10 THINGS EVERY PASTOR NEEDS TO KNOW AND ACCEPT.
By: Josimar Salum
AN ANALYSIS OF AN AUDIO THAT WAS FALSELY TRANSMITTED COMING FROM A PASTOR RIGHT BEFORE HE COMMITTED SUICIDE
1. There is no point in blaming church members for your negative pastoral experiences.
All the articles I read about pastoral suicide seem to blame the way they are treated by the “sheep.” It's like blaming the ant-killer producer because the person ingested the poison instead of killing the ants.
The deeper issue of this is that many are not sheep. He who lies constantly, betrays, attacks, slanders, and hurts is not Jesus' sheep. Being baptized, being a church member, assuming positions of leadership is no guarantee of becoming a new creature, being a child of God.
Therefore, if you are an evangelical pastor, accept the reality that you are not dealing only with true believers. Do not have a false expectation that your church is the house of God and that betrayal, slander, hatred, lies, and prostitution is a thing exclusive to the unbelievers. It is not, it is everywhere!
2 - The pastor is not a priest.
The pastor in his audio begins by quoting a Torah text on how well the Levitical priesthood was treated. The evangelical pastor expects to be treated in the same way. This is a hallucination. The evangelical pastor may even equate with the Levitical priest, but the New Testament pastor is not.
The priesthood of all saints was appointed by the Levitical priesthood, this last one disappears in the New Covenant. In the Old Testament it was a class, in the New Testament every child of God is a priest. Understand, worthy of double honor (salary) is the one who teaches the Word, but this distinction that raises the “sheppard” (pastor) above the flock of God is dangerous. Thus the pastor became the professional of the faith who is paid to work the longest hours to do the ministry service that belongs to the saints and not to a special class or caste.
3 - Grazing is not individual.
The Holy Spirit has appointed bishops (mature men, bishops = overseers, has nothing to do with position, but function) to shepherd God's flock. They are bishops in the plural to pastor (collective function) not the churches of God, but the Church of God. It is never about position, but about in what capacity they serve. The competition is denounced here, that each one pastors alone and individually to a specific church. The evangelical pastor is alone and lonely, and if he has other pastors with him, they are hierarchically below him, so they work on his team, hence the natural isolation of who becomes team leader.
The nature of ministry became professional and each church a small business. Not that it is considered so, but it is administered as such. This conflict becomes overwhelming because one wants the freedom of Christ's ministry, but it is cast in the organizational structure of a man-made institution. And in certain denominational structures, the pastor is not pressured by members who can dismiss him in assembly or by the council or board, but by the Bishop (superior to local pastors), the superintendent, regional presbytery or, at worst, by the President of the association or Apostle!
4 - The pastoral position brings isolation.
The evangelical pastor cannot openly relate to his “sheep” because he cannot lose his authority. In the ecclesiastical environment, too much intimacy undermines authority. Another serious problem, because the New Testament pastor with other pastors, shepherds the sheep of Jesus, collectively and not individually. The evangelical pastor is obliged to bless, pray, counsel, baptize, marry, visit, finally, to do the work of the ministry that according to Ephesians 4 is not up to him, but to the saints.
The evangelical pastor cannot relate to other pastors, especially in his city, because they are competitors. Each one works for the enlargement of his church even if it is with members coming from the others. This is the largest area of friction between pastors. The pastor sees the other “fellow minister” far beyond what he is, a brother in Christ. And yet, brother in Christ of "another" church.
All these dynamics push the evangelical pastor to isolation. This whole structure is far from the New Testament Church.
5 - The church is your mistress.
A pastor's wife, a close friend, called him in for a conversation. "I can not take it anymore. You have a mistress. ”The angry pastor retorted. “How can you say that, my love? I've always been faithful to you! ”She explained,“ Your lover is the church. ”Yes, he didn't devote any time to family. All the resources he had he spent practically with the church. An absent father! An absent husband! His life was the church.
Who has not read this list? First, God. Then the family, third the church. What a mistake! Those who seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness do not lack a priority list. Follow the principles of divine justice. Whoever has the Lord as everything follows His teaching naturally living with family and the "ministry" in its proper place. It took me a while to understand this. I lived by “departmentalizing” and dealing with these things in blocks rather than naturally dealing with them in relationships and in the presentation of his service.
I also found this out with a lot of pain. And many pastors with whom I have spoken in counseling are extremely frustrated with their “ministerial” lives. It is possible to reconcile the “church” with the family, but it is impossible to attend to this ecclesiastical structure because it competes with the family.
Within these ecclesiastical structures, I confess that of every 100 evangelical pastors I know and counsel only 2 who do this successfully. Of these 100 pastors, only 10 have a stable health condition. Brethren, do not be angry with me, but this is not the ministry of Christ.
Paul had terrible experiences in Asia, to the point of despair, but he never lost the joy of serving Jesus. If the ministry stole his joy, it is no longer the ministry of Christ.
“When they arrived, he said to them: “You know how I lived the whole time I was with you, from the first day I came into the province of Asia. I served the Lord with great humility and with tears and in the midst of severe testing by the plots of my Jewish opponents.
However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish joyfully the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace. “Now I know that none of you among whom I have gone about preaching the kingdom will ever see me again.” Acts 20: 18-19, 24-25
6 - Preaching is not the Kingdom of God.
The Gospel must be of God's grace. Preaching has to be the Kingdom. The greatest frustration of the evangelical pastor and what generates great frustration among the people is that preaching, teaching and church practices honestly do not give the expected results.
