Are You Encouraging Your Pastor?

Andrew Rappaport's Rapp Report

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To be able to talk to someone and present them with a book or, hey, I want to learn about church history.

01:38

What book should I be reading on church history? Pastors spend a lot of time reading, a lot of time thinking about those things, and to be able to share it with someone else is something that they enjoy.

01:48

And it shows the pastor that you care about their perspective. Your pastor wants to shepherd you.

01:55

He wants to care for you, and by you coming to him and asking and seeking his input, that enables him to do that.

02:04

And he gets joy from helping you along the way. Welcome to The Wrap Report with your host

02:12

Andrew Rapoport, where we provide biblical interpretation and application. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the

02:19

Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

02:26

Well, welcome to another edition of The Wrap Report. I am your host, Andrew Rapoport, the Executive Director of Striving for Eternity and the

02:33

Christian Podcast Community, of which this podcast is a proud member. We are here to give biblical hermeneutics, biblical interpretations, applications to all things of the

02:44

Christian life, and we are wrapping up the series we've been doing on what is a pastor.

02:51

Just to remind you, we've talked about what a pastor is not. A pastor is not a woman. A pastor is not a person preaching on the streets.

02:58

We've talked about the function of a pastor. We've talked about the qualifications of a pastor.

03:03

We've talked about the idea of how we hire pastors. But this is all of that, all the eight series that we've done already, is to lead up to this episode, really.

03:16

I wanted you all to realize the value of a pastor, everything that's behind what a pastor does.

03:22

It is not easy work. It is not something that is done without lots of, well, stress and strenuous work.

03:31

And I say all that because we want you to encourage your pastor, and that is what this episode will be about, different ways you can encourage your pastor.

03:44

And with that, I've put out a thing on social media asking different people if they would be able to give us ways that they could think of to encourage their pastor, and I had someone that responded, and I really liked what he had to say.

03:59

I have not met him before, never spoke to him before, and I ended up realizing, like, this would be really good to have further discussion.

04:08

And so I asked Pastor John Varner from Valley View Christian Church in Kent, Washington, to join me.

04:16

We had a conversation beforehand and said, hey, would you want to record this with me and help me out? And he didn't know what he was getting into and said, sure!

04:26

Pastor John, welcome to The Wrap Report. Thank you, sir. Good to join you.

04:31

You're a pastor, so this was good to have. I'm no longer pastoring right now, but you are, and it is good for us to be able to have kind of a back -and -forth where we could pastor church member, be able to talk about the different sides of what things can encourage a pastor, how we as church members can encourage our own pastors, and I'm just gonna tell you for the audience here, this is my goal.

04:57

I'm just gonna be right out, right, tell you right, the action item I want from each of you by the end of this episode that you would call your pastor, email your pastor, talk to your pastor in some way, in one of the many ways we're gonna give you to encourage your pastor, not just this week, but make it a goal for every week.

05:19

I hope that as you've listened to this series, as we're in, I think, episode 9 of the series, that you would now realize that pastoring is not easy.

05:29

Pastor John, that would it be a fair thing to say that shepherding a flock is not only difficult, but sheep tend to bite back?

05:39

No, you never get bit by a sheep. Yeah, totally. I mean, you have ministry involved, you doing life with people, and oftentimes saying things that people might not want to hear, and so there are times where people are gonna not be happy with you, or you're gonna have, you're gonna make a decision and it's gonna cause some people to be happy and other people to not be happy, and so you make a decision and you've got 50 % happy with you and 50 % unhappy with you, and you're like, well,

06:07

I don't even know what to do. You put the air conditioning at 69 degrees in the sanctuary, and you have people complaining that it's too cold, and you have people complaining that it's too hot.

06:16

There's a plethora of things that pastors go through that make it so, being encouraged is a great benefit.

06:24

A lot of people don't, because they haven't been pastors, they don't know what it's like.

06:29

They don't understand the stresses of ministry, and I'm gonna ask you some things that we didn't talk about.

06:36

In politics, it's always said you should never ask a question you don't know the answer to. I don't know the answer to this, but I'm gonna ask it anyway.

06:43

So, when it comes to ministry, I mean, are there times as a pastor that pastors feel alone, feel they have no one to talk to, feel like maybe everyone might be against them, feel the pressure that it's hard to do the right thing sometimes?

07:00

Oh, totally. I think you often will have situations, particularly because as a pastor, it's hard to have friends and people within the actual body, because at least friends where you can be totally open and honest with, because who do you share with in the body if there's a church member you're having a struggle with?

07:20

Who do you go and share that with and not be gossip? Because you want to protect the individual, you don't want other people to know, like, hey,

07:28

I'm having this conflict with this other individual. So, it can be often isolating and lonely because you don't have someone immediately there that's going through it with you, other than maybe your wife, because your wife is often a sounding board and or someone who just can tell you had a tough day.

07:46

And so she's like, Oh, it was a tough day. Yeah. And so it can often be lonely being a pastor if you don't have a camaraderie of guys around you.

07:56

Because even sometimes within a, if you're in a plurality of elders context, there might be some conflict within the elder body between multiple pastors, and then it becomes difficult for you even to share with the other pastors because you don't want to gossip or speak negatively of the other pastors in a way that is unhelpful or unbiblical because you don't want to ruin the other's elders relationship with that elder.

08:22

And so you don't always have immediate friends that you can go and share your concerns or frustrations with.

08:31

If you're in a secular business environment, you go home and you can, you can share with your buddies like how your boss is frustrating you in the pastoral environment, you don't necessarily always have that.

08:40

And some of this goes off the last episode to what I talked about when as you're sharing, it's hard as a paid pastor who is making his livelihood when we hire people.

08:53

If you haven't listened to last week's episode, I encourage you to go listen to that. That'll help you with this one.

08:59

But we talked about the fact that because of the way we hire pastors, guys come in and their livelihood, their feeding of their family is based on keeping a job.

09:09

And so there are times where they get nervous because if they say something wrong, you know, they say something to even other elders.

09:18

But if things a couple years down the road, you start having some difficulties and all of a sudden something you may have said years ago, they come back and use that against you.

09:28

And there's guys who get nervous with that. And there's a view that some pastors have where they keep themselves from the congregation to prevent that.

09:38

You're mentioning you sometimes it's hard. A pastor may feel he's got no one but his wife, but even there, there's many times when

09:45

I was a pastor, I kept things from my wife because, A, I don't want to burden her.

09:51

If you don't realize this, folks, your pastor's wife is in one of the most difficult positions.

09:59

I mean, I'll tell you this, as a way of encouraging your pastor, encourage your pastor's wife.

10:05

And I'm gonna tell you why. Amen to that. Yeah. The reason is the pastor's wife watches all the hardship that your pastor goes through, and she is helpless to do anything about it.

10:19

She can't do anything but watch him struggle, and some many men, to protect their wives, don't let their wives know what they're going through, which is even harder now because the wife knows something's wrong but doesn't know what.

10:33

And a pastor's wife is a really difficult position. I'll ask this of you,

10:39

Pastor John, when you think of the wife's position. I know you said sometimes she's a good sounding board, but there's sometimes we have to protect her also.

10:48

We've got to protect her because she's a member of the church too, and so there's things we would hear as pastors in counseling, we don't want to bring that home, and now our wives are looking at that person going, oh, look at that person.

11:02

And then it's like, oh, well, how do you know this? We have to protect them as well. How important is the role between the pastor and his wife as far as when it comes to ministry and encouraging a pastor?

11:18

When a pastor's wife grows weary of the ministry, it's gonna make him serving in the ministry really hard.

11:26

I've heard stories of other guys who were gung -ho about ministry and they got married and then they eventually couldn't remain in ministry, even though they kind of wanted to, they had a desire to, but because their wife was no longer on board with them remaining in ministry, and if he were to lose his wife, then he disqualifies himself anyways, so he chooses his relationship with his wife, rightly so, over remaining in a pastoral position, and he finds himself in a situation where he can't serve because his wife was no longer, she couldn't bear that any longer, and it was because of undue burdens that were put upon them, and I assume it's really hard for a wife to watch their husband go through the struggles of dealing with difficult situations, and literally, they can't do anything, and they have to be nice to the people that are being mean to their husband, like someone yells at their husband, they know that this happened because the husband shares, hey, so -and -so got angry with me today and yelled at me, and then the wife has to treat this person with cordialness and be kind to them, even though the person was very un -Christ -like towards their husband, and so, as we were talking before, it's probably of the two, it's probably harder to be the pastor's wife, at least when it comes to like watching the conflict and seeing the stressors that come upon their husbands.

