The Plague: Restoring Honor
I am sure that a post of this sort offers itself to misunderstanding. I write it nonetheless, in hopes that you will hear my heart and glean the good from it.
The church in America seems to have lost the ancient, and dare I even say Biblical understanding of correctly honoring the man of God; one who dedicates his life to service to God and God’s people (this could be the worship leader, youth minister, or most often the pastor). We have confused honor with obsession, treat our ministers like hired hands, and become addicted to personalities on TV or the internet and swallow anything they try to sell us while starving our local pastor on a salary that allows him to qualify for food stamps.
There is a distrust and skepticism afoot that is a result of the hideous scandals of the 1980’s. And I do believe that the Swaggart and Baker scandals were, in the long run, good for the family of God. That bubble had to burst, and the scripture had to come true that judgement must first begin in the house of God. There have been plenty more, even the Ted Haggard scandal of recent days, that have caused the world to view us with a cynical eye. We should expect this and live our lives accordingly so that the world can see a true Christian witness. But in the wake of these scandals, not to mention Enron and WorldCom, there is a “mood” where it seems that churches treat pastors as expendable, replaceable, for hire and for fire. We almost automatically distrust anyone in leadership now.
I am not advocating that the church makes the pastor a little king of a little kingdom with freedom to do or say whatever he wants. That is insanity. I am advocating for a return to honoring the man of God, not worshipping him, but understanding the heavy burden laid upon him, the struggles and pressures he faces on a daily basis that NOBODY else experiences, and the specific needs the pastor faces that are uncommon to all other people in the church.
Perhaps this is the reason so many pastors burn out and quit ministry. The statistics are staggering, so much so that the Eli Lilly Foundation is pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into churches, seminaries, and other non-profits to try and figure out why pastors walk away and how they can help stop the mass exit. When questioned as to this reality, pastors who quit most often say that a lack of support from the church and lack of understanding from the members as to the stresses and pressures of the job is the largest contributing factor to pastoral burnout.
Can we regain a sense of honoring the man of God without becoming obsessed with personalities or worshipping personas? Of course we can. Pray for your pastor. Slip a $100 bill in his hand after church. Send him and his wife on a cruise. Give them gift certificates to their favorite restaurants. Babysit their kids so they can have a night out to watch a movie and eat a good meal. Stand up for them when you hear gossip. Get their back when they cannot defend themselves against the untrue accusations of others. Encourage the deacons or the elders to take up a special love offering for your pastors family once a year, honoring them with respect and generosity.
When I was a young boy, my daddy and I got our hair cut every other Saturday morning at Garrett’s barbershop in Fountain Inn. And everytime that a local pastor would come in the barbershop to get a haircut, all the men waiting would stand up, take off their hats, shake hands with the pastor, and it made a heavy impression on me as a little boy. Since then, I have made it a personal goal to always honor the pastor when I go somewhere to preach, to always honor him from the stage, to tell him publicly how much I appreciate him and his family and their sacrifice for the church, and then to tell him personally and privately how much I look up to him. This simple practice has opened up friendships between me and hundreds of pastors over the years. Sometimes, they just need to know that we believe in them and that we’ve got their back when they need us. Let’s restore honor, correctly, to the man of God in the church.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:49 am
Amen to that, and Thank you for all you do Clayton. May God bless you and your family. Sincerely - If you ever need anyhting I got your back.
April 21st, 2008 at 11:57 am
Clayton,
Thanks for your blog today. After 40 years in the ministry, I say “Amen” to what you’ve written! The pastorate is a lonely profession, and few there be that truly understand the burdens & blessings of faithful ministry! And you certainly do! I’m proud to know you & call you my friend!!!
Ricky
April 21st, 2008 at 12:42 pm
I agree totally with you Clayton. So often I hear and have witnessed people bragging about “thier” power in the church. And if they wanted could get the pastor replaced anytime they wanted. The power in church belongs to God alone. The pastor is under extreme responsibility to guide the church as God sees fit. Our greatest reponsibility is to lift up the pastor in prayer on a daily basis. Stand in the Gap!
“Keep your running shoes around your neck, you never know when God will move!”
April 21st, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Clayton,
Thank you for reminding me of another way I can encourage other pastors when I speak in different churches. My heart is heavy for the number of pastors that are discouraged and depressed. Thanks again for all you do.
Grace,
chall
April 21st, 2008 at 1:22 pm
[…] care of him and his family in a way that HONORS God. With that in mind, I encourage you to read this post by Clatyon King. He says everything I would like to say, but am not eloquent enough to put into […]
April 21st, 2008 at 1:23 pm
If only everyone in our churches could read this, and truly take it to heart. I feel there would be fewer pastoral casualties in our world.
April 21st, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Clayton:
your words speak to me more than most pastors do. you are a pastor after my own heart because i aspire to be a lot like you. i hope GOD keeps you safe because you have a lot more people to help rescue in your life. incase you don’t remember me, i am the girl at the teen challenge on friday in easley, the really…outspoken(?) one. the same day you spoke to me, you also spoke to a good friend of mine… shelby. i find that ironic for some reason. haha. i’m praying for you clayton. and by the way, your message at the teen challenge was amazing, i didn’t get a chance to tell you that.
your friend, Deanna.
April 21st, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I’ve often wanted to respond you your blog but haven’t until now. I just couldn’t keep silent. . .
Clayton, I’ve known you since you were saved as a teenager. You know how much I’ve loved and supported you over the years. I’m one of your biggest fans! I want to thank you for using your influence to write such an important message. My heart breaks for pastors and ministers all over this country. They are broken, confused, isolated, lonely, and need to be infused with love, support, finances, and “sheep” with a vision to do something great instead of just maintaining a comfortable “sheep pen.” Great job brother! Please keep on sharing the truth. The church needs to understand what’s at stake!
April 21st, 2008 at 10:39 pm
I can personally attest to Clayton’s “follow through” on this passion God has placed in his heart for pastors. As always, we were excited to have Clayton in our church to share God’s Word because something dynamic happens when he’s with us. Yesterday he said some incredible things about me to our people. I am well treated at my church, but it was still an honor to hear my friend’s heart. It didn’t feel like a token word from a guest speaker who was mostly interested in the size of the offering. Thanks Clayton for being my friend and my “Pastor” yesterday!
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:29 pm
I agree with you…and would add two very important points. 1) Honor all the staff at the church and their spouses…It is not just the Pastor that needs to be encouraged or supported, but all those serving in vocational ministry. 2) Senior Pastors should make sure that those serving with him are properly supported and encouraged. I’ve seen too many pastors receive the use of someone’s cabin or vacation home while an underpaid staff member’s vacation is a night out at Wendy’s.
Keep encouraging and living the truth…
April 22nd, 2008 at 7:40 pm
As the daughter of a pastor, I have to say “Thank you” from the bottom of my heart. I have seen it far to often in my 19 years where the flock does not respect the pastor. It’s not that I want my daddy recognized or any such thing, but more often than not, there are negative things said and done towards him and the ministry that he is in. Daddy DID become burnt out and it did affect him for a while, but I will say, God is good. He gave my father the rest he needed and the men in the body did step up and take a leading role during his sabbatical. The people he deals with today are phenomenal. They truly do care about the pastor, but we’ve seen the negative side too. Thanks so much for this post. It’s very encouraging to me, a PK.
April 22nd, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Thank you for your obedience in writing this blog. My husband is a bi-vocational pastor for a rapidly growing church. We do make sacrifices as a family of four, but when we see one life changed, one person entering into God’s kingdom, the sacrifice is worth it all.
April 23rd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
beautiful post my friend.
April 28th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
CK,
I don’t know you. I have never seen you before finding your blog today. I’ve never heard you speak, teach or preach. I am not a pastor, though some in our body affectionately refer to me as such. I am a devoted servant to the church, and in a myriad of ways, but I am not the tip of the spear. I don’t experience the same level of pain and sacrifice my Pastor and his family knows. I’m not personally held to the level of scrutiny and don’t know the intensity of burden he knows for the body under his charge.
I do know the shared challenges many in ministry face on some level; unconfessed and unrepentant sin, positional abuse, personal and spiritual pride, submission, obedience, fiscal limits, lost and dying souls, personal sacrifice.
Honoring and respecting those charged with HIS calling in tangible, appreciable ways, means far more to them than their face value or monetary worth ever will. And no it’s still not about the money, the gift, or the “acknowledgement of men”, far from it.
It is about genuinely valuing the effort and the person that God has placed over you; the one that covers you with unheard/unseen prayers, that covers you while you are blasting their preaching ‘style’ or lack thereof behind their back, that covers you when your world is falling apart because of choices/decisions you rebelliously made and contrarily to the ‘bad’ preaching previously offered you to help avoid such. If you don’t think it really matters, then what have you got to lose by proving yourself right and trying it sometime…
I don’t know you, but I Heard you today.
Be Blessed!
April 28th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
Amen–and not just once a year on ‘Pastor Appreciation Day’.
April 28th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
While I am no longer leading (pastoring) a church full time, I appreciate your post. I full well know the stress and pressure attached with leading a local congregation. I hope that you have been an encouragement to both pastors and those they lead. God bless.
