¶ Pastors on the Front Lines
on today's episode .
I think you would be hard put to find a pastor who would not be overjoyed at a couple within the congregation . Just continue to use marriage as the example .
Who would come to him and say you know , pastor , we've been married six years now and we've just noticed we're getting into some kind of bad habits with the way we communicate with each other and talk to each other , and we could really use some perspective . You know , could you help us talk through this ?
You know , no , we're not having any major problems , but we want to get through this before we develop any major problems , and I think almost any pastor would be like praise God . You know , I could actually do something here . You know , this is wonderful and you're inviting me to be a part of your lives in a wonderful way .
Welcome to the Life Challenges podcast from Christian Life Resources . People today face many opportunities and struggles when it comes to issues of life and death , marriage and family , health and science . We're here to bring a fresh biblical perspective to these issues and more . Join us now for Life Challenges .
Hi and welcome back . I'm Krista Potratz and I'm here today with Pastors Bob Fleischman and Jeff Samuelson , and today we're going to talk about pastors . As some of you might know , october is Pastor Appreciation Month , and it makes us just kind of think a little bit about the job of pastors and what they do and just the different .
There are a lot of different elements and aspects with all of that too , and one of the things that we really kind of wanted to focus on today is this idea of pastors being at the forefront , and what we really mean with that is the forefront of challenges in life and different life issues and some of the things you know that we talk about here at Christian
Life Resources too , and so I think where we kind of wanted to start then today was just kind of talking about how pastors are on the front lines , so to speak , for different life challenges of their members .
Well , I think a lot of Christians and I speak very generally there if they hear something like pastors at the front lines , they're going to be thinking , oh yeah , they're going to be the ones out there in politics leading the fight against this evil or advancing this cause or whatever .
But two things One , that's not the proper role of a pastor , and two , what we are really talking about is the pastor in his proper role as a shepherd of sheep , and that's what the word pastor means . It's a shepherd and pastors are Christ's under-shepherds .
He is the great good shepherd and pastors serve as his under-shepherds , taking care of the members of the flock , which are the members of the congregation . There's a great German word that is used in our Lutheran circles for what a pastor is . It's a salesorder .
It basically means one who cares for souls , and I've always thought that is just such a wonderful , not just a description , but also a prescription . It's a reminder to pastors themselves of what their job is , that they're not necessarily to be the performer , not necessarily to be the achiever , but they're the ones who are there to be caring for souls .
So doing this , being there on the front lines for everything that's happening in a member's life , it's his calling , it's not just a job , it's not just a paycheck . It's privilege really to take care of the sheep that Christ himself has entrusted to his care .
Pete , perhaps the greatest obstacle that pastors face is what I like to refer to as the secularization of faith . In other words , people begin to look at the church as kind of a social club .
On occasion They'll begin to look at life in a congregation as more an emphasis on a network of friends , and you affiliate with a liberal church body or you affiliate with a conservative church body because it represents your social values and it's completely backwards , it's all wrong when the pastor's at the forefront .
That means there's a theological , there's a spiritual dimension to every crisis that comes into your life and oftentimes pastors have their hands full trying to rein people in , to recognize that there is this spiritual dimension and so somebody . They'll have this crisis in their life .
It could be a divorce , it could be an accident , it could be whatever it is , and they are immediately thinking in worldly terms . Think about it this way you get an accident in the family and it's just shocking . It's a car accident , the family's gathering down at the hospital , at where ? In the process , do you think the pastor should fit in ?
Because all of life is about our relationship with God . When you face a car accident or any kind of accident , it brings that relationship tighter , closer , narrower , and people oftentimes are thinking what do we do ? All the treatment issues , that kind of stuff .
Sometimes you need that pastor there to keep you calibrated , because we get lost in all of the— and I know as we get deeper into this we're going to get lost in all of the minutia of detail that's associated with every crisis that comes along in life and sometimes you need the pastor to remind you , first of all , who's the author of life and even , in death
, who's got them in his hand . So I think the pastor really saying that the pastor's at the forefront is best understood spiritually , and it oftentimes is a test of your own faith as to where your priorities lie .
If we're trying to build a kingdom on earth , then our first thoughts are going to be let's go to the internet , let's find a cure , let's do all these other worldly things and oh yeah , did anybody let the pastor know ? And it just gets kind of backwards .
It's interesting too , because we kind of think like , okay , yeah , the pastor , kind of like you were saying , bob too , I mean you know when to bring the pastor in . And just this idea too , when we're talking about the pastor being on the front lines , well , okay , like are they really on our front lines in some ways ?
