What is a pastor? What is the God-given role a pastor should play?
October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and at FV, we don’t usually do much for it. Not because we don’t love our pastors, but because I think it feels a little disingenuous coming from our pastors, haha. :) This morning, as I was praying and getting ready for the day, I felt like God said that Bold & Brave should take this on, and make it something that we can do every year going forward, as a women’s ministry!
Most people have no concept of what a pastor actually does on a day-to-day basis. Pastors are expected to be theologians, prayer warriors, completely sinless & perfect in every way, in addition to: business whizzes, property & building managers, social media gurus, advertising execs, set up & tear down crew, systems thinkers, counselors…all of it!
Pastor Jason always says that he had a professor in college at Bible school who said, at the beginning of his class, that it was his goal to talk every one of them OUT of being in ministry. He said, because if he could talk them out of it, they couldn’t hack it at being a pastor anyway. It has to be your heart’s cry—the only thing in the world that you could do—or it probably isn’t for you.
Pastors are gifts to the church, Ephesians 4 tell us, but why? A lot of you saw my anguish a few weeks ago, as I wrestled through some emotional issues regarding friends whom I care deeply about, walking away from God. It’s tough work. We don’t work with products that we can sell, or customers that we can bribe away from the competition. We’re working with SOULS. People! People are complicated. If you’re still a pastor after 5 years…10 years…it means you’ve dealt with dozens of cases like these, and you’re opening yourself up to the heartbreak, over and over and over. That should be appreciated!
So…how do we show our pastors and church staff appreciation? Let’s brainstorm today, ways that we can be used individually, and as a group, both for the last week of October 2018, and for next year!
FV’s Pastoral Staff
Candace Pringle
Aaron Pringle
Gerry Stoltzfoos
Jason Hollenbeck
FV’s Admin Staff (not all of these are paid-staff members, some are just REALLY dedicated volunteers!)
Lorrie Redding
Jaymie Hollenbeck
Jody Whitney
Jess Kutz
Travis & Steph Kuykendall
Chris Whitney
Bobbie Fleming
Julie Stoltzfoos
Read Ephesians 4:1-16.
Why do you think Paul is calling those 5 roles gifts?
Read 1 Peter 5:1-11.
What is the job of an elder?
How does a shepherd care for his flock of sheep? How is that similar to what a pastor does?
Read Acts 20:13-38.
If you had to make a job description for Paul, based on this passage, what would you say would be included on it?