12:55

I can take it if someone yells at me, but if someone yells at my wife, that's much more difficult.

13:01

My protectiveness comes out, and I'm assuming that pastor's wives feel the same way, and they often, like you said, they feel like they can't do anything.

13:09

Yeah, I think back to a church where I was counseling a pastor who was on the verge of resigning for the very reason that you said.

13:17

His wife had been, she was being criticized, she was watching her husband be criticized, and she just couldn't take it, and she got to a point of saying,

13:28

I don't want you in ministry anymore. I don't want to do this, and he was having to make a decision.

13:35

He really didn't know what to do. It was a matter of, he was being forced to choose between his wife and the ministry, and as we counseled together and we worked through it together, my encouragement to him was to let the church know.

13:51

He's like, oh, but that would, like, you know, I said, well, talk to your wife, but have the church know what you're going through, what your wife is going through, and just say, look, you know,

13:59

I love pastoring you and shepherding you, but I also have to shepherd my wife, and teach them on encouragement so that they realize that, you know what, pastors need encouragement, too.

14:15

You know, I think one of the problems that I think, and this goes off from last week's episode, is because of the way we hire pastors, a lot of times pastors have, there's a book called

14:28

Superman Syndrome. Pastors sometimes think, like, they have to pretend like they're perfect, like they're

14:33

Superman, they have no sin, they do no wrong, because there's people that have the expectation that a pastor has to be perfect, and people have a high expectation for their pastor that they don't have for themselves.

14:45

You know, they expect their pastor to be perfect, but they know they're not, and so there's a lot of times people have this really high expectation for the pastor, and because pastors are so afraid of losing a job, there's times that for some pastors, they get into the

15:02

Superman Syndrome, where they either keep themselves separate from the congregation, or they don't want people to see that they're human and they sin, too, and they create an impossible standard for themselves, because others have created one for them as well.

15:18

And so I would say that a great way to encourage your pastor to start is to help realize that your pastor is human also.

15:27

Don't have expectations for your pastor that you're unwilling to have for yourself. If you're perfect, then okay, maybe you can expect your pastor to be perfect, but I got news for you.

15:38

If you're perfect, come spend like ten minutes with me. I'm sure I could get under your skin to show you, get some anger out of you, and we'll take care of that so you realize you're not sinless.

15:49

That's one of the things a friend of mine, Matt Slick and I always joke when we come upon the sinless perfectionists, we're like, oh, I never sin, really?

15:55

Ten minutes with me, I'll get under your skin to get your anger out really quick, but you're not perfect. I got news for you.

16:02

You're not perfect. I'm not perfect. Your pastor's not perfect. So as we talk about the topics here today, just recognize that your pastor is a human being too, so don't hold him at a standard higher than you're willing to hold for yourself.

16:18

Now, is there a high standard for pastors? Obviously. We already talked about that in a previous episode on the qualifications of a pastor.

16:26

So yes, there's a high standard for the pastor, but if you remember in that episode, I said that's a standard for all of us.

16:33

We all should be striving for that. So I think one encouragement for your pastor is to not hold him to a standard you're not willing to hold yourself to.

16:44

John, maybe it'd be good, you had several great points, and what we're gonna do at the end of this episode, folks, is

16:51

I'm gonna actually use some AI that's gonna read all of the people that gave some different points.

16:58

I'm gonna use an AI just so it's not me reading it, so it'll be a lot more fun. You get to hear some different voices. It won't be their voices, just for the record, but I'm gonna use

17:06

AI to speak the different comments that people had. But John, I wanted you to come in because you had some great points on how to encourage a pastor from a pastor's perspective, and so I wanted us to start there, if that would be all right, if you wouldn't mind reading or going through your points.

17:31

I just, as you posted it, I just quick hit, just threw out different ideas and stuff that had come to my mind as of late, and things that had encouraged me recently, or had in the past, and one of them that I put was, share specifically with your pastor how their ministry has impacted your walk.

17:50

If you share with your pastor, pastor, when you ministered to me in this way, it helped me understand

17:56

X, Y, and Z, or your message about this has really impacted me in this area of my faith.

18:04

Sharing with them that their labors, because they labor hard over the work of the ministry, hopefully, if they're a good pastor, they're laboring hard, which

18:13

I think you talked about, Andrew, in one of the previous episodes, was a pastor works hard, he's spending lots of time over these things, and knowing that his labors aren't in vain, it can be hard to observe the change that takes place in someone's life as a result of a pastor's ministry.

18:35

When you're in normal business world, you have input, output, you do something, and something external occurs, you go make a sales call, and you get the sale, where when you're pastoring, you don't always see the things that are happening underneath the surface, and so encouraging your pastor about those things, where the

18:56

Lord is using them in your life, and particularly, if you can say things that happened, like, when you shared with me six months ago, this thing, it's helpful to help them say, hey, oh, my efforts have continued to produce something long -term, and I think that was one area.

19:15

Let's dig into that one bit more, because I want people to realize, when you're saying to be specific, it's not just, hey pastor, that message that resonated with me, that was helpful for me, but the importance of being specific, hey pastor, you know,

19:27

I was struggling this week with bitterness, and your message about forgiveness really helped me to realize

19:36

I need to forgive others. That's specific. It's not just general, hey, your message helped me this week, because I think what

19:45

Pastor John is saying is, when you hear that, I know for me, as I travel around and people come up and say,

19:50

I know it's a big difference within me when someone says, hey, I listened to your podcast. Hey, thanks, but there's a big difference in that, and someone like I've had recently, it's someone that came up and said, you know,

20:00

I was really struggling with the way that I was viewing my family, and I've been binging your podcast, and some old episodes you did, where you talked about different things, the way we should view other people, helped me to just internalize how

20:17

I view my family, and gave me a better perspective. Well, that was really specific, and that's something that encouraged me, because when they referred to the episode,

20:26

I didn't even have that in mind. That wasn't the purpose of it, but that's how God ended up using it in that person's life, and that becomes a great encouragement to a pastor to know that God used something that we say, not the way we may have intended it, but God ended up using that in different ways.

20:44

So be as specific as you can. Well, when you think about the typical pastor spends 15 to 20 hours a week on their sermon, to have people say, great message, pastor, that's always an encouragement.

20:57

But if you can come away and say, pastor, when you explained this, it really helped me understand

21:03

X, Y, and Z. When it gets out of the generic and into the specific, it does make you respond in a different way than, hey, that podcast was really great.

21:15

Like, I think actually, Andrew, as you were talking about people giving you comments on podcasts, I was thinking about,

21:21

I think the first episode in this podcast series about when you said, a way to encourage your pastors is to let them know when you're going to be gone.

21:30

Like when you're going to go out of town on vacation, like you said that, I was like, oh, that is so true. And it actually made me text message a couple church members that day and be like, hey,

21:39

I was just listening to this podcast on pastoring. And they said one way to encourage your pastors, let them know when you're going to be gone.

21:44

You always do this. And it's a blessing to me because it is because if someone's gone for three weeks, you're like, where are they?

21:51

Where did they go? Are they okay? And just knowing ahead of time, hey, I'm going to be gone for three weeks. Here's what

21:56

I'm going to go do. It relieves a portion of stress from the pastor's life and mind by letting them know you're going to be gone.

22:03

And so I think it's really helpful. They don't always know what a pastor's thinking, right? It's just like, hey, I'm going to be gone for two weeks for work or what, and I'm going to miss two

22:12

Sundays. But when a pastor sees someone not there, a good shepherd is shepherding.

22:18

He's concerned. But when they don't show up for two weeks, it's like, are they sick? Is something wrong?

22:24

Are they planning to leave the church? You don't know. In my case, I travel a lot.

22:30

So I'm like, okay, pastor, here's my schedule. You know, I'm going to be... Here's when I'm going to be there. Yeah. Yeah.

22:35

Sometimes that's easier, right? It's like, you know, my pastor knows, okay, I'm going to New York. I have the date for New York here.

22:41

I'll be in New York. I get back. I'll be back for a week. And then I'm gone for three weeks, you know, for Philippines. And then

22:46

I'll be back. So he knows my schedule. And granted, it also helps because he and I are both co -teaching

22:53

Wednesday night. So he needs to know when I'm going to be there to teach. But it's something that is so simple. But to let a pastor know, hey, pastor,

22:59

I'm going to be missing church because I got something for work. You know what a good pastor does? Prays for you.

23:06

My pastor knows when I'm out of town and why I'm out of town. And as a good shepherd, he'll either message me while I'm gone or as soon as I get back.

23:15

And he's like, hey, how was your trip? He knew I was just out seeing my grandson. I got a text saying, how was the trip?

23:22

Which is kind of neat because, well, my pastor was more, I thought should be more concerned. His wife was going in for knee surgery, knee replacement surgery.

23:30

I'm like, that's where your focus should be. But he's just praying and thinking about me with my grandson. And I'm like, well, we're praying for your wife here.

23:37

So, but okay. So, so your next point was very good. The book recommendation, Ron? Yeah.

23:43

Yeah. So I would say, ask your pastor about, you can be reading on this on Sundays.

23:50

Why do we worship on Sundays instead of Saturdays? To be able to talk to someone and present them with a book or, hey,

23:57

I want to learn about church history. What book should I be reading on church history? Pastors spend a lot of time reading, a lot of time thinking about those things.

24:05

And to be able to share it with someone else is something that they enjoy. And it shows the pastor that you care about their perspective.

24:13

Your pastor wants to shepherd you. He wants to care for you. And by you coming to him and asking and seeking his input, that enables him to do that.

24:25

And he gets joy from helping you along the way. This was one I didn't think of.

24:30

When I read this, I was like, this was one I was like, wow. When I was a pastor, I had people ask me for book recommendations.

24:38

I'd freely give, okay, here's some books. I'd even pull off my shelf and give them a book to read and I'd have a lending library.

24:45

But I didn't think about, as I read your comment with it, I realized like, yeah, you know what really encouraged me when, as a pastor, when people would ask me was because they were looking to learn.

24:57

And I love as a shepherd, seeing people want to study. When you want to study,

25:03

I'm going to say that when you listen to this whole episode, you're going to listen to lots of repeated things, because we're going to play everyone's comments.

25:10

And you're going to hear lots of repetition. That's good. The repetition means these are things that we should all be doing.

25:16

But I didn't realize how much, like, until I started thinking about it, that when someone comes to me and says, pastor,

25:22

I want to study more. That is a huge encouragement to a pastor. Even if it's not what book, but I kind of extended it to say, look, when

25:31

I have someone that says, hey, I want to study a book of the Bible, or I want to study a topic, just the fact that when you show your pastor, you have an interest in digging deeper in the

25:41

Word of God or studying Christianity. It really does encourage your pastor. Absolutely.

25:47

I didn't put the connection together until I read you mentioned that. When I have a teen or 17 or 18 year old youth in the church come and say, hey,

25:56

I want to learn about this, or pastor, can you help me understand this seeing someone who has a genuine thirst and desire and hunger to grow in their faith is an encouragement and being able to talk about it with them.

26:12

It's fantastic. Or if the 35 year old says, hey, I want to learn about being a better dad, help me find some some resources that can help me in growing in that area, or the 55 year old says, hey,

26:25

I want to grow in meditating on God's Word. What can I read? Whenever someone comes to you as a pastor and says,

26:33

I want to grow, that's like, yes, let's go. Because that's ultimately what we want to see.

26:38

We want to see, we want to present people who are mature in the Lord and do it faithfully.

26:45

And so seeing that come out in people, I think it fires me up. Your next comment is interesting because of this.

26:53

A, it was probably the most repeated comment in one way or another. But I do think it was funny because one of the things

27:00

I noticed with it is your next comment was mostly repeated by people that were pastors.

27:08

And so, well, maybe there is a thing there. So maybe there's a connection here, but why don't you read your next one just for folks to realize this is the one that most pastors said would be a way to encourage your pastor.

27:20

So as Pastor John gives this, just know this is what most pastors are saying to be encouraging of your pastor.

27:27

Yeah. So being an active participant in church body and eager to serve, don't just like show up and leave right away.

27:34

Don't show up right when service is starting and then book out afterwards, but actively be involved in the local body and help and serve.

27:46

I don't know of any pastor that has ever had too many volunteers, too many people that were willing to serve and participate and do things.

27:53

And there's always something that can be done. And so just being a person in the body that is trying to actively help the rest of the body.

28:04

I think one of the other comments said something like show up and don't expect to just receive, but to give, to serve like that's because that's also showing spiritual maturity.

28:14

And that's what we as your pastors want. Like, we don't want you to serve just because we're trying to maintain the organization.

28:20

We want you to serve because the person who has saved us came to serve and not be served.

28:26

And so when we want you to emulate Jesus, and so serving is a way for you to fill that out and do that.

28:33

And so, yeah, I think showing up to church and participating in things is an encouragement to your pastor, because sometimes we'll do things and there'll be like five people that show up and it's like, well, that's kind of,

28:46

I put all this effort in. Yeah. It's hard for a pastor to put the effort in and they're there to do things.

28:53

And then, you know, I'll tell you the worst is when someone says, pastor, I really think we need X, you know, whatever it is.

29:00

And then you go, okay, we'll do that. And then they don't show up. That's when I learned someone says, pastor, we really need to do

29:06

X. I go, okay, when are you going to start it? Well, I thought you would. Well, you're the one that has the interest, right? Because I got tired of being like, okay,

29:12

I'll start this. And then the people who say we really need to do it, don't show up. That's a way to discourage your pastor.

29:18

Yeah, exactly. Give him ideas and then not be willing to do it. Yeah. So your next one,

29:24

I'm going to have you read and then I'm going to, I'm going to throw the caveat, but what if the pastor has like eight kids, you know?

29:32

So I said, invite them over for a meal. What if they have eight kids? That's even more important because they can't go to the restaurant.

29:38

They can't afford it. I know. I'm not joking with that. I have a pastor friend of mine. He has eight kids. And he said with that many kids,

29:46

A, he can't go to, it's hard to go to a restaurant just because of the bill on a pastor's salary. But with eight kids, a lot of people don't want to invite the pastor's family over because there's eight kids, right?

30:00

And so it's even, I would argue, even more important in a case, but why is something like that important?

30:07

Let me throw a caveat in there before you answer, just to give my spin on it is if you're going to invite your pastor over for a meal, plan it as a fellowship time, not a time where you get to grill him or bring up all the questions you've had about this person or that person.

30:25

If you're going to invite him over for a meal, do it where it is a relaxing time for him and you're showing care for him and love for him.

30:33

Don't invite him over so you got his time. It would be my point with this, but what's your thinking of why we should invite our pastors over for a meal?

30:42

Spending time with people is an encouragement. I think like your point, Andrew, of not making it a time where you're going to grill them.

30:49

Now, some pastors love to have theological discussions. Actually, I think a good pastor would love to have theological discussions.

30:57

So if you want to talk to them about those things, great, but not in a grilling sense.

31:02

Be like, hey, what do you think about this? An opportunity to just do life and share with the pastor the things that are happening.

31:10

Life can be chaotic and being invited to someone's house is a sign of hospitality and can show them just your care for them.

31:18

We get invited to people's houses and it's, hey, just come and hang out and let them not have to be on, so to speak.

31:27

I'm putting quotation marks around that. Let them come and spend time with you and see your life and invite them in.

31:35

You're saying you're putting the quotation marks, but I think a lot of people don't understand that as a pastor, you could feel like you always have to be the pastor.

31:44

You can't be relaxed. There is that ends up happening, and folks understand a pastor struggles with that in the social setting within the church where, again, it goes back to what

31:54

I first said. People have this expectation of the pastor. We have where everyone thinks like your pastor lives in a fishbowl and everyone's watching him.

32:02

I remember as an example, my son was in a Sunday school class and the guy who was teaching

32:07

Sunday school asked a question of the students and none of the kids knew the answer.

32:13

So he picked on my son and said, well, give us the answer. And my son felt embarrassed because he didn't know the answer.

32:20

And my son didn't want to go to Sunday school because the guy made him feel really embarrassed. And this was when you were pastoring, right?

32:25

This is when I was pastoring, yeah. And I pulled him aside and I said, you know, to help him understand, my son now doesn't want to go to Sunday school because you embarrassed him.

32:34

And he's like, well, he's the pastor's son. I expected that he would have the answer. I said, but your son was in there.

32:40

Why wouldn't your son know the answer? He's like, well, I'm not a pastor. I said, but you are the one teaching.

32:47

Like, why do you have an expectation for my son you don't have for your son? And it dawned on me, he said, you know, you're right.

32:53

And he says, I won't ever do that again. Like, I'll make sure that my son knows the answer if I need to have that.

32:59

And I'm like, okay, right? I think that there is this sense where we feel, like you said, like we have to be on.

33:05

It is very relaxing for a pastor to know he could just sit back and relax and not feel like he's on guard.

33:14

And so that's helpful. That kind of leads into the next one that you had, which I do a lot.

33:21

But why don't you read the next one you had? Yeah, so for a lot of pastors, they live on a lower salary than what a lot of their church members live on.