I mean , so is the pastor really in the front with us ? Does that just vary person to person or congregation to congregation ? Where really should your pastor be with some of these life issues ?
Pete , I'd say . In general , I would say that pastors are not on the front lines as much as they should be , and that's both a factor of the pastor themselves and the people .
In theory , I suppose you could say it's a good thing if pastors aren't there , because that either means there are no crises or else that the members are just so incredibly spiritually mature and well-trained that they can handle everything and handle everything .
But that's not at all the reality , and God , knowing that , set things up so that there would be pastors there to take care of people in their hours of need . And I think you could actually make a good argument that Christians today have more and have trickier challenges than their parents and grandparents did .
It's not that their parents and grandparents lived in some golden age , but there were fewer questions . Okay , well , grandma has cancer , she's not going to survive this , you know , because there were no other treatment options and things like that .
But we've got a lot more of that stuff today and you have a culture that is a lot less comfortable with and aligned with Christian values , and so there's , I think , much greater need for members , in times of crisis , to turn to their pastors for help , for strength , for guidance and more .
Pete , the pastor really has to portray himself primarily through his preaching , but secondarily through Bible class and on a third level , in his one-on-one relationship with the people that he is a master of the Word of God .
And when a pastor demonstrates that and that doesn't mean he's the most interesting preacher in the world , it doesn't mean he has to be the most outgoing pastor in the world , but if he shows a mastery of God's Word , he becomes the valuable resource to sort through the crises that you're facing .
And a lot of times people will call us at CLR and there'll be some crisis in life , and it's been always our practice to say well , what has your pastor told you to do about this ? Or have you talked to your pastor ? Well , what has your pastor told you to do about this ? Or have you talked to your pastor ?
A surprisingly large number of people always come back with one of two responses . They will either say my pastor is too busy , so somehow , in our demeanor as parish pastors , we've telegraphed to them . We are so busy that now that when you truly should need us , we're just not going to be available . Okay , so that's a mistake .
Then the second argument that they'll sometimes give is he has no idea how to deal with these issues . Okay , which means either in their preaching they've come off as a simpleton , or he's allowed the people to drift in their understanding of where faith fits in , so that they don't see .
You know , you don't have to be a master of the complicated life and family issues of our time in order to demonstrate your relevance . I mean , after all , a lot of us are going to call our mothers first you know I mean , and our mothers aren't necessarily masters of it , but we recognize that we have a relationship with them and we lean on it .
And , kind of going a little bit to what Jeff was talking about , you want to see your pastor as an extension of God into your life . The role of being a pastor is defined in Scripture . It isn't an invention of your congregation . It's defined in Scripture and so the pastor is supposed to be there . And all pastors are not created equal .
There are going to be some who will be wonderful , support some not so wonderful , but that doesn't remove them of the responsibility they have to be there for you and it also doesn't remove you of the lifeline God has provided for you .
Yeah , I wanted to pick up on something Bob said there about pastors come across as a master of the Word of God .
When I went out to my call straight out of seminary , I hadn't even been ordained and installed yet when I got a phone call from a member of the congregation and they were having some rather urgent and severe marital problems and they wanted me to come visit with them . And I didn't even have all my notes from seminary unpacked yet .
But what I had and this is what I went with when I spoke to him I have the word of God . So I'll talk to you about what God's word says about these things that you're talking to me about . How much of a help that was in a practical sense to them , I don't know , I can't say .
But that was something that , again , that was my job , that was what I had , that I was trained to do , and there was no sense of being , oh , I've got this tremendous counseling skill . Well , I knew I didn't at that point , but what I had was the Word of God
¶ Utilizing Pastoral Support in Crisis
. Every member of a congregation should be able to count on that , even if their pastor doesn't have specific expertise in a particular thing , that pastor will still be able to bring the word of God to bear on their situation .
On a practical level . One of the challenges is that people sometimes have an unrealistic expectation of what they're looking for from the pastor . For example , jeff , just bringing up the instance of marital discord I think most pastors with any type of history in the ministry will tell you you are almost always brought in too late in the process .
Yeah , people I mean a few haymakers have been delivered already , horrible things have been said between couples and everything , and now all of a sudden we need the pastor in here . And that's why oftentimes in the seminary we're also reminded that there is a point where the pastor gives spiritual counsel .
But now we need professional counseling in here because things have been said , things have been done that have pushed this envelope too far . And it applies in all areas , not just in marital discord .
But we've been brought in over the years in cases where people have experimented with different medications , people have experimented with different forms of fertility treatment , people have had abortions and now find themselves pregnant again , and then they bring in a pastor . You know , it's all sorts of things where people have gone too far down the road .
