Preached · January 26, 2020
A Weird Day
Good morning, brothers and sisters. If you are visiting, or if you're coming back for the first time, I want to give a welcome—and an apology, because today's a weird day. This is my last sermon, my last Sunday with duties here at Good News, because, as Kelli said, my wife and my kids and I are taking a hike out to Washington, D.C. to serve at a church there. So stick around; it'll get better from here. We're all going to be okay.
Like Kelli said, I've had the privilege of preaching here for the past nine or so years, and this particular message is one I've had in my heart for a couple of years. It's a sermon that pastors shouldn't give most of the time—because I'm trying to get fired before I resign. No. It's a sermon that's important to me. It's a sermon I wanted to do because pastors don't talk about it, or feel like they can't talk about it, and I've known that on my last sermon ever, this was going to be the topic. But before I tell you what it is—a little bit more suspense—let me give you some ground rules for the day.
Ground Rules
Number one: yes, you can hug me. Apparently I have developed quite the reputation for not receiving hugs well. Contrary to popular belief, I am not descended from a porcupine or a hedgehog, and my counselor says I've made great strides in expressing affection. So today, if you come up to me and you feel like hugging me, you don't have to ask permission first. Blanket statement.
Number two: I do not do well at crying. My body's not good at it—this is back to one of those therapy conversations. I've told the staff this, as we've been beginning this long goodbye, and my wife knows this quite well because she's one of the few people I cry in front of: when I begin to cry, it sounds like I'm about to vomit. Because I'm just not practiced at the whole crying thing, and my body is just like, "What is happening?" I am the origin of the phrase, "Oh, he's getting choked up." So me and the staff have imagined quite the scenario in which we have to hand out those little airline vomit bags to everyone as I begin to choke up, and all of us are like a bunch of sympathy vomiters. So if that happens, I'm sorry; we will have to pay a nice tip to our custodial team.
The Sermon Most Pastors Shouldn't Give
What is the sermon that pastors shouldn't give most of the time? It's about loving, obeying, and submitting to your pastoral leaders. That's what it's about—because if you had a pastor who delivered that message in the middle of their tenure, you'd probably look at them a little suspiciously, as you should. This is not something pastors feel like they can talk about often, even though Scripture talks about it, because it's a little self-aggrandizing. It can be very self-serving. So I'm going to do it on my last Sunday here, because it's not for me. It's for the folks I leave behind.
When I talk about your pastoral leaders, I'm talking, of course, about Brandon. I'm talking about Brennon. I'm talking about Kelli. I'm talking about our elders and our deacons—anyone who has cared for you, loved you, and particularly those who are in charge of you, because that's how Scripture talks about our pastoral leaders. I'm going to brag about them a little bit later on. But we're going to stay seated. We've got a couple of passages I want to work our way through today.
The first comes from the book of Hebrews. Hear the word of the Lord:
Remember your leaders and those who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. ... Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over you, over your souls, and they will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with sighing—
or, in the Greek, the word is literally "not with groaning"—
for that would be harmful to you.
That's Hebrews 13, verses 7 and 17. The second passage comes from 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Paul writes:
We appeal to you, brothers and sisters, to respect those who labor among you and have charge of you in the Lord and admonish you, to esteem them very highly in love because of their work.
And finally, 1 Timothy 5, verse 17:
Let the elders who rule well, who are in charge, who rule well, be considered worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in preaching and teaching.
Brothers and sisters, this is the word of the Lord, and we all say, Thanks be to God.
What Not to Do
So I want to give you a few handy tips of things to do and things not to do when honoring, esteeming, respecting, and obeying your pastoral leaders. And because we like to have fun here, let's start with what not to do.