33:30

And they have kids, and some of them have moved far away from family. So the idea of gifting them like a date night that includes childcare, something where you as church members say, hey, we want to foster your relationship, because the pastor and his wife, like if his marriage falls apart, that disqualifies him from ministry.

33:52

And hopefully you want your pastor to not be disqualified from ministry. And so giving them opportunities to foster their relationship, because honestly, if you think of a pastor who's got, maybe they're on a modest salary, and they have three kids, they probably don't go out to eat very often.

34:12

And providing childcare, babysitters for the three kids, isn't cheap.

34:18

And so you can encourage your pastor by providing that for him, just as a gift. Pastor, thank you for taking care of us.

34:25

We want to gift this to you. And let them have a night out. I do this often.

34:31

So I have a thing with Hilton where I get free nights, I get points with them.

34:36

And so what I do is my current pastor, we decided, hey, we had this VIP package where we had a certain number of points, we could go to a number of places.

34:44

And the only places that actually I could use the entire thing with the limited places I could go was Vegas or Hawaii.

34:49

Well, I have no interest in going to Vegas. And Hawaii was just too far for us. We didn't have time that we'd be able to do that.

34:57

So I said, you know what, why don't we go to Washington, D .C., which was half of the points, and then take our pastor and his wife.

35:04

And so that's what we did. We went down to D .C., we went to Museum of the Bible, had a great time going all around, spending a long weekend down there, and just fellowshipping together, having meals together.

35:14

What ended up happening is I asked them, I said, when was the last time you had a vacation? Like time away from the pulpit, because he's the type that what would happen is he would go, he'd preach on Sunday, then he'd go see his kids, and then be back for the next

35:28

Sunday. So he prepares two messages ahead of time, or he's got to work on a message while he's on vacation.

35:34

And vacation is time with kids where, in his case, his kids are usually like, hey, dad, can you do this and this and this around the house?

35:42

But it wasn't a real getaway. And I first said, like, when was the last time that you were away from the pulpit when not at church?

35:52

Because he'd have someone preach, but he'd be there. Like, and I said, when was the last time you had an actual vacation? And they couldn't remember.

35:59

Neither one of them could remember the last time. And I was like, so me and my bride taking them away for this long weekend, it was like a huge gift.

36:10

And we didn't realize it until then. And so we came back and, you know, he mentioned how he really hasn't had time to go see his family up in Minnesota because it's not easy.

36:19

Flights have become real expensive. And I'm like, I got a lot of miles because I travel a lot and I build up the miles.

36:26

And I just said to him, we came back and I said, look, we want you to be able to see your family. So when you're ready, we're going to fly you out to see your family.

36:34

Because he'll drive to see his kids, but he hasn't seen his family. I know people that have a timeshare where they give their timeshare to the pastor.

36:43

That's something where you could do. I have points with RCI where I get that. And I have a pastor that ministered to my bride and I when we were going through a really tough time.

36:54

And we just said, look, we got some points. Here's some points. Tell us where you want to go, and I'll just book it for you just so that they could get a time away.

37:02

I think that's really valuable. But interesting what you said was to include child share for the kids. In other words, give them a chance to get away by themselves and let someone else take care of the kids.

37:12

So it's not just, hey, we got a vacation, which is good. But sometimes they need a time alone, even if it's just a night.

37:19

Hey, pastor, here's dinner. You got a night out. We'll take care of your kids. And just here's dinner on us.

37:26

That's something that wouldn't cost people a lot to do, even if the church does it. Right. Or even if you if the church couldn't provide for the pastor for them to go to dinner somewhere, say super small church, then there's no one that could financially give the pastor and his family dinner.

37:40

They could say, hey, could we take your kids to go do something so you guys could have some time alone?

37:46

And we'll bring you a meal and you and your wife can just have dinner by yourself at your house without your kids.

37:52

So you're not having to worry about them. And there's a ton of ways you could do it and still provide what the goal is behind it, which is a night where they have time to foster their relationship and not have to worry about three kids running all over the place and playing referees.

38:07

I've never thought about this before, and I don't know of any church that does this, but I'm going to say that I'm going to my deacons this week to ask them if they would consider doing this, because you gave me an idea that I like.

38:19

Folks, would you consider going to your church and seeing if they would put something in the budget to give the pastor one night a week or maybe more so at least one night a month where they can go out for dinner?

38:34

Put it in the budget where it's just here's 50, well, maybe $50 isn't enough anymore with inflation, but depending on where you live, if you're in New York City, you might have to do $75 for a dinner for two, but figure out what a dinner for two is and put that in the budget so monthly your pastor and his wife could go out for dinner and on that night that they're going to do that, whoever takes care of the nursery, maybe you could put a schedule together to have babysitters that would go over and take care of the kids.

39:02

Maybe that's something you could consider is ask your church deacons to put that in the budget to say, hey, can we have a budget for the pastor to have one night away for dinner on the church and the church will take care of the children?

39:17

I like that idea. I'm going to talk to my deacons. There you go. Your next one is always an encouragement.

39:24

Yeah. When appropriate, encourage your pastor. I think it does two things.

39:30

You're encouraging your pastor. So your pastor directly being encouraged by your words, but it's also fostering an attitude and a perspective of we should be encouraging our pastor.

39:40

That's not just for one person to do, but everyone should be doing it. I have certain members that they are always encouraging.

39:46

They are constantly encouraging, but that's not the attitude or the tendency of everyone.

39:52

Now, I have a very encouraging church and I love the church where I serve. It's the

39:57

Lord's grace to me after a previous church that was not very encouraging. But you have certain people who are kind of, yeah, they're constantly encouraging your pastor.

40:07

But if those things are done publicly, then it kind of encourages others to be encouraging in similar ways, which it's kind of like you become a culture of encouragement.

40:19

And that I think is helpful because it's hard being a pastor and you deal with stuff from little complaints, little concerns, little issues to major concerns.

40:31

A marriage is falling apart to like the old joke of the chair's uncomfortable or the music's too loud.

40:36

And it's like, okay, you have all these different things that can weigh down on you. And so encouragement can help the pastor know, hey, what

40:45

I'm doing is worthwhile. A lot of those things you have to keep to yourself. When someone's marriage is falling apart, you can't go sharing that with other people.

40:53

When people are complaining the music's too loud, you have to keep a lot of that to yourself. That's what makes it so hard for a pastor is you're receiving it all and you have to keep that to yourself a lot.

41:04

But when you said when appropriately publicly encourage them, we're not talking flattery.

41:11

We're not talking to sit there and just give false praise. But it is encouraging when you hear someone else encourage your pastor, you are more inclined to encourage your pastor.

41:23

I never take lightly the fact that in my church, my pastor and I co -teach a midweek

41:28

Bible study. And I'm never, you know, the church is never going to hear me undercut what he's teaching.

41:36

I'm never going to be like, oh, well, you know, he said this, but this is a better way. No. When I see opportunities, every time

41:43

I look for an opportunity that when I'm teaching, I can refer back to what pastor said so that people are looking to him because I want people to be encouraging him.

41:54

But it shouldn't be a flattery, which I think was a point where you said when appropriate. When you encourage, it should be to put the attention on your pastor, not on yourself.

42:04

It's not patting yourself on the back to go, look, I'm, I'm encouraging my pastor. No, it's that you really want people to, you want your pastor to feel encouraged and you want to encourage others to do the same is the point behind that.

42:17

Your last one, I'm just going to say the next one you have, there's one thing that people usually give as a gift.

42:23

And I'm going to say what it is after you share this. Okay. So I said, don't forget about this thing that some marketing genius probably came up with in America because they want to sell things.

42:33

And there's pastor appreciation month, which is the month of October. And your pastor is going to get emails that talk about pastor appreciation month.

42:44

And it's really awkward as the pastor. If no one does anything, you can't go and advocate on behalf of yourself that the church should do something for pastor appreciation month, because then it looks like you're just being self -serving.

42:59

It would be like a teacher telling everyone, Oh, it's teacher appreciation day. So make sure you do something for me.

43:06

No one would respond well to that. So your pastor is going to get these emails about, Oh, this is pastor appreciation

43:11

Sunday, or this is pastor appreciation months because they're reading emails or reading blogs. And they're seeing people talk about it, about how you can encourage your pastor.

43:21

And if no one in the church does it, all that does is make the pastor feel unappreciated or unseen, uncared for.

43:29

And so do something for them, whether it's just writing them notes or cards, or you, you tell them at the beginning of October, Hey, I'm going to commit to pray for you every day.

