Being in the ministry in our Western World

This post is really propted by a buddy of mine from college wanting to leave his current ministry and search for a new one. I have had lots of talks with him in the past couple of weeks, but he has made his mind up to go, so this got me thinking. I have so many friends in the ministry all over the world, but mainly in the US, and they all seem to be dealing with the same issues. So i thought it best to do a post about the reality of ministry in our western culture. here is just a list of things that are common.

1. We deal with people, and that discourages us.
This may sound like odd wording, but its not. As pastors, we have goals. It may be to get to a certain attendance, launch a new ministry, see that a certain person accepts Christ, etc. We work constantly for these too. We have them in mind, so everything we do seems to revolved around them. But then, reality sets in. You will get notes with no name attached, angry e-mails or calls. Bad board meetings. Arguements with church members or staff. All these things will get in the way. You will say to yourself and to trusted loved ones "can't these people see i am only trying to help?" but it won't matter. The fact will remain that people will be people, and you can't change that. You will only remain sane when you realize we live in an imperfect and fallen world, and people will always be a example of that.

2. It is a lonely life.
It really can be. Being in church leadership at times feels like being in the mafia. There are so many secrets to keep about church issues and people's lives that you feel as though you are bearing your burdens all alone. You can try to confess these things to a spouse or another loved one, but at times, it only makes it worse. When you tell them that a person has wronged you, it breeds bitterness in them as well, and when you tell them even positive things, they are weighted down with the problem of secretcy as well.

Also, you feel as though at times you have no real friends. Its true. Your non-Christian friends won't be thereselves around you, and your Christian friends will either only see you as "Pastor" and want to voice spiritual things all day, or they will at times feel that you are constantly wanting something from them, whether to volunteer for something, or for them to let you "fix" them. And in addition, being buddies with staff members can be difficult because you just want a break from your 70 hour a week job (on a light week) and the last thing you want to do is hang out with the people you were with all week, even in a fun setting.

3. You want respect.
Even if you don't deserve it, you desperately want it. I have known guys who constantly work to please people. They do. They will write sermons that are just funny and sad enough to make people happy. Or they will try and make as many statements that will prompt "Amen's" as possible.

This respect thing really exists with some pastors living to please the elders. I see guys who work so hard all week, and are great minister's of the gospel the belittle themselves to writing up these reports that list all the awesome stuff they are doing, only to get the "well thats nice" look from the elders. This seems to be most frequent among youth ministers. These guys being in an amazing amounts of kids, teach the gospel as well as it can be taught, have thriving and exciting relationship with all the kids, and then report this to the elders and then they don't care. This fact is true for about 17 out of the 30 some good friends i have in youth ministry today.

The danger with the respect issue is that we begin to as Paul says "serve men rather than God." You dont look for what is affective, you just hope for what will please folks and get them off your back for awhile.

4. You feel entitled.
This isnt uncommon amoung Americans, and certainly not uncommon amoung pastors. Deep down we feel that we are owed things. A good salary, nice house, decent material things, and once again respect. We are the people who are rude to the waitress who messed up your order on her 9th hour of a 10 hour friday night shift. We are the one's who refuse to wait in lines of any sort, or believe our kids should star in everything.

The problem with this is, you aren't entitled. The early Christians were just entitled enough to die for their faith, as are many around the world today. We are lucky enough to be where we are, and I, and many others believe that wherever you are God can use you for his good, so, maybe its time to focus on that.

5. You aren't patient enough.
I am 100% guilty of this one. I have those goals for making an impact at South Side that i just want to happen, TODAY. Our ministry is growing very large, but to meet not nearly as large as God wants. You want to make this huge, Holy impact for the Kingdom, but you just can't seem to want to wait on it to take affect.

This, as can all of these, cause a guy to leave a church. You think to yourself that this thing will never get off the ground, so you seek a new destination to start over. Experts say that it takes no less that 3 years for your new programs to be effective, 4 years to gain people's trust and 5 years to get your nitch and fully understand what you are dealing with, anything less is impatient. I have had buddies end church plants pre-maturely because of this one.

6. We get hurt like anybody else does.
When you hear gossip about yourself, you fail at something, get a bad note, comment, e-mail, it hurts. It just does. You take every bit of it personally. People don't seem to realize this. Most guys i have known that quit the ministry all together did it out of a combination of these things, but this one seemed to be the most common.

Folks seem to think we aren't human, but, we are. If we give a 30 minute sermon, chances are we spent 20 plus hours on it. So when we hear that you didn't care for it, our human side takes it personal. Same goes for unfair character slander or anything else.

Where we can be wrong with this issue though, is that we can dismiss our critics and not make them our coaches. The process for me usually goes:
Step 1: Hurt Feelings
Step 2: Outright denial
Step 3: Finding reasons they are wrong and i am right
Step 4: Praying about it.
Step 5: Realizing that there is alot of truth in those statements.

I know, steps 4 and 5 should be the only steps, but with me, they usually aren't.

7. Thinking that this is a normal job.
It isnt. I am a firm believer that (pretty much) no matter what your profession is, you can be called there by God. You just can, we need witnesses for Jesus in our post offices, factories, office buildings, grocery stores, hospitals, etc. We do. But what i am talkin about is ministers who seem to stay and go from ministries because of what THEY want.

You want better pay. You want to be treated better. You want better co-workers. You want a higher budget. You want to work for a more hip and trendy church. All these things make sense to us, but to God they are selfish and the opposite of your purpose.

You are nothing more than a tool. You are a took that Jesus is using to reach his followers and the lost. That is it. It isn't in any way, shape or form about you. If you are thinking of leaving a job for personal reasons like the one's listed above, don't. Pray and see what God needs out of you. Whether it is leaving or staying, make it God's will, not yours.


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Well, these are just some things i thought of that i encounter often. Let me just say that i have struggled with all of these. They are tough to deal with, but to be in the ministry you will deal with them at one time or another.

Do you have any you would like to add?