Number one: never start a sentence with "people are saying." Because pastoral leaders will automatically just tune you out. What we want when we receive feedback or criticism from you is for you to stand up for yourself and speak for yourself only. I think we've all been in situations where someone comes to us and says, "Man, that sermon stunk." "Man, that music is too loud." "Man, Kelli does not know how to organize anything." And we get that, and we say, "Okay, what am I going to do with that information?" And then that person says one of those criticisms and adds, "Could you—I know you know them well—could you go tell them that?" That is not your responsibility. I'm relieving you of that responsibility. What we want you to do is say, "Man, if you really feel that way, here's their phone number, here's their email address; go do it yourself, in person." As soon as you come to me or one of our leaders and say, "People are saying," we're going to ignore you, because that's not healthy behavior. In psychology terms, it's called triangulation. You're taking on someone else's anxiety as your own and then triangulating it to a third person. That's not helpful. And I'm telling you, as soon as we hear that phrase, we will just ignore you. So if you have a problem with one of us, do it in person, face to face—probably not in email, because tone is really hard to do. I want you to know that we need feedback, we need criticism, but we need it in a way that's healthy and well done.
Number two: never start a sentence with "God told me to tell you." This usually goes poorly. The Old Testament says that we should stone those who say this inaccurately, so beware when you put that phrase on your lips. "God told me to tell you we should break up." No, no—you're just a coward. Never start a sentence with this. We had a Sunday here where one of our parishioners at the time, Krista Petty, delivered a beautiful, biblical, true sermon. And somebody came up to me that day and said, "Anthony, Anthony, God wanted me to tell you something." I'm like, "Okay, great, this is kind of exciting; this doesn't really happen all that often. What are you going to say?" "The Bible says that women shouldn't be teachers." Oh. So now you're wielding the name of God to give authority to your backwards point of view. That's not a great idea. Stand up for your own beliefs, and don't invoke the name of God to make me think I have to believe you. Not helpful. When the Old Testament talks about taking the Lord's name in vain, that's what it's talking about. Saying a phrase like "God told me to tell you" is just as bad, if not worse, than swearing with the name of Jesus.
One of my favorite examples was a letter that one of our former worship directors received from some folks that said, basically, "God told me to tell you"—next slide—"those who attend Good News Community Church are our customers, and we aim to please them." Adding the phrase "God told me to tell you" does not make that any better theology. That's about as bad as it gets. Friends, you are not our customers, and our aim is not to please you, but rather to please an audience of one—to please God only.
Number three: don't use prayer request forms as an avenue to complain. This happens a lot. Let me give you an example—next slide. "Please pray that Anthony will tone down the music. People around us were all saying it was too loud." This is the double whammy: "people told me to tell you," and it's not even "I hope, Anthony," it's "please pray that Anthony." Oh, I love it. Real prayer request form. If you recognize your handwriting, I'm sorry.
Number four: don't use Sunday morning as an opportunity to shame your pastor. Feedback, we need it. Constructive, helpful criticism, we need it. Sunday morning is not the best time. We are in a place where there are three to four hundred people, each with different needs, and on a given Sunday morning we will hear everything from "I've had the best week ever, God is alive and active in my life" to "My marriage is falling apart—how do I start a divorce?" And to come to a pastor on a day like that and say, "I think you're doing a bad job"—not a good time to do it. Here's another real testimonial from someone—this is a text: "I left before services started this morning. I'm going to find a different church. I'll be honest with you, I don't believe you give a blank one way or the other." Real angry congregant text, on Sunday morning before 9 a.m. Not helpful at all. Please don't do that.
Let's keep going. What not to do: give critical or unhelpful feedback outside of a trusting relationship. If the only time we ever see you is to complain, that's going to lessen what we think of the opinion. Now, if we see you serving, if we see you involved in a missional community, if we see you active and alive in the church, and then you give a piece of feedback or criticism, our opinion of that skyrockets, because we know you know what's going on, we know you're involved, we know you care. But if the only time we ever hear your voice or see your face is to say something negative or critical—even if it's true—we're not going to take it very well.