43:38

If you told your pastor I'm praying for you every day, I don't know any pastor that's going to be like, well,

43:44

I wish they would have gotten me a gift certificate to Starbucks. I would much rather someone say, I'm praying for you every day and mean it, then receive a, some kind of gift, but okay.

43:55

So what's the gift that you were. Here's the thing. As I look at your library behind you, there's something that all pastors have books, right?

44:03

I've cut my library down. It was 10 ,000 volumes. I think it's down to 8 ,000 volumes. I got to shrink it even more.

44:08

If I'm ever going to be able to downsize, but most of mine are in here. We in Logos. And that's what

44:13

I was going to get to is your pastor probably is on Logos Bible software. And if so, he is getting almost daily emails about pastor appreciation month discounts.

44:28

And so what most churches do is we'll get pastor's books in October, which is great. I would say do it every month because pastors love to read.

44:36

If you're saying, well, what's Logos? Logos is great Bible software. If you're unfamiliar with it and you want to get started, you could go to Logos .com,

44:44

L -O -G -O -S .com slash S -F -E. That stands for striving for eternity. And not only would you be able to get started on Logos or upgrade

44:52

Logos, but you get five free books from striving for eternity by using our code. So that's something you could do, but your pastor probably uses

45:00

Logos. You could do as I've done. I got my pastor and upgrade to Logos. He was way out of date, about three versions out of date.

45:07

I upgraded him. I have another pastor that what I did was there was a set on sale that he really wanted, and I just paid for that.

45:15

So I do that a lot to give books. I've kind of moved over to giving books digitally because that's just where so many pastors are getting a lot of their books, but that's something that you could do.

45:26

I would just encourage you, as Pastor John said, I would say make every month pastor appreciation month, every day, every week.

45:33

But in October, it's really important to make sure your pastor is encouraged in October because, as Pastor John said, trust me, they get the emails from every marketing, every publisher, every group is sending pastors and churches something about pastor appreciation month.

45:53

And if nothing happens, they go, oh, okay. So not doing anything in October for your pastor actually makes them feel unappreciated, and you don't want that.

46:06

Before I get to my list, I want to get to a different list that I was sent. I'll put a link in the show notes, but it was something sent to me from Michelle Leslie, someone that if you're a regular listener here, you know

46:18

I've given that name. There's very few women in women's ministry that I recommend, but Michelle Leslie is one of them that I would trust with the things she posts.

46:28

And so she had an article that she published called A Word Fitly Spoken, 11

46:33

Ways to Encourage Your Pastor, and she said October is pastor appreciation month.

46:39

So she wrote this one end of September in encouragement so that for pastor appreciation, people could appreciate their pastor.

46:47

So here's what she had said, and I'm going to link the article in the show notes, but she said in her 11 ways, number one, pray for your pastor.

46:55

Pray specifics for your pastor, for his wife, his children, stress levels, for peace, for financial provision, his marriage, that he'd be a good father, that God would grow him in understanding the handling of scriptures, that God would grow him in discernment, guard him from being influenced from false teaching and false doctrine, to protect him from temptations and lead him to repentance when he sins.

47:18

Number two she has is show up. You already heard this from Pastor John, is that showing up and being faithful, a faithful active member to your local church is one thing she was saying, and she says second, it's very discouraging to pastors when church members who are perfectly able to attend faithfully simply choose not to or let other things get in the way.

47:40

That's so true, and COVID really changed that. People would just prefer, oh I could sit in my pajamas and watch on Zoom, watch the live stream.

47:48

That is extremely discouraging to your pastor. Am I right, John? Oh yeah, totally, and I think she has a good clarification, like physically able, like if someone's not physically able to come, that's one thing.

48:00

The shut -in, we understand that she is no longer able to come in person. I am not discouraged when the 95 year old lady doesn't show up on Sunday morning, but when the 40 year old doesn't show up and just because, oh

48:15

I didn't feel like it, that's discouraging because I've put in a lot effort to prepare the sermon, and I want you to be here because it's good for you.

48:24

In fact, the 95 year old lady who's watching on live stream who barely knows how to use the technology but is doing it because she wants to hear what's going on in church is encouraging when you have that, where the 40 year old doing it that just is choosing not to be there because, you know, wants to be in pajamas or wants to go watch his son play football or something, totally different reaction, right?

48:46

Her third thing is be present. Just sort of a similar thing you said earlier, Pastor John, is pay attention, be engaged, have a pleasant look on your face during the sermon.

48:56

By the way, I'm just going to put an off note on that, or a side note on that, is pastors see your faces, okay?

49:02

Except during COVID, that was the worst. Yes. You came to a congregation with masks on, like a smile with just your forehead, it was terrible.

49:12

Yeah, see, I didn't have that problem because we didn't wear masks. We were just that type of congregation.

49:18

But yeah, I mean, pastors are looking, look, when you're preaching, you're seeing when a husband and wife are talking to each other and disagreeing with something you said, or maybe they're having a fight over something else.

49:30

I mean, there's times where you could see that they're having a discussion that has nothing to do with what you're preaching about.

49:35

By the way, be aware, some pastors can read lips, so I've had this happen where I could see what the conversation is between a husband and wife, and I know it has nothing to do with what

49:44

I'm preaching. It is discouraging when you're, as Pastor John said, I mean, I spend about 25, 30 hours per sermon, and to sit there and put all that effort in to have you talk about things that you could talk about later when you're home is a discouragement.

49:58

So, you know, she says, you know, be present there. Don't think about what's going on at home.

50:04

Save that for home. Fourth, she says, a word of thanks. Just say thank you. I'll put it this way.

50:10

My first pastor, I would clean up the building, and I think I've shared this before on this podcast, is every week he would thank me for cleaning up.

50:18

I was the one who had set everything up first thing in the morning. I would be there before everyone, hours before everybody, because we rented a seven -day

50:25

Adventist church, so I had to take all their stuff down, put all our stuff up, and then when everyone left,

50:30

I had to put all our stuff away, take all their stuff, put it back. My pastor would always thank me.

50:37

I remember once he left, he went home, and he forgot to thank me, and he drove back to the church.

50:45

This is the day before there was such a thing as cell phones. I know some of you can't comprehend that, but there was a time before cell phones, and the only way he could thank me was to drive back to church because he knew

50:55

I was still there. And so he drove home, got all the way home, drove all the way back, came in the building, and it was interesting because I remember watching him leave, and I went, oh, you know, he didn't thank me.

51:09

He had done it so often, it was the one week he didn't do it that I realized he does it every week because suddenly he didn't do it.

51:15

And when he drove back and came in, and he literally walks in,

51:21

I was in a back room, and he comes in, and he says, hey, Andrew, I forgot to say thanks. That had the biggest impact on me because as the guy who just set up and packed up, nobody sees what

51:32

I was doing. He knew what I was doing, and him driving all the way back just to say thanks was the biggest encouragement.

51:40

Well, if you're saying thanks every week to your pastor and making it specific, as John said, it's going to go a long way.

51:47

Number five she has is submit to your leadership. Boy, is that a big one. I mean, not only is it a command in Hebrews, but, and she points out, yes, there are abusive pastors out there.

51:57

Yes, there are pastors who are flagrantly disobedient to scripture in their leadership, but she says, if that's your pastor, leave the church, okay?

52:06

But if it's not your pastor, then submit to him. Don't be constantly, as she says, complaining and argumentative and nitpicky and a thorn in his side.

52:15

Be looking to submit and let him know that you're submitting to him, which goes on her sixth one, which is don't major on the minors.

52:23

I mean, don't focus on these small things, and Pastor John kind of mentioned that too a bit, is there's a lot that a pastor has to deal with.

52:29

That's to deal with the color of the carpet and the, you know, the music's too loud. Don't major on that.

52:35

Don't make a big, understand that the pastor's got a lot of things he's dealing with, and maybe, maybe you can find ways of, instead of nitpicking at things, you can come alongside, say,

52:44

Pastor, can I help with this? That actually goes a long way if you offer to help with things.

52:51

Seventh one, she says, is she goes, wait, Mr. Postman, that's her humor, but she's basically saying, send a letter, send an email.

52:57

And I'll tell you this, a handwritten letter goes a long way these days because people don't do that anymore.

53:03

Send him a handwritten heartfelt letter of how much you care for him. The benefit of that is he can stick that handwritten note in a file in his desk, which

53:20

I guarantee you he has a file folder of notes of appreciation that when he's having a tough day, he can go look at those and remember, oh, what

53:30

I'm doing matters, and I'm actually making a difference. So having something that he can physically go look at at a later point in time is a tremendous benefit, way better than email or a text.

