Good Friday 2012

Lou Gehrig said in his retirement speech, "I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth." I echo those sentiments today. I often get to hear of peoples pain and struggles in life as a pastor, and I even start to feel guilty. I have a beautiful family, home, and three meals a day. This past year I have seen God work in my home and in our church and I have tried to hold on and enjoy the ride. But that is why really hard to hear of many in my congregation and in my world that are hurting. They come to me for answers to their questions and often they ask me Why God would allow the tragedy in their life. Sometimes it is poor decisions, but other times it is just that they are victims of a sinful world. It is probably the most difficult part of my job (Trying to find the right words to comfort someone during the trials of their life).

I am grateful for the cross. The cross shows us that God is perfect in His love. The cross shows us that God loved us enough to come and suffer for us so that we will not have to suffer forever. Without the cross, we have a heartless God, but with the cross we can trust His infinite wisdom, complete sovereignty, and perfect love.

Being a Pastor

I remember when I was in seminary I heard a professor or chapel speaker once say that if you could do anything else but be a pastor do it, but if you are called and you have to be a pastor than do it. The job of a pastor is not an easy one at all. Now to be fair I have never been a senior pastor (although in January I will be a senior pastor). But I do have a pretty good idea as to what a pastor goes through. You see I grew up in a pastor's home. Many people think that the pastor only works on Sunday. But a pastor works 7 days a week and is on call 24 hours a day. The pastor should take a day of rest and a vacation, but with the expectations placed on him they just rarely get that opportunity. Now with the emmergent church movement everybody thinks that the church should be huge and the put enormous pressure on the pastor to build the church. If the church is growing well then the pastor is great, if the church is not growing well he is a bad pastor. It has nothing to do with his Biblical teaching. But the problem with this logic is that it is God who builds the church not a pastor. The pastor is a teacher, counselor, psychiatrist, business man, doctor, janitor, carpenter and anything else that his congregation needs him to be. I grew up in a pastor's home and never realized how tough my dad's job truly was. I do remember coming home early from family vacation because there was a death and the church. I never had the nicest stuff because we just couldn't afford all those luxiories, and I had to share my dad's time with several hundred people. The reason I want to write this blog is to give people a perspective of what a pastor goes through. There will be many times when I will share thoughts from my devotion with God. But there will be other times when I will share my thoughts about what the church needs to be towards their pastor. I hope it helps and that we grow together through it.