The Gospel of Christ cannot fit into existing ecclesiastical structures. As it is not possible, to produce results which are always measured in numbers and methods, preaching and ministerial practices need to be "worldly".
The crux of the matter is the Message. The Seed, the Word of the Kingdom, cannot be contained in this environment. What sickens the pastor is the hybridism that surrounds him: the Gospel with human tradition; the Gospel with the humanist message; the Gospel with the message of results; the ministerial vocation with the pastoral profession and others.
Shows, events, service structures, marketing, in short, all devices used in the corporate world were adapted in the church. This church that bears all this is not the Church, and as it is not the Church, it will never realize and satisfy the Minister of Christ.
The pastor becomes an executive, with goals to be met, becomes an employee measured by his results.
The Minister of Christ who is every child of God has become clergy and this has nothing to do with the Kingdom of God. This church is not the church of God. Since they cannot understand and even accept this, they become frustrated.
In another statistic, more than 70% of pastors would like to be anything but a pastor. According to the Schaeffer Institute, "70% of pastors are constantly fighting depression, 71% say they are exhausted, 80% believe pastoral ministry has negatively affected their families and 70% say they have no close friends."
7 - Superman Syndrome.
How many times will pastors when asked answer me: “We are in victory, champion! We're winning in everything. ”And they told their testimonies of the great achievements they were having and showed no signs of having no problem. They had no needs at all. They never asked for prayer for anything, even though many of them were overflowing with problems at home, in church, and some even with hidden sins. I wondered, “Do they live on another planet?”
How hard is it for an evangelical pastor to open his heart to tell a problem or a difficulty. Worse, most of them don't even have a friend to confide their temptations and confess their struggles. I've always had two or three close friends to whom I could open my heart and tell all. Everything! I'm not a superman!
8 - It is not a sin to rest and be entertained.
At 11 am, the phone rang. With a choked voice I answered. "Pastor, are you sleeping?" His brother asked in an accusing tone. “Yes, unfortunately, I woke up now because I was counseling until 2 am a couple who had a fight!” Of course I didn't say the unfortunate word. Of course I was wrong to justify sleeping until 11 am. In fact, it is not uncommon for these blessed people to decide to fight always after 10 pm and call us for help! Couldn't they fight earlier?
The pastor needs to learn to enjoy life. You need to laugh out loud. The pastor needs to have fun. The pastor needs to rest. Stop living conditioned only to the church! How hard is it to understand this! I am not talking about vacation from time to time, but of resting periodically. Hanging out with friends for lunch.
Marcos Aurélio and I have this relationship. How many times do we call each other and say. “Are we having lunch today?” But we live about 50 miles away!
How often do I call him already in the car, “I'm on my way, having lunch with you.” And vice versa! With Amarildo, we sometimes have lunch three times a week. With Carlos Boaventura, who lives far away! He leaves in Fall River and he comes to Worcester where I live just for have lunch. And so many others! When we have problems, Cristina and I call Marcos and Giselia! And vice versa!
One day we went to lunch with some pastors. Coincidentally Marcos had come to Worcester and these pastors had already scheduled with me. One is them a pastor in England. At the table, the subject for a change was “church.” My God, do these people not know how to talk about anything else? They cannot speak anything other than church. Entertainment, resting and changing the subject are necessary!
9 - Physical health.
Healthy eating, physical exercise, practicing some sport. This should be basic. Ministry is not slavery. Maintaining health is for the healthy. You don't keep what you don't have. On the contrary, horrid eating habits are the diet of most pastors I know. Pastors leaving for dinner at midnight. How many times have I done this myself.
But in August 2016, I took a prayer retreat to seek God for a direction in my life on this subject. A couple of children offered me two days at a hotel in Vermont. All I had to do was to strive for 7 things:
1) Eat healthily.
2) Exercise my body
3) Be alone with God
4) Study diligently - everything, not just Scripture
5) Work with discipline
6) Keep the family company
7) Enjoy time with friends and brothers.
Do you think I follow this with an iron will? No. I have failed some of them. But let us adjust, advance and pursue our goals of better living without blame.
10 - Depression is not a sin.
This is the main thought of this article. It is possible to suffer from depression from time to time. It is possible to have some chemical deficiencies in the body that can produce depression.
It is normal in life to suffer disappointments, frustrations, betrayals and much tribulation. But it is also normal to perceive the joys, the rewards, the victories, the celebrations. The night may be long, but it always dawns. Struggles and tribulations can last a long time, but they always pass. We are never alone. We may feel alone, but we are never alone. The Lord is with me among those who help me. Everything passes. Everything passes. Everything passes.
But the main thing is to admit that we are beings subject to weaknesses. It is not just saying: “After all, no one is perfect. Everyone gets it wrong. ”You have to admit, assimilate and say,“ I'm not perfect. I make a mistake. ”
It is not that the pastor does not err. He doesn't suffer temptation. He does not fail. I make mistakes. I am tempted. I fail. When we assume this reality, these things will no longer be fatalities.
One of the most “humanizing” texts of Scripture is this: “Elijah, a man subject to the same passions as us.”
It is this text from Isaiah that reveals the extreme humanization of Jesus that we regard as the afflicted and wounded of God, because He took on our sickness and pain. And there is no pain worse and more cruel than the pain of anguish! Because cancer appears on an x-ray; Anemia is reported on a blood test, pneumonia is a lung stain, but anguish cannot be detected even on an MRI.
“Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” Isaiah 53: 4-5
Isn't that what Jesus said? “It’s like a man going away: He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned task, and tells the one at the door to keep watch.” Mark 14:34
Translated by: Filipe S.S. Gouvea