Another thing to say: no anonymous critique. Here's another example. This was a questionnaire we once had on whether or not we should go to two services, and we made the mistake of leaving a place that asked, "What else would you like to say?" "The music. People tell us that they are offended. It is too loud. Can't understand the praise pastor. His voice is offensive. He tends to scream, and many people have left the church due to music." Wow. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with that, but thank you. This is not helpful, it's not kind, and if you're willing to say it, please put your name to it. That would be best.
Let's keep going: backhanded compliments. These are some of my favorite. Now, compliments are okay, compliments are helpful; we need positive input. Pastoral leaders, elders, anybody who helps lead or serve the church needs that kind of positive input to make them feel like what they're doing is worthwhile. But sometimes they can be very backhanded, because you receive a piece of feedback that's positive—and it actually is positive to you, but hurtful to others. Let me give some examples. Quote: "That's the only good sermon I've ever heard here." This was told to me. Not only is that incredibly rude to every other person who's preached, it's rude to me, who's preached here hundreds of times. Two: "Blank is the best preacher we have here." Again, that could be said to me on a particular day—"you are the best preacher we have here"—and I don't know how to take that, because I have to carry around knowing what you think of the other preachers. Not the best way to compliment. "It was a good sermon, I'm really appreciative"—those are helpful. When you compliment someone and thereby make it clear that you don't like someone else, that's not particularly helpful to us. Quote: "Aren't you so glad that so-and-so is here?"—and then the undertone is "doing a better job than you did." That one's tricky, because we are glad that we've brought new people on staff, we are glad when our staff grows and when things change. But the "aren't you so glad that so-and-so is doing a better job than you ever did?"—that's a tricky one. Maybe we'll find a better way to say it.
Why This Is Hard: Pastoral Health
Now, listen, we all have jobs that get us negative feedback that we'd prefer not to have. So I'm aware that there's no perfect world in which pastors can just float on a cloud free of all negative criticism. It's not going to happen. Just like in your job, in whatever field you're in, you're not going to be able to float on a cloud free of all criticism. Why particularly with pastors? Well, let's talk about pastoral health for a second.
Pastors are 40% more likely than the average population to deal with depression. Thirty percent are at risk of experiencing burnout. Thirty percent feel continually exhausted. Fifty percent or more feel very or extremely isolated. They're twice as likely to not take care of their bodies and to become obese. Seventy-five percent of pastors report being extremely or highly stressed. Ninety percent work between 55 and 75 hours per week. Ninety percent feel fatigued and worn out every week. Eighty percent will not be in ministry ten years later, and only a fraction make ministry a lifelong career. On average, seminary-trained pastors last only five years in church ministry.
Wait, there's more. Seventy percent of pastors say they have lower self-esteem now than when they entered ministry—I wonder why. Seventy percent constantly fight depression. Fifty percent feel so discouraged that they would leave their ministry if they could, but they can't find another job—we don't have a lot of good skills. Eighty percent believe their pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families, and 33% said it was an outright hazard. And 80% of ministry spouses feel left out and unappreciated in their church.
Ministry is really hard. I'm not asking you to feel sorry for us, because we feel the call of God on our lives to do this. So I'm not telling you to feel bad for us; we made this choice, we feel like this is what God has asked us to do, and we will own that. What I am asking you to do is to listen to what Scripture says about how to treat your pastoral leaders, because they are offering up their lives as a sacrifice to God so that the flock can grow.
Why do these statistics happen? Why do so many pastors burn out? Why do so many pastors feel like their families are being hurt? Why is it a hazard to be in ministry? I think it happens because of unrealistic expectations that I—and lots of pastoral leaders—try to stupidly live up to. Unrealistic expectations about what a pastor is and does and ought to be and ought not to do, and we try to live up to them because we're really susceptible to people-pleasing. In fact, some would say our jobs depend on it, when they shouldn't.
