the disappointments and pains of life can lead us closest to Jesus, but it’s also where an idol can emerge—the idol of ease.
The Christian life is not simple. Our Lord did not lead a simple life. He rested, took time to be with His Father, and was fully aware of the neediest around Him, but He certainly didn’t eliminate hurry. His life was full. John tells us that if everything He did was written down, the whole world couldn’t contain all the books (John 21:25). In Luke 7:21, the disciples of John visit Jesus and we are told, “In that hour he healed many people of diseases and plagues and evil spirits, and on many who were blind he bestowed sight.” This is one hour of Jesus’ life. He was gritty, He was busy, and He entered complex situations with real people. The normal meter of His ministry wasn’t to distance himself from people but to come close. He certainly didn’t leave His pastoral work so that He could focus on His podcast.
In your ministry—especially if you are successful—you may be tempted by the allure of comfort to make ministry simplistic, ultimately leading you away from biblical faithfulness. At the other extreme, there are pastors who never stop working and never take time to commune with the Lord, as He has commanded. Still, there is a growing idol of simplicity that is robbing pastors of intimacy and dependence on the Lord along with some of the greatest joys that ministry can bring.
The final idol is the idol of identity. Your calling is not your identity. If you don’t understand who you are as a son or daughter of God before you understand who you are as a minister of the gospel, you will never make it. The work of pastoral ministry was never meant to satisfy you; only the Lord can satisfy you. Only your communion with Him makes you whole and complete. When you know Him and abide in Him, the possibilities of fruit that He can produce through you are endless. Apart from Him though, you can truly do nothing. When you as a minister begin to find your identity more in your ministry than in the Lord, you may produce ministry results, but the fruit of the Spirit will be far from you. Rather than having love for others, you will only have a love for yourself and your ministry. Your joy will turn to angst. Your peace will turn to fear. Your patience will turn to irritability. Your kindness will turn to sharpness. Your goodness will turn to manipulation. Your faithfulness will turn into entitlement. Your gentleness will turn into bullying. Your self-control will turn into self-protection.
For the reasons listed above and for so many more, the call to pastoral ministry is a joyful calling and one of the greatest honors I hold, but it is a calling that requires surrender. There was a time not long ago when pastors would talk about “surrendering” to ministry. When I was a child, I often heard this idea from the ministers of my church. They would say, “I surrendered to the ministry in 1974,” or, “He should pray about surrendering to ministry.” I rarely, if ever, hear this sentiment today, and I think that something has been lost as a result. In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us that Jesus “gave” some to the Church to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. Jesus would use these that He “gave” to the Church to equip and build up the Church to the fullness of Christ.
One of the questions I often ask prospective pastors is, “Do you sense that you are one of the ones that Jesus is ‘giving’ to the Church?” If you have this call, stay faithful and be fruitful; if you don’t, encourage someone who does. The strength of the Church of our Lord depends on it. For me, this call is very personal; while it didn’t come in some mystical or monumental way, I have this strong sense that God has called me to His Church. I have surrendered to this call, and it is a joyful, wonderful surrender.
Jason Dees | Senior Pastor at Christ Covenant in Atlanta, GA