You know , when Jeff showed up in that example he used and something similar to that happened to me too when I was assigned out of the seminary . But when Jeff showed up , you have to remember that it may not always feel like it's what you're exactly looking for , but oftentimes it is exactly what you needed and it's probably what you needed a long time ago .
And that's what I meant when I said earlier that the role of the pastor oftentimes is calibrating and recalibrating , because a crisis that throws you usually requires some sort of recalibrating , and don't think that being uber-spiritual means that you don't need recalibrating .
You know , when we went through that in our family with Diane's diagnosis of terminal cancer I deal in life and family issues . I do this for a living the first thing we did is we reached out to our pastor and he came over and there was that recalibrating that you need .
Sometimes you need to be assured of things that you already know , and that was critical for us and it applies to all of it .
But think about it this way If you're striving whether consciously or unconsciously striving to put all of your eggs in the basket of making this the best possible life on earth , your pastor's not going to help you with that , because your eternity is what he's going to try to present before you and he's going to try to always recalibrate you by putting your eyes
on the cross and the deliverance we have through Christ . And that's a tough job because a lot of people are well down the road towards you . Know , I think things could be a little bit better here in life , and it's going to be as near heaven as we could want it .
And then God all of a sudden says well , you're looking at the wrong heaven , and then you get that need for recalibration .
You know we've talked about some of the challenges that people bring their pastors . I know we mentioned the marriage stuff before too . What other kinds of things should people be bringing to their pastors that maybe you know ? You think people just don't think about bringing to their pastors ?
their pastors . Well , answering your question and also picking up on some of the things that Bob said , there's a perception very often of members saying , oh , my pastor's too busy to bother with this thing , whatever it is . And also what Bob said about pastors so often getting particularly marital counseling too late .
In fact it's kind of a sad joke that sometimes we don't do marital counseling , we do divorce counseling , because just the reality that people have come so late in the process that there's very little that the pastor can functionally do to save the marriage .
But I think you would be hard put to find a pastor who would not be overjoyed at a couple within the congregation just continuing to use marriage as the example .
Who would come to him and say you know , pastor , we've been married six years now and we've just noticed we're getting into some kind of bad habits with the way we communicate with each other and talk to each other and we could really use some perspective . Could you help us talk to this ?
No , we're not having any major problems , but we want to get through this before we develop any major problems and I think almost any pastor would be like praise God , I could actually do something here .
This is wonderful and you're inviting me to be a part of your lives in a wonderful way and , you know , moving away then from marriage as an example , illness , I mean , if you get a sudden awful diagnosis , like Bob was sharing there . Well , yeah , call the pastor you know , as soon as possible . Pastor , you know as soon as possible .
But maybe you're just in that state of you know we've got this thing going on and we're not sure what it is yet and it could be this , but it could also be this really much worse thing .
Well , why not talk to the pastor at that stage when he can help give you perspective on you know , on the now and the later and the what could be's , instead of waiting and just thinking , oh well , we'll wait until we get a really , really bad news and then we'll bring pastor in Because , if nothing else , he gets a chance to rejoice with you when you find
out that it's not so bad . And again , I think most pastors would rejoice to , even if it's just a phone call , say , pastor , you know , just wanted to let you know what's going on here and if you could say a prayer for me tonight . I really appreciate
¶ Pastoral Care in Times of Grief
that . So , sicknesses , you know , end of life questions and decisions . Obviously , when there's a death , funeral planning , for instance for a pastor , is about a lot more than putting a service together and writing a sermon . There's dealing with the survivors and trying to be a spiritual shepherd and respond to their needs .
Long after that , helping to deal with grief . If you're struggling with grief over something and it's been six months , talk to your pastor . He'll give you that perspective . Most of all , he'll give you the word of God . You don't have to go through it all by yourself and you have someone Christ himself has placed in your life to help you with these things .
There's a lot of what you have said , both of you , that has really just made me think a lot too . Just sitting here too , like just sitting here too , and just how you've said too like that , how God can send a pastor to you at a certain moment , or God knows like what you need or what a pastor can fill too . This week is the time we're recording .
This is marking around the two-year point since my dad was in the hospital at the end of his life , and the way that happened was that , you know , found out he had the stroke and then he was in the hospital two days before he passed , and that first full day that he was there it was a Sunday where my dad was the pastor of .
This was not Milwaukee Central here , where there's a church on every corner . The closest church was about two and a half hours away , and then there was another church , I think like three hours away or so .
So anyway , we had found out that the one that was about two and a half hours away , that pastor , was going to come later Sunday evening , but this other one that was three hours away could come a little sooner , like in the afternoon .
