Wednesday, October 8, 2003
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Wednesday, October 8, 2003 |
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The joys of being a pastor By JOHN HATCHER October is Clergy Appreciation Month, a special time that congregations set aside each year to honor their pastors and pastoral families for the hard work, sacrificial dedication, and multiple blessings provided by these special people. It is typically scheduled in October but can be and should be observed once a year. Dr. James Dobson has been the heavyweight in making October Clergy Appreciation Month truly a national emphasis. His web page features a whole section on how churches can honor and recognize pastors, in particular: http://www.family.org/pastor/cam/ This special emphasis gives me opportunity to dedicate my October columns to an inside look at the person and position of pastor. I've been one since a little church in North Vernon, Ind. gave me the opportunity to serve about seven or eight families as pastor. As I stood Sunday by Sunday to talk about God and his Word, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. Since, other perspectives have arrived on the scene. But today I want to give you an inside look at the pure and glorious joy that comes by serving as pastor. First, the office of pastor puts him (and I realize some of hims are hers) at the junction of God and humankind. As none other he can sit down with broken and hurting people and share, without fear of correction, about a God who restores, forgives, and empowers one to overcome the greatest adversities that life can hurl. Just this past week I served as an awesome junction so that a mother could talk to God about the sudden and near life-crippling death of her unborn son. It's not a petunia or petticoat junction, but a junction of power, prayer, and possibilities. To be able to leave the scene of that kind of criminality of life and know you have been a junction for people to get back on track oh, the joy! Second, the pastor stands and presides at some of the most quintessential moments of people's lives. What jubilation it is to lift up an infant child to God as parents dedicate or baptize him or her unto the Lord! What exhilaration it is to stand before a man and a woman wearing their finest adornments and lead them in pledging to one another, "For better, for worse, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, for as long as we both shall live." What ecstasy it is to soar with the eagles as you are fully aware that as you preach the Word of the Living God that you are being used to heal deep wounds of self-doubt and family-related inflictions. What deep-down satisfaction it is to know that on a one-on-one conversation you can represent the love, forgiveness, and esteem of the Almighty God to a depressed, depreciated human being. Then, to see that same person reclaim her life mission. That kind of satisfaction doesn't get any deeper. But there is also a third: serving as pastor gives you Carte Blanc to talk to people about their spiritual lives. In the early days of my ministry, I would walk into people's homes and try to carry on mindless chit-chat about Saturday's football game, the latest political happening, or the price of gas in Saudi. Gradually, it dawned on me that my visit was too precious to waste on such trivialities. A brief story will illustrate: I went to visit a church member who was a patient in a hospital ward. I went, greeted him, and had prayer. As I was leaving the ward another patient called out to me to stop by his bed. I did. I engaged in a bit of chitchat. Then I asked, "Would you like me to have a word of prayer with you?" The patient responded, "That's why I asked you over in the first place." There is such great and wonderful joy that, as pastor, you have the privileged responsibility to talk to people about the most important things and issues in life. Would I really want to do anything else? Not for all the gold in Fort Knox, all the tea in China, all the oil in Saudi, and all the stock of Bill Gates. By the way, they call on Bill to pay, but not to pray. Prayer provides access to a hundred times the net worth of a Bill Gates (as of Oct. 5, old Bill was worth $35.17 billion). John Hatcher is pastor of Outreach International Center 1091 South Jeff Davis Drive Fayetteville, Georgia 30215 770-719-0303 |