April 29th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Thank you for posting this. I needed to be reminded. We have a great pastoral staff at our church. You’ve inspired me to tell them how much they mean to me and what they do matters in my life. Blessings to you.
April 29th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
I couldn’t agree more that more respect and understanding needs to be given to our pastors. I have seen more pastors leave the ministry from burnout, sexual sin or broken families. We fully believe in paying our pastor and church staff above and beyond. It is a little hard to swallow sending your pastor on a cruise or something like it. We’ve been married for 17 years and just took our first cruise recently. They are expensive and we saved and sacrificed for ours. It would have been great for someone to pay for our cruise out of the genorosity of their hearts but they didn’t. Some pastors of churches make as much money as my husband who is a structural engineer with a masters and several professional certifications that took hours of preparation and study to obtain after graduate school. And these are evangelical, seeker oriented churches. I know there are some pastors who pastor small churches who make small salaries but the last church we belonged (evangelical, growing, and approx. 1000 members and only 3 years old the senior pastor was making around $80,000/yr (not in the range of food stamp requirements) and the last three churches the figure is the same or higher. Granted, these are all “Willow Creek” type churches where tithing is high encouraged. Sometimes, “hardworking, tithing, in church ministry, 50 hour work week members” get a bit riled when they are asked to work more in church and watch their pastors take 4 weeks of vacation because they are stressed. I think pastors should realize that working 50 or more hours at a professional job is the norm, then working 5-15 hours at the church/small group a week, plus spend time with family, general chores/maintenance around the house, plus building relationships with non-believers in the neighborhood or work is a bit stressful in and of itself. That doesn’t even begin to describe your schedule if you are a single mom or dad. We love Jesus and we love serving him. The apostle Paul was in ministry full time too but there were times he had to work for essentials as well as extras. It is great to be given gifts. We have received many ourselves but we are all under stress, just different kinds.
April 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
“Slip a $100 bill in his hand after church. Send him and his wife on a cruise. Give them gift certificates to their favorite restaurants.”
It is one thing to slip a young, struggling seminarian with a growing family an anonymous gift, but if an established, monetarily well-compensated pastor is burning out in his vocation, sending him on a cruise is not the answer to the problem.
“Can we regain a sense of honoring the man of God without becoming obsessed with personalities or worshipping personas?” Though we who serve our Risen Lord have different functions in the body of Christ, their are no tiers, hierarchies, or levels within authentic Christianity. To single out a pastor for heightened honor has some biblical foundation, we must not forget that we who are in Christ are all priests in Christ
Rather than the church in America has “lost the ancient, and dare I even say Biblical understanding of correctly honoring the man of God”, perhaps the problem lies more in the overarching human-centric message and methodology contemporary seeker sensitive churches which often, I am afraid, creates self-focused church goers. Perhaps those who attend such churches, often driven by a pastor with a charismatic personality, creates, without intent, a cult of personality around that pastor. Therein, just maybe, lies one part of the problem regarding pastor burnout.
“If anyone wishes to come after me”, he said, “he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me” (Lk 9:23).
Christ’s calls to discipleship are tough. “Pick up that Roman death machine and follow Me” is not an easy call. That pastors need the support of their flock is a statement without need of elaboration. Defend him when necessary. Sometimes he may need, out of grace and love, to be corrected at times, too. In the end, we in Christ are called to submit to and serve one another be one a pastor or deacon, a secretary or custodian, in front of or behind the podium. Our focus in on our Messiah, not the man who proclaims Him. It is the under-shepherds responsibility to make that clear.
April 30th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
[…] read two other posts this week that hit it out of the park as far as I’m concerned: thank you Clayton King and Jonathan Herron (I’ve never met either of you, but you said it better than I ever could, […]
May 4th, 2008 at 5:08 pm
THANK YOU Clayton! My dad has been a pastor for 20 years and I have seen first hand the sacrifices he and my mom have made. Some people do expect pastors to do everything from preaching, visiting the sick and even cutting the church grass!!! Yes, it is true!!! My dad has a heart for people and reaching lives for Christ! It hurts me to see him and my mom have to run themselves into the ground because they are expected to do so much in the church. You will never hear him or my mom complain, but I know first hand how much they have sacrificed and also how much my family has been affected. Don’t get me wrong…I would not change being a PK or my dad being a pastor, but I would like for everyone out there to hear my heart - Please pray for, love, respect and step up and help your pastor and his family. Your pastor is doing what God called him to do and he and his family need so much support.
May 4th, 2008 at 9:43 pm
[…] Clayton King writes about Honoring Your Pastor […]