The Unique Nature of a Pastor’s Work
Ed. Note. In the most recent installment of this series, Pastor Sweatt discussed areas of pressure unique to pastoral ministry. In this post, he describes aspects of pastoral ministry that can add to a load of worry and care.
The nature of a preacher’s work opens the door to depression. What is a preacher’s work? First, it is longing after the souls of men. A man of God carries a great burden for people who are not saved and spends time in prayer and time caring and helping, or wanting to help. This makes disappointment a part of a preacher’s life. New believers who turn aside, godly people who grow cold, leaders in the church who abuse their office, sinners who become bold in their sin, all add the weight of disappointment to the weight of ministry. A person who does not have a pastor’s heart could never understand how a pastor feels about the congregation in front of him. A pastor preaches each week believing that God will take his message and change hearts. As their pastor, he intercedes on their behalf. Many times he will cry out to God and say, “God, will you take the message and turn them around. I see where they’re going. I know the disaster that lies ahead.” This passion for the lives of men can become a great weight to a pastor’s soul.
Lack of progress in the work of God becomes a heavy burden. Many preachers labor in hard places. Many preachers spend their entire lives in a work that is not growing; a work that is not going anywhere; a work that is not developing. They see the lack of observable progress as a great burden and the great heartache of their lives. They hear of other men whose works are growing and people that are being saved. They see other churches that are doing well and their church does not do well. There is great pressure in their own spirit, not for the pride of the flesh but because they want to know that they are accomplishing something for God.
There is lack of respect among some believers for the office of the pastor. Some do everything they can to criticize and minimize its importance. The lack of commitment among church members to the local church is a great source of discouragement to the pastor. People come and they go. They have other ideas, other commitments and other agendas. They are just here and there and out and in. Every pastor wishes the people would stand with him. He labors with God over the Word for his messages. Some people are seldom present to hear them.
The lack of personal power from God is a great burden. Any preacher worthy of his calling longs for the manifest power of God. He longs to see the Spirit of God moving in great and powerful ways in his church. Week after week he preaches and there seems to be a deadness. There seems to be nothing that is happening in hearts. A pastor then feels his own lack of power, and questions why the fire does not fall.
The physical strain of preaching is tremendous. After pouring out his soul, the preacher feels like an empty vessel. It is an exhausting thing to preach the Word of God. Here is what Charles Spurgeon said. “It is our duty and our privilege to exhaust our lives in God’s service. We’re not to be fine specimens of men, but living sacrifices whose lot it is to be consumed.” A preacher is to be one who gives his life for others.
The following may be the most imposing of all the difficulties. The pastor’s position in the church is solitary. A pastor’s role, of necessity, shuts him up to his ministry before God. The most loving church member cannot enter into his thoughts, his cares and into his temptations. The men in the Old Testament, who suffered depression, were often alone. Elijah stood on Mount Carmel with great power and fire came down, then Jezebel got after him. He ran off by himself and he said, “I am the only one left.” He felt totally abandoned by God and by men. The pastor cannot, by choice, share a lot of ministry things even with his wife, and certainly not with his children.
In Gethsemane, when our Lord was going through the most difficult time of His life, his disciples, whom he trusted, went to sleep. Three times He came to them only to find them sleeping. There is no way they could have entered into His suffering anyway, but it would have been nice had they not been asleep. Shortly after that, when He went to the cross, they deserted Him. Sometimes a pastor senses a little of what our Lord must have felt that night. The position of the leader of the church, allows us to share a little in that suffering.
The challenge of leading a work for God can be overwhelming. Spurgeon said, “My success appalled me. The thought of a career, which seemed to open up so far from elating me, cast me into the lowest depths. Who was I that I could continue to lead so great a multitude.” I suppose every Pastor who has ever preached has thought, “I would I like to preach to ten thousand people every Sunday morning “. Yet Charles Spurgeon looked out at those ten thousand people and said, “How can I possibly come up with a message for those people? How can I be a pastor to that many people? This is what God has given me to do and I can’t do it.”