I want to give you a couple of quotes from some articles that I love for how they explain what pastoral ministry can feel like. Here's one:
If I wanted to drive a manager up the wall, I would make him responsible for the success of an organization and give him or her no authority. I would provide him with unclear goals, not commonly agreed upon by the organization. I would ask him to provide a service of an ill-defined nature, apply a body of knowledge having few absolutes, and staff his organization with only or mostly volunteers. I would expect him to work 10 to 12 hours per day and have his work evaluated by a committee of 300 to 500 amateurs. I would call him a minister and make him accountable to God.
Here's another one:
After hundreds of years, a model preacher has been found to suit everyone. He preaches exactly 20 minutes and then sits down. He condemns sin but never hurts anyone. He works from 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. in every type of work, from preaching to custodial services. He makes $60 a week, wears good clothes, buys books regularly, has a nice family, drives a good car, and gives $30 a week to the church. He also stands ready to contribute to every good work that comes along. He's 26 years old and has been preaching for 30 years. He is tall and short, thin and heavyset and handsome. He's got one brown eye, one blue, hair parted in the middle—left side dark and straight, the right side brown and wavy. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all his time with the older folk. He smiles all the time with a straight face, because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls a day on church members, spends all his time evangelizing the young church, and is never out of his office.
That's what the expectations can feel like. When you've got a committee of 300 to 500 people all evaluating your work, all with different expectations that they add and add and add, of course a small fraction make it to the end of their ministry able to say, "Well done, good and faithful servant."
What to Do Instead
So what do we do instead? That takes us back to our three passages, in Hebrews 13, 1 Thessalonians 5, and 1 Timothy 5. Here are the verbs from those passages.
Number one: remember. "Remember your leaders and those who are in charge of you." What I take by this is: be a thoughtful friend. When you're remembering, there are quite a few folks you need to remember. I want you to remember Brandon—Brandon, who had his doctorate at 26, could have been a medical doctor, probably could have taken over the world if he wanted to, and yet decided to go into pastoral ministry. Remember someone like Brandon. Remember Brennon, who was making way more money in a different career, and then someone came into his life and said, "I think you should be a worship leader," and so he dropped that and became a part-time worship leader because of the call of God in his life. Remember Kelli. Kelli gets that kind of unglamorous term—church secretary, church administrator, whatever you want to call it. But she does the work of pastoral ministry, because you know what happens when someone calls to say their marriage is falling apart? She's the one who picks up the phone. When someone calls to say they have a diagnosis that's not good, she's the one who picks up the phone. When someone calls to say their loved one has passed away, she's the one who picks up the phone. If you don't think that's pastoral ministry, you don't know what you're talking about. So remember your pastoral leaders, from the top to the bottom, from side to side, because these folks are dealing with the day-in, day-out work of ministry. Be a thoughtful friend. Remember them. Think about them. Pray for them. Text them notes of encouragement and praise, noticing what they are doing so that you can know Jesus well.
Another verb from these passages is consider and imitate. In other words, discipleship is a two-way street. We've got pastoral leaders who make the call of discipleship: "Can I mentor you? Can I train you? Can I disciple you? Will you join my missional community?" And what Scripture says is that you should imitate them. You should join in that journey of discipleship. You should make time for your pastoral leaders who are making time for you. So when you get an invitation from one of them to join their group, to be mentored, to be trained, don't say you don't have time for that. Say, "I will make time for that."
Number three: these passages all use verbs like obey and submit and respect. What I take by this is: assume the best of your leaders. When we make some sort of ask of you, when there's a change of vision or direction, when there's a call to serve, when there's a call to do or to be, don't assume the worst—that we have it out for you, that we're trying to get rid of the old people or the young people, that we're trying to make you frustrated or trying to harm you. Assume, rather, that we took this to God, we took this to the fellow leaders and elders and deacons of the church, that we're trying to do this together as one united body. Don't assume the worst; rather, assume the best.
