Why You Need to Send Your Pastor Away

 

I want to speak to local church leaders for a moment. Let’s talk to you about the spiritual and emotional health of your pastor.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon spoke of the “Minister’s Fainting Fits” in his Lectures to My Students (p 171-183). His work is a very plain spoken treatise on the difficulties of ministry and the dangers of such things as just basic human failings, physical malady, spiritual oppression, and lack of physical exercise. In particular he addresses the loneliness that sometimes attends ministry especially Senior Pastors.

Our position in the church will also conduce to this. A minister fully equipped for his work, will usually be a spirit by himself, beyond, and apart from others. The most loving of his people cannot enter into his peculiar thoughts, cares, and temptations. In the ranks [of the military], men walk shoulder to shoulder, with many comrades, but as the officer rises in rank, men of his standing are fewer in number. There are many soldiers, few captains, fewer colonels, but only one commander-in-chief. (p 174)

At the end of his description of the problem, Spurgeon suggests this solution.

This loneliness, which if I mistake not is felt by many of my brethren, is a fertile source of depression; and our ministers fraternal meetings [fellowship meetings], and the cultivation of holy intercourse [conversation, fellowship] with kindred minds will, with God’s blessing, help us greatly to escape the snare. (p 175)

Your pastor needs fellowship with men of like faith. He needs to be encouraged and to encourage others. He needs to rub shoulders with others who understand, at least in part, some of the things that he struggles with on a day-by-day basis. It is important that he recognizes this need and makes time to meet and fellowship with other men.

Church leaders, let me urge you to make both time and budget for your pastor to get away and be refreshed, re-focused, and energized. This is not more vacation time. He needs that too. He needs to get away and walk, enjoy sea or mountain air, and spend time with his family, but he also needs to go to a fellowship meeting, a prayer retreat, a pastor’s retreat. He will not only be refreshed himself, but may provide encouragement to someone else’s pastor in the process.

This is one of the great purposes of the FBFI and has been from the beginning. In our national and international meetings as well as in state meetings we seek opportunities for men in ministry to fellowship and encourage one another. This type of fellowship is vital. Without it the danger of discouragement and eventual failure in ministry rises.

We are not the only ones who have fellowships like this. Make him go. Provide the funds so that he can go. He will be better for it and your church will also reap the reward.

Send him to Denver in June.  Just an idea.  FBFI 99th Annual Fellowship. Denver. June 2019