Understand that in that circumstance, when we see those challenges ahead, it is very easy to react as the children of Israel did when they spied out the Promised Land. They saw the walled cities, they saw the giants, and they saw themselves as grasshoppers. Compared to the challenges, they were nothing. Every one of us at times sees himself in exactly that light. Who am I? Can I ever provide adequate leadership? In view of these great challenges, we are all too aware of our deficiencies and failures. This awareness often leads to discouragement and for some even to depression. The temptation is, rather than moving forward with great courage and faith, to shrink back from the challenge and focus on our own inadequacies.
Most people don’t ever think about the fact that the preacher lives a sedentary lifestyle. He spends many hours alone, bending over books, reading, writing, praying, and counseling. There is little time for exercise, little fresh air and little sunshine. A preacher’s sedentary lifestyle adds great stress. Preaching four or five times a week necessitates a great deal of time shut up to study and prayer.
One of the times of greatest vulnerability for a Pastor is after great success. Some say that preachers quit every Monday morning. Elijah’s depression came after Carmel, after the fire fell. The excitement was over. He won the great test, now he feels alone and isolated. Great and deep valleys often follow the mountains on which pastors sometimes get to stand.
Another time of vulnerability is just before some great success. Satan’s efforts are to turn God’s man aside just before success would come. Satan is always a roaring lion, but I think that Satan’s efforts are particularly strong towards pastors. If a man fails as a father and as a husband, many people fail with him. The failure is even more dramatic when a pastor fails. You can then imagine why Satan would love to tempt pastors to fail. The promise of harvest is conditional upon the worker not quitting. Sometimes it seems great testing comes just before God steps in.
Sometimes depression or discouragement comes after an extended period of intense labor. After weeks and weeks of no let-up, a preacher’s mind can become dull and hard and his spirit becomes heavy. He, like others, has to have his tools sharpened and his nets mended. A brief lifting of the load by time away may be enough to allow him to reorder his thoughts and get his mind refreshed. It is good for pastors to go away. It is not easy on the church for their pastors to be away, but it’s good for the pastor. In those down times, there is the opportunity to see things more clearly from a distance.
Sometimes a pastor fails because of one crushing blow. Someone in the church turns out to be a Judas. Some loved one falls into temptation, or his children fail. Add to that, strife, division and slander in a church and the load can seem unbearable. Troubles multiply and discouragements follow each other in long succession.
How then is the preacher to survive? Are there ways that the church can help? Must a pastor live his life bearing his heavy burden alone with no relief? Is there a way for a pastor to live a life of constant victory before the eyes of his watching congregation?
Our weaknesses make God’s power more obvious. It is not a bad thing to understand how weak we are; if we also understand how powerful God is and learn to appropriate that power for ourselves. The Lord gives some a public ministry, but they often must bear a cross in secret, lest they be exalted in their own mind and fall prey to the devil. That is a balancing that God does. A pastor most often learns of the sufficiency of God in private. He must guard that private life with God at all costs.
There is no privilege on earth like standing in the pulpit and preaching the Word of God. There is no comparison to sensing and knowing the leadership of God in your study and understanding and knowing the power of God in your preaching. Any price that the man of God might have to pay for that privilege is small indeed. Any loneliness, any sacrifice, any persecution in this life is no comparison to the honor of serving the King. The preacher must always keep his focus on the Lord he serves and not on the sacrifices of that service.
In our next installment, I will offer some suggestions how church members can lessen the pastor’s load.
Danny Sweatt is Pastor Emeritus of Berean Baptist Church in Lilburn, GA. He writes from over forty years of ministry experience in Florida, Illinois and Georgia as well as itinerant ministry around the country.
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Previously:
Thank you for this teaching material. I am to be the main speaker at a preachers conference in Houston in Feb. Most of the pastors are by-vocational and very rural. Please send any more material to my e-mail. Thank you. Norman Frink.