by Rev. Joda Collins
It is not my pastor's job to make me happy. It is my pastor's calling to make me holy. More to the point, it is my pastor's calling to be used by the Holy Spirit to make me holy. I have been at my current church for 13 or 14 years. In that period of time, under the preaching and teaching of my Pastor I have become more like Jesus than I thought was possible. My Pastor walks and talks with God. That is his job. My Pastor preaches from his relationship with God. That is his job. When he preaches and teaches, he does so by the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. That is his job. As a result, I am exposed to the ministry of the Holy Spirit and that ministry draws me closer to God. The closer I am to God, the more God's power and influence enters my life and the more I become like Jesus. That is my Pastor's job.
Whether my Pastor makes me happy or not is inconsequential.
If you left a church because your Pastor did not make you happy, you left for the wrong reason. If you stay at a church because your pastor is making you happy, you are staying at that church for the wrong reason.
In my 20 plus years as a senior pastor, I lost count of the number of people who left the church (where I was the Pastor) stating to me they were leaving the church because they were not happy (insinuating or directly stating) with me. News Flash! The more you get to know a person, pastor or anyone else, the more likely you will not be happy with that person. The better people get to know you, the more likely they will not be happy with you. That is just the way it is. That is why larger churches tend to grow and smaller churches tend to decline. The larger the church the less likely the Pastor will have a closer relationship with the majority and the happier the congregation will be with him.
The Bible commands us to be "holy". If being holy does not make us happy, so what! If your pastor's ministry to you makes you more holy that is what really counts.
Notice the direct relationship between the judgement of God and the preaching of the Word.
"I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who will judge the living and the dead, and in view of His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and encourage with every form of patient instruction. (2 Timothy 4:1-2.)
Be an adult/mature Christian; seek and find your happiness in your Lord, not in your Pastor.
DISCLAIMER: My church has three pastors. For the sake of this article, I put the pastor in the singular; however, when I write "...my Pastor..." I mean every Pastor in my church.
Rev. Joda Collins
jodacollins@aol.com
I make no claim that anyone else agrees with me.
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