10 things pastor hate to admit publicly...

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Just read an interesting perspective by a pastor on 10 things he feels pastors really hate to admit...

1) We take it personally when you leave the church.

For us it feels disloyal, shallow or consumer driven. People affirm that church is a family, thus when you up and leave because the church down the road has Slurpee dispensers, a fog machine or it’s just cooler, well, it jams us pretty deep.

2) We feel pressure to perform week after week.

We know there are churches near by with a multimillion-dollar budget or a celebrity pastor who have the ability to do many more things at a much higher level.

3) We struggle with getting our worth from ministry.

We almost can’t help but equate the growth of the church with our ability/inability to produce growth. Therefore, if there is any appearance of waning, we feel defeated and wonder how long before the church board wises up and trades us to another team.

4) We regularly think about quitting.

...pastors’ families are noticed (i.e., judged) routinely, pastors’ purchases are observed (i.e., judged) overtly and pastors’ words are weighed (i.e., judged) consistently. Therefore, the ability to hide among the masses and not be noticed is very appealing.

5) We say we are transparent—it's actually opaque.

for example, pastors' wives are around hundreds of people every week, but they never feel they can let their guard down because they know people have opinions on how a pastor’s wife should be.

6) We measure ourselves by the numbers.

Numbers don’t matter! Yeah, right. The absence of growth in our churches can cascade into an internal turmoil by which we begin to scrounge for “The Next Big Thing” that will bring “Radical Growth,” “Guaranteed.”

7) 7. We spend more time discouraged than encouraged.

“Must be nice to have such a cush gig as a paid quiet-time.” In all honesty, it is pretty awesome to be paid study the Bible, but it’s a major downer when people:

- tell you—after two minutes of uninvestigated reflection—that your 30 hours of study and two collegiate degrees were wrong.

- tell you that they just couldn’t stay awake today during your sermon, but no offense. (How about I fall asleep at your kid’s graduation and we’ll call it even.)

tell you how you should have also said …

8) 8. We worry about what you think.

We’re human and we want to be liked. Therefore, when we know we’re going to do or say something people won’t like, we worry about it.

9) We struggle with competition and jealousy.

when talking with other pastors, we gauge to see if *our* church is a “Goldilocks Church”—not to deep, not too shallow, but just right (like us).

10) We feel like we failed you more than we helped you.

Every job posting reinforces the idea with the sentence, “We are looking for a man that will take our church to the next level.” Then when the next level isn’t hit in the way anticipated or within the timeline envisioned—we feel like we failed you. We become our biggest critics...

this is taken from the article here

[joeb]

Hmmmm..... After reading that list I'd have to say that it's really "surprising" that pastors are that human.

[lazarus]

Really, really, really hate to admit it but for me and many of us this list is spot on.

[JoeMo]

A great ministry would be to just let a pastor be your plain vanilla "friend" rather than your "pastor". Let him/her let their hair down and be like one of "us" for a change. If it doesn't work with the pastor of your own church, try to be "just a friend" to a pastor from another church.

[joeb]

A great ministry would be to just let a pastor be your plain vanilla "friend" rather than your "pastor". Let him/her let their hair down and be like one of "us" for a change. If it doesn't work with the pastor of your own church, try to be "just a friend" to a pastor from another church.

I've always had the attitude towards pastors that they were just another human being like me. Had that attitude towards all people who are/were in positions of "authority". I can't say a majority of them, including pastors, appreciated my attitude. It seems to me that a lot of them want to be bowed down to, but then that could just be my inherent distrust of authority figures coming from how I was raised as a kid.

[JoeMo]

Quote:

It seems to me that a lot of them want to be bowed down to, but then that could just be my inherent distrust of authority figures coming from how I was raised as a kid.

It could be; but I think that some pastors purposely avoid close personal relationships with members of their congregation for fear of being accused of "playing favorites"; or the pain of seperation from good friends when pastors are called to move on - a frequent occurence in Adventism. I guess that's why they call it tha Adventist movement - cuz Adventist officials are moving from one area of the country to another all the time.