He could be there , I remember , like kind of talking to my mom about it and she was like , well , you know , I don't know if we really , you know , need a pastor or you know or , and she too like felt like bad right that a pastor would have to come on a Sunday right after he has already preached .
And I remember just saying to her well , mom , it's a pastor , if a pastor wants to come , they should come . I mean I was so emotional and everything too , just being in the hospital I just felt like , well , yeah , I feel like I can use a pastor .
So the one that was three hours away came , and then that evening , after he left , another pastor came and I had never met these two pastors in my life , I didn't know who they were before that point , but it was awesome . I mean , the first pastor was there , he was great .
Then he left and the second one came , and then that second one actually came the whole next day and was also in the room with us when my father passed away the day after that , and it was I mean , yeah , there was just something about a pastor being there . That was just wonderful , and we had been singing hymns , could .
That was just wonderful and we had been singing hymns and and it was just , it was so wonderful to have a pastor there just reading the Psalms . I mean , the one that came to like had readings available and was almost like a like a mini little service there at the bedside .
And I remember , too , talking to another pastor afterwards who had said , well , yeah , that's the finish line , that's what pastors like to do , or at least this one did .
The finish line me thinking too , because my kids have recently done cross country and when they come in for the finish line , there's just so much energy there and bringing them home and I felt that with like the pastor too at the end of life there and I just I go back like and think too about how I just I didn't even know those guys , but it's what God
sent us at that time and it was really , really great for us .
And that brings up an interesting challenge that pastors face , and that is you know , there's a segment in your congregation that you know has a very healthy ongoing relationship with the pastor . They're oftentimes involved with the Sunday school , involved with the church council , they're ushers , they're in Bible classes .
In other words , they have some sort of already established relationship with the pastor .
There's another segment of the congregation that always presents a real challenge and that is those who have an occasional one-hour-a-week relationship with the pastor , where maybe once a month they come to church , or every other week at best , but they really don't know the pastor or anything . They are the ones who are often a little bit at a loss what to do .
When do we call them ? I suppose we should call them like when Jeff was saying there's a lot more he can do than just lay out a liturgy for a funeral service .
¶ Supporting and Appreciating Your Pastor
It's important to also be reminded your rightful expectation of the pastor . He's not going to know everything going on with the medical condition of your loved one .
He's not going to know all the things that are involved with going to know all the things that are involved with fertility treatments or all the things involved with a medical procedure , but what he will know is the Word of God , and then he's also got resources at his disposal . Most of my work as a counselor as a pastoral counselor is with pastors .
On occasion they'll say can I have my member call you ? And of course we always allow that . On occasion members call direct , but most of the time it's the pastors who will call , and the most common scenario there is I'm on my way to the hospital , they're calling from their cell phones and I'm on my way to the hospital and this is from their cell phones .
You know , and I'm on my way to the hospital and this is going on or that's going on . What can I expect ? And that's a resource your pastor has . What we do at CLR is a resource that really was customized for pastors to call on and the ones who are aware of it lean on it .
Now , when people talk to their pastor , bring them in and they encounter something . You can ask them if they could do some checking , some exploring and so forth . I mean , quite honestly , don't look for them to know what we know . I mean , because I'm paid to know this stuff . He's not paid to know that stuff . It's a difference .
I mean kind of going along with that too , just because I shared the story too with the pastors from my perspective too and the situation my dad had a hemorrhagic stroke and he had to be put on a ventilator and then we had to make the decision about removing that .
And I remember you know so for that like I used the two of you as resources and I remember talking to Jeff and the hospital about that and you know that really helped me think through some things .
And then I remember that evening , bob , you had come to my house here and had talked to my husband , jeff , and had said really in situations like that , you recommend people to get a second opinion too . And that really made me kind of go the next day to make sure that we had done that step of it too .
And so it's just interesting how yeah , I mean I guess I mean maybe God knew I needed a lot of pastors in that situation . But it's like you know , had the pastors that were able to help with making that decisions , or that reassurance as you make those decisions .
Because I mean , when you get to that end of life stuff , I mean even if you think like , oh yeah , I'm going to go in it and I'm really going to make a godly decision and we're all going to be God pleasing , and I mean I think we were .
But there's so much like self doubt and you're just you're kind of needing somebody to say , kind of needing somebody to say , well , I think that's okay or it's okay , and you just you kind of need somebody to help you with that . And so I definitely felt like the Christian Life Resource team really did help in that moment too .
