The way to a leader’s heart this pastor appreciation month is a people who believe the church is the dearest place.
By Dean Inserra
October is known in some Christian circles as “Pastor Appreciation Month.” I believe it’s certainly an encouraging time for pastors to have fellow church members express their appreciation and love for the hard work of pastoral ministry.
We live in a social media era where it’s commonplace for posts, threads, and articles to be written about how hard it is to be a pastor, categorized as “what your pastor wishes every church member knew.” Under that banner is usually a collection of bullet points about why his job is so hard. But we need a posture of gratitude toward the churches we pastor.
Here is what, as a pastor, I want our church members to know.
1. It is an incredible privilege to be entrusted with this job
I get to preach the Bible and be in people’s lives for a living. I get paid to be the pastor of the church. This means I get to see people in their greatest life moments, such as a baptism, wedding, or the birth of a child. I also get to sit next to someone after a cancer diagnosis, miscarriage, or sudden death in the family.
That can take an emotional toll, but every Christian is called to bear the burdens of one another (Galatians 6:2). As a pastor, I have the freedom and flexibility other church members don’t have to step into the burdens as needed. I’m thankful for the time church members give to ministry.
Most are at work all day, with a 30-minute lunch break, have kids to pick up from school, baseball practices to get to, and homework to supervise and still make the time to answer the call to bring a meal, help a widow rake her yard, and open their homes for a small group Bible study. What a privilege to be a pastor and witness such commitment.
I hope the members of my church know how much I count it a blessing and often can’t believe I get to do this with my life. I’m the one who should have an appreciation month for them. This also makes me think of the sacrificial labor of co- and bi-vocational pastors, and the pastors who volunteer at churches unable to provide a salary or stipend. These folks are heroes to me, and I guarantee they also count it a privilege to serve in such a way.
We need more pastors who are grateful for the opportunity the Lord and our churches have provided for us to exercise our callings and gifts to serve as pastors.
“We need more pastors who are grateful for the opportunity the Lord and our churches have provided for us to exercise our callings and gifts to serve as pastors.” — @deaninserra Share on X2. I love the local church and hope you do too
The local church is God’s design for His people, and I hope church members love their church too. Since the church is God’s plan and blueprint for making disciples and sending missionaries out, our participation and involvement is worth our lives. The church is worth our service, financial resources, prayers, and commitment. Simply showing up to the worship service is significant.
Charles Spurgeon referred to the local church as “the dearest place,” and that’s exactly how our churches should be seen. I once had a pastor friend tell me he loves the lost but struggles to love the church. The church is something he said he “tolerates” to have a ministry to the lost, which he said was his true passion. I didn’t want to extinguish his heart for the lost in any way whatsoever, but I quickly told him it was both/and.
The church is the very people who together impact the lost world. We love the lost through the church. We are a city shining on a hill, not an individual home with a lamppost. God loves the church, including your specific church and is the first to see it as that dearest place.
“The church is the very people who together impact the lost world. We love the lost through the church. We are a city shining on a hill, not an individual home with a lamppost.” — @deaninserra Share on X3. I love standing firm with you in the cultural chaos
In His sovereignty, God has placed us in this moment of history, just like every group of believers before us. I couldn’t imagine trying to lead our church through these increasingly secular times without a body of believers who want their pastor to preach the word, address the idols of our day, and shine a bright light in darkness.
A united church in a divisive time gives me all the more confidence to lean into the world rather than run from it. “We have your back,” is wonderful for a pastor to hear, but even better for a pastor to feel. Pastors need to let their churches know they’re not backing down from preaching the Scriptures. And knowledge that the church insists that be the case creates all the more courage from the pulpit, and ultimately from the pastor’s heart.
This Pastor Appreciation Month, I’m the one who’s appreciative. I can’t believe I get to do this with my life. I feel unworthy of it, while simultaneously knowing God has me in this role. And my local church affirms that to be true. I don’t have a generic calling to be a pastor but a commitment to root myself with a certain people, in a certain place until my funeral or when the Lord picks me up and takes me somewhere else.
Yes, I’m the pastor, but I’m also a church member. I thrive in leadership as I see others loving their church. I don’t need a big deal made about me to be appreciated. The way to my heart as a leader is a people who believe the church is the dearest place.
For permission to republish this article, contact Marissa Postell Sullivan.
Dean Inserra
Dean is the founding and lead pastor of City Church in Tallahassee, Florida and author of A Short Guide to Church: What Is It All About? and The Unsaved Christian: Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel.