8 Reasons Why Pastors Leave

I always used to wonder why pastors leave. If you have attended church for any amount of time, you will probably have experienced this event at least once. There was a stretch, when I was younger, that we had 4 different pastors in a 5 year period. It's also possible that you have never experienced a pastor resigning and may be asking why.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here are 8 reasons I have encountered myself or seen in others:

1. Burn-out

Although you may feel that a pastor has an easy job, there is much more to it than meets the eye. Preaching, teaching, counselling, praying, fasting, visiting, leading, training, and organizing can take a tremendous amount of time and effort. If a pastor doesn't have a strong ministry team and/or volunteer team then he may find himself in a state of burn-out. Burn-out is when you just hit that brick wall where you have nothing left to give and you realize you have been leading on empty. The book below describes this in great detail from a pastor's perspective.

2. Discouragement

Pastors take on new works or churches with the goal of succeeding in winning people to Jesus. Any pastor wants to win souls. That goes without saying, but everybody has a different tolerance for timelines for that growth. One man may be working on a 10 year plan while another may expect immediate results. Either way, once they reach the end of that timeline, or even before, if the results aren't what they expect, discouragement sets in.

Another type of discouragement is not number related. Pastors invest time training, counselling, and working with people to grow their walk with God or their ministry. Sometimes many years are invested and if somebody decides to give up or turns their back on the pastor, it can be very demoralizing.

4 Reasons to Share your Church Facebook Posts

“Share!”

How many times did we hear that growing up as our parents worked to instill the value of sharing with others? I don’t know about you, but I heard my “share” of instructions to do the right thing and share with my friends, especially when there was something that would be of benefit to both of us. (Actually, I never really thought sharing a candy bar was a good idea, and still don’t).
On to my main thought, and it concerns the value of sharing or liking the posts your church posts on the church Facebook page.

As we watch our News Feeds on Facebook “feeding” us, and our “ticker” ticking by with story after story, and like after like, and share after share, we can easily see our friends indeed “like” a lot of things!

Want to Make Your Pastor’s Day? (Great for Pastors Appreciation)

WANT TO MAKE YOUR PASTOR’S DAY? (GREAT FOR PASTORS APPRECIATION)

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Here are nine quick ways to show your appreciation throughout the entire year… not just Pastors Appreciation Day!

1. Write a note telling the pastor how good a particular sermon was.

2. Invite others to church. Nothing says, “The pastor is doing a great job” louder than asking your friends and business acquaintances to visit. Be sure to introduce them to the pastor after the service.

3. Pray for your pastor and his family daily. Take a few minutes to pray with your pastor whenever he is available during the week. Stop by the church office early enough on Sunday morning to pray briefly before the service. Or make arrangements to come to the pastor’s house and pray for his entire family. Make your visit brief.

How Do You Honor a Faithful Pastor?

How do you honor a faithful pastor?

(full disclosure…I am a Lead Pastor of a wonderful local church which blesses me and my wife abundantly, so this will not be posted on our church sites.)

SHOW UP!

You can’t do anything greater for a Pastor’s vision than be one of those he or she can count on, rain or shine, to be there. Not just Sunday mornings when the crowd is there, but special events and occasions are where your attendance can make the difference!

PRAY UP!

Do you pray for your pastor and spouse daily and do they know that you do?
Are they on your prayer list, that GOD will endow them with wisdom, discernment and spiritual authority?

CHEER UP!

Put a smile on your face when you see him, and put a smile on his face by your encouraging words! He may not be the eloquent communicator that your favorite MEGA-TV-Star celebrity preacher is, but he may not have a creative team and research staff to assist him. He may preach more than once a week, and if he seemed especially weak this Sunday morning, there may be a reason. Your pastor may not have a huge support staff to send out to a crisis, so it was his presence that was needed with the drug-over-dosed deacon’s kid and her family at the hospital from 2am to 6am on Sunday. But you will never hear about that. That’s the kind of leader your Pastor is. He will be there for you in your crisis, too. And he will keep your secrets.

PAY UP

Most pastors would love a little extra just to take their kids for a hamburger now and then. That is because most pastors lead very small churches and do not make the salaries of the MEGA preachers. If you are blessed, pass it on. Honor to whom honor is due, that is Bible!

Pastor Myles Holmes
Lead Pastor – REVIVE
Collinsville, Illinois

Pastoral Care – More Than Just Help for the Hurting

PASTORAL CARE – MORE THAN JUST HELP FOR THE HURTING

Pastoral care is more than simply help for the hurting. It is much more a holistic way of applying the discipleship process. And, indeed, pastoral care is globally the pastoral method integrating diverse aspects of prayerful action through fellowship within the activities of the life of a church. The church, from an interactional viewpoint, might exist to serve the community, but the pastor exists to “to shepherd… to take on the role of guiding, watching over, and protecting the entire flock.”

The church, as a community espousing community for the healing of the individual and the whole, understands that fellowship will deliver more than just help for the hurting. It develops something richer. Similarly, the pastor starts from where people are at. But, like Christ, the pastor is not content to leave them there. The pastor wants to take a person on toward Christ, and to that actual destination – the acquisition of the Holy Spirit through transformation of soul.