What the Greek says: be a joy, not a groan. Don't cause your pastoral leaders to sigh or to groan. In other words, just don't be a jerk. Yes, we need that positive and negative feedback, we need the praise and we need the criticism so that we can grow. But there are ways to do that that are not being a jerk. When we gather together on a Monday or Tuesday for our Monday morning powwow or Tuesday morning staff meeting, I will tell you there are times where we have to groan or sigh because of someone's behavior—people putting criticism on prayer request notes, or something like that. Don't be like that. Consider ways that can be helpful and joyous, not just jerkish.
And finally—two more. Esteem in love. How will you esteem your leaders in love? How will you cherish your pastors and your pastoral leaders? This goes back to the beginning, of remembering them. Will you remember that these leaders are people—that they have thoughts and feelings and emotions and families, and that their life does not revolve around your life? How will you cherish them, to remind them that as they put their lives on the line for you, they need some amount of love and cherishment, to be esteemed, to be held in high regard?
And finally, what 1 Timothy 5 says is double honor. What that really practically means is that they deserve the honor of being esteemed in love and the honor of being paid well. So I wish and I hope that in future conversations about paying your staff, there's no conversation about somebody getting rich off of ministry. Any one of these leaders who's here right now, any future leaders who will come on staff, they could be making a lot more money doing just about anything else. So pay them well while they're here. No one is here to get rich, but they do deserve to be well taken care of. And that's okay. In fact, Scripture asks you to. This is how you care for your leaders.
Three Final Words
All right. That's the message I wanted to get off my chest. Let me give you three final words: a word of challenge, a word of invitation, and a word of thank you. And then I'll ask Brandon to come to the platform for what's next.
A word of challenge. If you're here today, if you consider yourself part of the Good News family, and you're not serving somewhere or you're not connected to a group of some kind, I don't know what you're doing. Your life with Jesus is being castrated by your lack of commitment. That's my word of challenge: to get involved, to get past yourself, past your schedule, past your busyness, past whatever it is that you think is more important than getting involved with your church. Otherwise, we clearly need your chair.
A word of invitation. Over the past year and a half, I have been applying to and speaking with dozens of churches. Most of them did not want me—that's okay. And most of them I was not interested in, because I want to tell you and encourage you that there is no church like Good News. There is no church that I have talked to or found in hours of Google searching, hours of finding and looking at job posts and devouring the internet—there is no church like you all. A church that clearly, truly desires to grow, to get better, to multiply, to love their own well, to handle awkward and messy situations in an edifying, good way. A church that reaches out to its community and loves them. A church that has taken on so many new people and cared for them in sacrificial ways. A church that teaches the truth. A church that wants Jesus to be glorified. A church that's had this length of tenure of its pastoral leaders. A church with elders and deacons who get it and want the church to be at its best. A church that doesn't fight all that often, that doesn't divide at all, that rather keeps the main thing the main thing. You guys are the real deal. So if you are looking for a church that is going to get it more than this one, you're going to be looking for a very long time. So I ask and invite you to redouble your efforts at making this your church, your body of believers, because it is beautiful and magnificent, and according to Jesus, the best is yet to come.
And then a word of thank you. The first 14 years of my life were incredibly tumultuous. If you know my story at all, you know that I had a schizophrenic mother, which eventually landed me in the foster system, which eventually got me into a family that loved me and accepted me and adopted me. But that meant that for the first 18 years of my life, there were not a lot of places that I could truly call home. There were not a lot of places I lived for more than six or seven or eight years at a time. Emily and I have now been here for nine, almost ten years. And the level of—get out your vomit bags—the level of care, of consideration, the level of love and acceptance, I've never felt anywhere else before. You guys, this is where I grew up now. This is a place to call home. This is a place I will never, ever forget. And this is the place where I have grown the most in my relationship with God. And so, for that, I say two small words. Thank you. Thank you.
This is a transcript of the sermon as preached, lightly edited for readability.