53:41

Not that those are wrong or bad, but a handwritten note saying, thank you, Pastor, for your care for me in X, Y, and Z.

53:50

Again, being specific, if you can, it goes a long way. Like I have a bulletin board next to my desk that I will sometimes put cards from people up that I can just, just a quick reminder to myself, hey, my ministry impacted this person at this point in time.

54:05

So having that handwritten thing is extremely beneficial. You got one of those folders too? Yeah. Mine has just gotten thick over the years because I won't throw anything out that's in there.

54:16

And it is the most encouraging thing to go through that. So if you can give a handwritten note, trust me, it matters a lot.

54:24

I would do that before an email. Totally. So she has C as for cookie and calories, but she says, bake something for him.

54:33

People like to eat, but be mindful when you do that. If you, you know, especially if your pastor has certain dietary issues, you know, use some wisdom as she says.

54:42

But that kind of goes along with, as John said, you know, send him out for dinner, get him a night out. Sound like that.

54:48

Her number nine is a word fitly spoken. Pastor John talked about this as well, is encourage him by, she says, tell your pastor something you've learned from his message on how

54:58

God has been growing you through his preaching. That's what Pastor John here talked about with a specific way that the sermon impacted.

55:05

Her number 10 is, she says, perfect timing. John, I'm sure this is going to resonate with you as well, but this one is so important.

55:13

She says, do not pull your pastor aside right before service to discuss anything that could wait until later.

55:20

He needs to be focused on the preaching and the worship. Don't detain him for long after his service.

55:27

He's probably hungry, tired, and needs to go to the bathroom and wants to get home to his family.

55:32

Make an appointment during the week. And I'm going to extend that. I have never been part of a church that had this. My current church, it actually has in the constitution, the agreement you make as a church member is that you will not tell the pastor you're planning to leave or that you have disagreements with the church on a

55:51

Saturday night, Sunday morning, or Sunday afternoon. Right? It's specific in there that when you're saying you agree to be a member of this church, you're going to consider the timing of when you bring issues up, because a lot of people don't think of that, and I don't know how many people decide that Saturday night is the right time to whack their pastor with all their disagreements or to announce that they're going to be leaving.

56:15

And man, that is the worst. Even a Friday night is the worst thing to do. If you want to have a discussion like that with your pastor, even if you're planning to leave, do it like on a

56:27

Monday, a Tuesday, or a Wednesday. Do it early in the week so he has time to recover for Sunday.

56:32

A lot of people don't know how stressful it is for the pastor, what they go through.

56:38

I mean, I've shared this on this podcast many years ago, but when I preach, my heart rate, it is racing.

56:45

I remember the first time I got a watch that could track my heart rate, and I out of curiosity decided to look.

56:51

Now, my normal heart rate is about 60, 70 beats per minute. If I'm active, usually maybe 80.

56:59

But because I'm a long -distance runner, I have a very low heart rate. My resting heart rate is between 48 and 54, is my normal resting heart rate, which is really low for most people, but that's me.

57:14

But when I'm preaching, like 120. Okay? That's what preaching does to a pastor.

57:22

I mean, you may not see it when I'm preaching, but I am sweating. My heart is racing.

57:29

And if you come up to a pastor just before he's going to preach on a Sunday morning especially, that could throw off his whole day.

57:36

Don't bring major issues on a Friday night, a Saturday, a Saturday night, a Sunday morning, or even a

57:42

Sunday afternoon. Protect those times from your pastor, unless it's an absolute emergency. You know, okay, if like your husband's about to kill himself, maybe you should bring that to the pastor.

57:53

But if it's, hey, I plan on leaving the church, or I'm really having some issues with the way you're preaching, save that for early part of the week.

58:04

And I think that's a really valuable thing that she included, and it's really a good thing to have. Her 11th one is what

58:10

I started with. Nobody's perfect. Remember that your pastor is human. She says he's going to sin.

58:17

He's going to get things wrong. Don't assume he knows why you're upset with him. Don't hold a grudge.

58:23

Extend the same grace you would anyone else and forgive. And I think that's a good point, is a lot of times people think their pastor knows everything.

58:31

He knows exactly why they're going through what they're going through, and he thinks that, you know, I know that my first pastor would never make personal prayer requests.

58:42

So if someone was sick in the hospital, he would not pray for people like that during a

58:47

Sunday service. And I remember asking him why he doesn't. He says because the week you forget one person, if you mention one person and forget someone else, even if you didn't know that person was in the hospital or something, that person gets offended because you didn't pray for them.

59:05

And it was interesting because I attended another church where they would pray for that, and there was someone who left the church offended because the pastor hated her, because something happened in her life and the pastor didn't pray for her publicly.

59:19

And the reality was the pastor didn't know about it because no one in the church knew about it. She kept it private, but she expected him to know about it.

59:28

And so I encourage you to check out Michelle Leslie's article. It's linked in the show notes.

59:34

It's great research. Anything from Michelle Leslie is pretty much a great thing to be reading. She has a podcast as well called

59:39

A Word Fitly Spoken. She does with Amy Smearman, another woman that I trust to recommend for anything with women's ministry.

59:46

Two names if you're going to do things for women in women's ministry. There's not a lot of women you can trust, but those are two names you can.

59:54

So let me give my list, and Pastor John, you can then interact with my list. Many of them we already mentioned.

01:00:00

I mentioned already, or you mentioned already, I should say. Let your pastor know when you're going to be out of town. It's a huge thing.

01:00:07

I do that all the time, just so he knows. Even if I'm going to be missing a midweek, if I'm not going to be there on Wednesday, because I'm generally there every

01:00:15

Wednesday, but if I'm not going to be, he knows. Now there may be times I forget, I get busy, but I try not to.

01:00:22

But that's a big thing. Some other things were already mentioned about attending service, being an active member.

01:00:28

But I'm going to extend that to say, if you have some ministry, some parachurch ministry you're excited about, don't think that if the pastor's not on board with your parachurch ministry, that he's against it.

01:00:42

Because what you don't realize, probably, as a church member, is that the pastor has everybody in the church with different parachurch ministries.

01:00:50

Pastor, we should be doing this and that and the other. We should be doing Way of the Master. We should be doing Answers in Genesis. We should be doing prison ministry.

01:00:57

We should be doing personal finances. There's all these parachurch ministries, and everyone wants the whole church to do all of it.

01:01:05

God has put that on your heart. So if you have a heart for something for the church to do, instead of saying,

01:01:10

Pastor, we should do this, say, Pastor, the Lord's put it on my heart to do this. Is there a way that we could do this and that I could serve in the church to do this?

01:01:20

That's going to encourage your pastor a lot more to see volunteers saying, I want to do this, because I'll tell you what happens a lot of times is,

01:01:27

Pastor, I think we as a church should do this. And the pastor goes, okay, and even if you're going to start it, here's going to be a thing.

01:01:33

Be committed to it, because I don't know how many times the church will start something because someone had the idea, and that person gets busy.

01:01:39

It's like, well, I'm just too busy. Hey, I got other things to do. And then it's dropped on the pastor to continue this.

01:01:46

And the pastor has his own responsibilities to do. The other thing I would say is to recognize that your pastor is busy preparing sermons, or at least the preaching pastor.

01:01:58

I mean, the other pastors have different responsibilities, but recognize where they're spending their time, and they're spending their time with ministry.

01:02:05

Don't be like the one church member I had. Got a call on, I'm sure you've never had this, Pastor John, but I got a call at the office on a

01:02:13

Friday afternoon, like two o 'clock. Person calls me up, hey, Pastor, can you pick me up from the airport?

01:02:20

And I was like, did something happen? Did you have a ride that fell through? Or he's like, oh, no, no,

01:02:25

I just figured you're not doing anything. You're just in the office, so you could swing by and pick me up. And I'm like...

01:02:31

You only work two hours a week. Exactly. Two hours on Sunday morning. Yeah. I just said, look, I'll tell you what.

01:02:36

I said, I can't just drop what I'm doing and come up there, because I actually had a counseling appointment, and I also had to be home for something with my family.

01:02:47

I couldn't just do that. I said, but Sunday, I would really like a little bit of time with you if we could go out for lunch, and I would like to share with you what my week looks like.

01:02:56

He's like, okay, because I'm offering to buy him lunch, right? And I got done explaining how many hours

01:03:02

I put into, I got to prepare for Sunday school, I got to prepare for the sermon. So right there's 40 hours a week.

01:03:08

Then we have the midweek study. Okay, that one's a little bit shorter. So five, 10 hours for that. But then

01:03:13

I got counseling. Then I got visitation. I'm going through all this. He goes, wait a minute, when do you have time for your family? I said, good point.