So you know , along that line , not just on end of life , I mean that's a real obvious one where we could play . But you know , oftentimes you have , not just on end of life , I mean that's a real obvious one , where we could play . But you know , oftentimes you have to understand a little bit about human psychology .
You know , when you find out that your niece has announced that she's a lesbian , or she's going through transitional things , or you are encountering other peculiar things that happen in the family , oftentimes we become editorials . People will talk about it around the dinner table , people will get angry , people will make their mark in the sand and so forth .
Even in those circumstances , those are the time to bring in the pastor First of all . Hopefully he's going to remind you that you are an extension of God as well , because you carry his word , and so you want to make sure that you're building a bridge , not building a wall .
You want to make sure that if your niece is making some bad decisions , that your reaction to it is not pushing her further away but leaving the door open for further conversation . And sometimes you need somebody who is so focused on the heart of God that kind of gets you back on the right track .
And so I'm just saying it's not always just with medical crises , but a lot of other crises , whether it's marriage problems , whether it's the bioethical issues of our time , end-of-life issues , the role of the pastor is always to kind of keep you walking that straight road .
Well , just kind of wanted to touch a little bit on this idea of appreciation and what we as members can do for our pastors we as members can do for our pastors Well as a congregation , it shouldn't need to be said , but there are still congregations that I think need to hear this .
A good salary and benefits shows appreciation for the service that your pastor is giving you .
But on an individual level there are just so many things Respect , honor , one that I think is particularly and again , personalities are going to be different or whatever but just words of appreciation , of actually communicating to your pastor that what he's doing helps , that it makes a difference , that it's been valuable .
And I would suggest not just saying good sermon , pastor , which is always nice to hear when you've preached , but what's even better is to say you know , pastor , I really liked that illustration you used . That really brought your point home to me . Or you know , pastor , I never quite heard that section of scripture preached that way before . Thank you for that .
That kind of thing really lets the pastor know hey , I'm making a difference here . What I am trying to do is actually what's happening here .
But then , particularly also , if the pastor has helped you with something specific in life or even just a conversation that was valuable , express the gratitude for that and obviously a big way to show your appreciation which he won't necessarily know about , but God will is pray .
Pray both , to say thank you to God for your pastor , and pray for your pastor , not just in his work , in his ministry , but also just for him in his own life , that God would bless him and keep him from sin , keep him from trouble , help him with his family and his relationships , all those kinds of things , because pastors are human beings too and they have
all the same kinds of things going on in their life that everyone else does .
You know it's a big deal with Christian bookstores and so forth , that during the month of October , you know there's plaques you can purchase for your pastor , and books , bookmarkers , all that kind of stuff , coffee cups . You know that's all real nice .
And through the years , you know when I've served in parishes both as the called pastor and also as a vacancy pastor , people have done all sorts of really wonderful , very nice , very kind . You know , gift cards , gifts and so forth . But I will tell you , as I reflect back on over 40 years of ministry , I think the best gifts were people who stepped up .
When you're a pastor and you feel like you have to just shy of blackmail to get people to be involved and to help out and so forth , when you have a congregation that is actively engaged and so forth , the best feeling that I ever have in ministry is when you get this groundswell of activity that just feels like it's bubbling over with appreciation , not just
for you as a pastor , because I think the more you become aware of your role as a pastor , the more you become aware of where you fail . At least that's how it is for me . You see all the times I could have done better , all the things I should have said differently and so forth .
And yet you see that , despite yourself , the troops are mobilized , the troops are excited and it's kind of like .
Think of it a little bit like this my closest friends share my values , they share my excitement , they're worked up about the same things I'm worked up about , and when a pastor sees that in his congregation there is nothing you're going to give him in an envelope that's going to compare to that , I think every pastor would just swap all the gifts out for just
an enthusiastic and engaged congregation . And plus , it is a test for you as a member as to how appreciative are you . I mean you know , if I could just buy you a gift card ? That's nice , but that's kind of easy . You know how about be a player .
Clearly I'm not a pastor , but you know , as , just as you guys are talking to , it does make me think , like just with with my role as a mother too , and that appreciation and and do and also like , yeah , the way they live out their life too is another way to show appreciation , and so I mean I would gather that I mean that goes along a lot of the
lines that you're saying , bob , too . I mean , you know , maybe the world's greatest pastor , mug , is nice , but probably the heartfelt note , or just , you know , being a member that reads their Bible and is encouraged by the words the pastor says , probably is wonderful too .
Well , thank you both for this discussion today , and we thank all of our listeners too , and thank you to all the pastors too . Well , thank you both for this discussion today , and we thank all of our listeners too , and thank you to all the pastors too , and we look forward to seeing you back next time . Bye .
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