Encouraging Your Weird Pastor

Here is an interesting post from The Bible Belt Blogger concerning stats complied by the Barna group to identify the social lives and personalities of pastors. Some of the stats are pretty interesting. Check it out here.

On a different but related note...

Once when I was listening to a sermon by one of my former seminary prof's, Dan Doriani he brought up an interesting point about encouraging your pastor. He reminded his audience that typically one of the primary jobs of the senior pastor is to bear the weight of all his people's burdens. For example, in one day he could easily hear about the marriage of some high profile members that is falling apart, one of the elder's sons is smoking weed, the children's pastor is having an affair with his assistant, and the church secretary is embezzling money.

For some pastors when the phone rings the default setting can be one of dread as he wonders what is going to fall apart next. He is always bracing himself for the worst. This may be a pessimistic picture of the church, but anyone who knows human nature and has worked in the church for more than 5 minutes knows that this type of thing is very typical.

Dr. Doriani's suggestion was that if things are going well in your life, pick up the phone and say something like this to your pastor: "Hey Pastor! Just wanted to call and let you know that my marriage is going great, we are more in love than we have ever been. The kids are respectful and humble and learning what it means to love Jesus and the Gospel. We are finding a ton of joy in leading our small group and are seeing a lot of growth in the people we lead. Our finances are in order and we are giving more now than we ever have in our lives. Life is good!! Just wanted you to know! Have a great day. Goodbye"

I know this might sound a bit weird, but I'm sure that if you called your pastor and said something like this to him it would blow him away, and also serve to encourage him that God is showing much grace to his people. When he is called to bear the heavy burdens, your phone call may serve to "balance the scales" and help him fight the discouragement that can easily creep into his mind. Our pastors are not supermen and they need our encouragment just as much as we need theirs. Don't be afraid to let your pastor know that life is good!