01:03:20

That's why I don't have time to pick you up at the airport, just for that reason. And suddenly he realized pastors don't start working on their sermons

01:03:28

Saturday night. John, I want to do a podcast with the Christian podcast community. We have enough podcasters who are involved that I want to get guys in ministry doing a podcast so that people in the congregation know what it's like for a pastor.

01:03:40

In the first episode, if we do it, I'm going to say, okay, so guys, we start our sermon Saturday night, right? Or is it Sunday mornings?

01:03:47

Just for the laugh that everyone's going to give. Because people think that. So respect your pastor's time.

01:03:55

Let me just say this, because we're saying about encouraging a pastor, and I know a lot of people, I would have people that thought it was really encouraging to just come in and bring a cup of coffee.

01:04:04

And I love coffee. Hey, not a problem. You come in, bring me a coffee, great. But I had some people that, because they had a free day, they thought they'd just come by and bring me a cup of coffee unannounced, because they know

01:04:18

I'm at the church office, and take an hour or two of my time. But my time's really budgeted.

01:04:25

And when you just come in, even though it is encouraging to come in and buy your pastor a cup of coffee and sit down with him, it's more encouraging if you schedule the time, so that he can block out that time.

01:04:36

Because when you do that, your pastor doesn't know how to say, hey, thanks, but I'm busy. He feels obligated because you bought him a cup of coffee.

01:04:44

And I'm just going to tell you, as a pastor, what went through my mind was, how am I going to fit in with the rest of what

01:04:50

I got going on this weekend? Because I would have this often with one person on a Friday afternoon. And it's like, how am

01:04:56

I going to make up the time with everything else, because Sunday's still coming? Respect your pastor's time.

01:05:04

Don't just surprise him with things. These are some ways you could really encourage your pastor.

01:05:09

We've given a lot. What we're going to give you now is, I'm going to play some, right, and I said, I'm going to use AI voices.

01:05:15

So we're going to have the men with men's voices, women with women's voices, but I'm going to play through all of them.

01:05:20

So you could hear all of the different ideas other people have had. So you could come up with ways to encourage your pastor.

01:05:26

One of the things I'll say is, one way you may want to honor your pastor is you may want to get him a good cup of honor from Squirrelly Joe's Coffee.

01:05:36

You could get the Honor brand, which is an Ethiopian type of bean. It's a middle dark roast, and the

01:05:43

Honor one is a blackberry, cane sugar, and plum and vanilla flavor. So maybe you want to show him

01:05:49

Honor and get him a bag of Honor. That might be something you want to do if your pastor's a coffee drinker, which most are because they're trying to stay awake to prepare their sermons.

01:05:58

And so as Pastor John raises his cup, you can get him some Honor from Squirrelly Joe's Coffee.

01:06:04

And if you want to do that, just go to strivingforeturning .org slash coffee and get him a nice cup of coffee.

01:06:11

You can buy him a whole bag. If you want for your whole church, you can get the larger pound bags, get the five pound bags for the church coffee.

01:06:19

And when you do that, use the discount code SFE. So when you go place your order in the shopping cart, there's a link at the top that says discount code.

01:06:28

Click in there and put SFE for Striving for Eternity so that they know that we sent you.

01:06:33

And remember with that code, your first order gets you 20 % off. So if you're

01:06:39

Jewish like me, that means make your first order the biggest one, order one of everything. If you're going to get for your church, get the five pound bag of each of them so you could try them all out.

01:06:48

And so I would encourage you to do that. Maybe you want to get him some honor, or maybe you think he needs some wisdom.

01:06:56

You can get him some compassion or kindness or respect. Don't get him the honesty though. That one's decaf and the pastor needs to be caffeinated, just saying.

01:07:05

So, but no, you could go to get a cup of Squirrelly Joe's Coffee. We have been enjoying it here in the

01:07:11

Rappaport household. That being me, because my bride drinks tea. For folks who know much, she's from Hong Kong.

01:07:17

So that's what she's used to drinking, but you could go to strivingforeturning .org slash coffee and use that link when you're reordering so that they know that you got it from us.

01:07:26

Also, just as a note, if you want to help your pastor get a good night of sleep, you could just go to mypillow .com, get him a good pillow or better yet, the three inch mattress topper.

01:07:36

It is the bomb. I love that. I'm not one whoever, whoever really enjoyed sleeping, but I do enjoy sleeping on that.

01:07:43

I will admit it. Use promo code SFE. If you go to mypillow .com, that gets you not only great discounts there, but also lets them know that you heard about them from us so that they will continue supporting us here.

01:07:55

So before we go to the AI responses, and there's going to be a lot of them, we're just going to play those and then

01:08:02

I'll wrap up the show. But Pastor John, before we go, I wanted to give you a chance to do two things.

01:08:07

One, give any other ways that you could think of that maybe we didn't discuss of encouraging your pastors.

01:08:14

And then also a way that if people do want to check out your church or learn more about you, that they might be able to do that.

01:08:22

I think we've covered pretty much everything that I could think of. And then knowing you sent me the list of what's going to be read.

01:08:27

So I think that pretty much covers it. And I think you hit it on, like, don't be nitpicky about things.

01:08:33

Don't major in the minors. Like, that's huge. Because pastors are making decisions on a weekly basis that invariably are going to, someone's not going to like.

01:08:41

And so just not doing that. I'm on Twitter, X, whatever you call it, JC Varner.

01:08:46

And then the church website is vvcckent .org. And we've got our stuff on there.

01:08:53

So I can't think of anything else. And the website for your church will be in the show notes. So folks, if you're in the

01:08:59

Kent, Washington area and need a church, go check out Pastor John and his church. And if you do go there, encourage him.

01:09:07

So I'm going to say before I wrap up here and just play all of the comments from other people,

01:09:13

I just want to say, I really want to encourage you who are listening. Encourage your pastor.

01:09:20

Stop what you're doing right now in listening of this and at least text him, call him, write him a letter.

01:09:27

Do something to decide. Make a commitment that you are going to encourage your pastors this week and every week.

01:09:37

Make that a strong commitment you're going to do. Make it a commitment you're going to do as a family. Train your children to encourage your pastors.

01:09:45

Have your children learn to say, pay attention to the sermon so that you could tell pastor what it is you learned from the sermon.

01:09:53

I'm going to tell you, son, when you get an eight -year -old, a 10 -year -old kid that comes up to you and says, pastor, when you said this, it was really helpful to me.

01:10:02

That is huge when a pastor knows that a child is paying attention. I remember someone coming to me and saying that he was encouraged because I trained my children to take notes when

01:10:13

I was a pastor, and he noticed that my kids would take notes, and he just was like, man,

01:10:19

I love your kids in service because I see them taking notes. Well, that's something they were trained to do because it encouraged me to know that my kids were taking notes when

01:10:27

I was preaching, and it was always an encouragement to see anybody taking notes when preaching. So take notes.

01:10:34

Don't be on your phone playing games, all right? We could see that too. I mean, it's not as evident anymore because, you know, back in the day when phones were push button, you could see people were texting.

01:10:44

Now the phone is the way people take their notes, so it's kind of changed. But be respectful of that too.

01:10:50

Don't be playing games on a phone. Be taking your notes if that's what you got it out for. And I'm just going to say, find a different way with all the things you've heard already, with the things we're going to list afterwards, find something that works for you to encourage your pastor this week and every week.

01:11:07

Train your family to do that, please. And if this has been an encouragement to you, would you consider maybe texting this episode out to five people you know so that they would be encouraged and they can encourage their pastor?

01:11:21

And let me just say, if you are listening to this as a pastor, maybe someone in your congregation sent this to you as an encouragement.

01:11:28

I know that I plan on sending this to my pastor to say, hey, I want you to be encouraged, and this is some ways that people can encourage you, and I just want to be an encouragement to you.

01:11:38

Maybe you as a pastor have heard this. I hope you've been encouraged by your congregation. If you as a pastor have been encouraged, we at Striving Fraternity want to give you a gift that we bought a bunch of these charging cables that we've been giving out as free gifts.

01:11:52

They're neat cables. Pastor John, I know you're getting one. It's actually in the mail right now. They have a lifetime warranty, so if they break, which they're really hard to break, but if they do break, they will send you a new one.

01:12:03

How do I know that? Because my son, well, he's my son, and so he wanted to really test to see if it was really unbreakable, and he managed to break it, and then he called the company, and they sent him a brand new one.

01:12:15

So it has a lifetime guarantee, and it's longer than most cables, which is kind of nice because it reaches where most cables are just a little short.

01:12:22

And so it's called a Lux cable. They're kind of expensive cables, but we got them at huge discounts.

01:12:27

We bought a lot of them as gifts. And so if you're a pastor, we want to encourage you with a free gift.

01:12:34

And if you say, well, hey, I don't need that, well, don't worry. I have a backup. If you're a pastor,

01:12:40

I want to encourage you. So if you're a pastor and you don't want the cable, just email us and give it.

01:12:45

We need your address, obviously, to ship to you. Let us know if you want the cable. If you have an iPhone, let us know if you have an iPhone that's 14 or older, so we can send you an iPhone cable, or else we'll send a

01:12:56

USB -C if you have something else. But if you don't want the cable, we got some different books we'll send you, books dealing with leadership or different topics that we'll send you as a free gift.

01:13:06

So if you're a pastor, email us at info at strivingforeternity .com, info at strivingforeternity .com.

01:13:13

And if you're a pastor, let us know what church you go to. Let us know the church website, because we want to be able to refer that to folks.

01:13:21

We get a lot of people that ask whether we know of churches, so we could maybe check you out and recommend you. So please let us know where you pastor, the church website, and if you'd want the cable or a book.

01:13:32

And so, folks, be encouraging your pastor. Be sharing this episode so that others know about it.

01:13:38

I'll just say that after this, you're going to hear a bunch of other ways for people that they thought of to encourage.

01:13:44

So listen to them. Find something that works for you. Treat your pastor's kid like any other kid.

01:14:19

Don't gossip or slander your pastor behind his back. Don't let other people gossip or slander your pastor behind his back.

01:14:27

Don't just leave the church without telling your pastor that you're leaving or why you're leaving. Don't have unrealistic expectations for your pastor.

01:14:37

Appreciate his strengths and be patient with his weaknesses. Occasionally buy him books.

01:14:43

Encourage him to attend a conference and consider helping him with the cost. Speak well of him to others.

01:14:51

Occasionally send him a note of appreciation and encouragement. Tell him once in a while that his ministry has had a positive impact on your life.

01:15:00

Ask him questions. Don't be divisive. Anonymous. Thank you for not forgetting their wives because I plan to mention that the wife has the harder role.

01:15:09

She watches all the pain her pastor goes through but cannot do anything about it. Anthony Silvestro.

01:15:16

I would add this. A gift certificate for dinner and a hotel stay to let pastor and wife to get away.

01:15:23

Most often pastors cannot afford to do this. Anthony Stowers. The greatest encouragement to me would be thank you for your faithfulness to God's word.

01:15:33

Ashley Shipley. I am also a pastor's daughter. I understand what pastors and their go through.

01:15:40

Sometimes what a pastor needs to hear is well done and keep going on the right path even when it's hard.

01:15:47

Even when you see blasphemous preachers receive praise. Cherry Fields. I've let my pastor know

01:15:53

I love the kind of people he attracts. He can get down on himself for his unorthodox preaching style but he always gets back to being orthodox when handling the

01:16:02

Bible itself. Because of this those of us who enjoy his zany antics tend to be more chill about social norms while being strong on taking the

01:16:10

Bible seriously. Frankly I find a lot of other preachers boring so I would rather have unexpected tangents from him than a proper style that makes me zone out.

01:16:20

Chris DeLuna. As a pastor the most encouraging thing is for people to show up regularly and for the pastor to see evidence of sanctification in the lives of those he ministers to.

01:16:31

That's pretty much it. Cliff. I think my pastor is encouraged when he notices us taking notes during the sermon.

01:16:38

It shows we care enough to try to commit it to memory, personal record and in hearing of how the preaching has impacted our thinking and actions in practice and knowing we're praying for him.

01:16:51

Crystal Alcala. I always enjoyed making gift baskets. Things for them and their wife.

01:16:58

Snacks, notebooks, pens, gift cards for date night slash coffee. Amazon.

01:17:05

Once I added a bottle of aspirin that said thank you for putting up with me. LOL. So much fun to put together and let them know you appreciate him.

01:17:15

Dawn Marie Seagraves. Worship with zeal. Sing with your whole heart. Recite your creeds and confessions passionately not with hushed monotone lips.

01:17:23

Dennis K. Parrish. Connect them with resources geared toward pastor care and not simply focusing on their church or ministry.

01:17:31

Derek Tineus. 1. Pray for them or even with them. 2.

01:17:37

Encourage them with your words. 3. Dinner for their family. 4.

01:17:43

Discuss their lessons with them and tell what you learned. 5. Invite a friend.

01:17:49

Eduardo Garcia. Come to any meeting of the body with an attitude to give and not to receive.

01:17:55

Jean Cliet. Squirrel. A large book budget. Greg Taylor. Let him know you're praying for him and ask him what he needs prayer for specifically.

01:18:04

Hannah Township. Encouragement can come in many different ways from compliments on style, topic, or type of teaching to seeing growth in an individual or group of people.

01:18:15

From receiving reflective well -thought -out inquiries or considerations to getting blasted or celebrated publicly.

01:18:23

From hearing conversations or reflections on the current series and from seeing you starting to bring others because you are so happy with what's going on or what you're learning.

01:18:34

And being respectful is significant. Jason Cave. Engage in deep theological studies with him to glean wisdom and insight from God's precious word.

01:18:45

Also make yourself available to him and his family. John Andrus. Handwritten notes with a lot of thought and encouragement behind the pen strokes.

01:18:54

John Petoskey. I've told my pastor so if he needs, use me. Joshua Trujillo.

01:19:01

We encourage out pastor with prayer. Each year we get together and give a financial gift as a thank you.

01:19:12

I suppose I encourage my pastor by asking his advice on a lot of life problems and how the scripture applies.

01:19:21

Keith Britch. One of the biggest encouragements to me is when someone mentions a sermon point two weeks later.

01:19:29

Lets me know they were listening. Ken Imra Morris. I have walked up to our pastor after the service and just shared with him that he did a wonderful job delivering the message and say, you really let

01:19:41

God speak through you today. Thanks. Kofi Adubohen. Just be present. If the church is gathering, make it a point to be there and move things in your schedule if you need to.

01:19:52

Laura Mazig. I enjoy sending our pastor's cards to thank and encourage them throughout the year.

01:19:57

Lee Smith. Show up every week for worship. Lynn Sons. Too many times conversation with the pastor is about his sermon or even just good morning, a greeting only.

01:20:07

Set aside time to spend together. Get to know the man behind the role. Lore L .C.

01:20:13

Heed their word of biblical advice and rebuke, if any, and thank them for it.

01:20:19

Manuel Brambilla. A simple thank you makes a world of difference. Mary Argent.

01:20:24

Pray for him and his family daily. Matt Sloan. Pay attention during the sermon.

01:20:31

Remember something you appreciated and let him know, especially if it was convicting.

01:20:37

Our pastors are the faithful undershepherds of our souls. It must do them good to know that they are being heard and that their words are affecting our spiritual walk.

01:20:48

Michael Schultz. I am really encouraged when people give me specific examples of what they thought was good in my sermon.

01:20:56

That example about sunflower seeds was really helpful. I'm glad you explained what verse 4 was talking about because that was really confusing.

01:21:04

Mike Neglia. Well, according to Hebrews 13, 17, church members are to obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

01:21:16

Let them do this with joy and not with groaning, for that would be of no advantage to you. At the risk of being simplistic, just listening to your pastor would add joy to his life, rather than groaning.

01:21:29

Mike Towers. Thank you cards, his favorite snacks, his favorite drinks, gift cards, cash.

01:21:35

Don't tell him how horrible his sermon was every week. Maybe every other week instead. Morgan Massey.

01:21:41

Be an active participating member. Nathaniel Jolly. Start a prayer group for the sermon every

01:21:46

Sunday. Ranch Tsai. I think our elders appreciate it so much when

01:21:51

I engage with them and when I study with them. I think they also appreciate when I am active and early for Sunday service and when

01:21:59

I attend our prayer time. It's a huge encouragement to them. I believe they feel loved and respected that way.

01:22:06

Richard Story. Remind them they are not alone. Share encouraging stories of how

01:22:11

God has used them to help you and others. Stephen Howard. Suggest to him that he, to be more relevant, he needs to dress as a referee and swing from a wrecking ball for Super Bowl Sunday.

01:22:23

Joking aside, I encourage him to stay faithful to what God has called him to do. Stephen Smith.

01:22:29

Pray for him. I regularly pray for our pastors and other pastors I know.

01:22:36

My 10 -year -old son and I go into the prayer room once a month and pray for the congregation and pastor and volunteers.

01:22:42

I email them and ask if they have any specific requests. Tara Burkiet. Listen to your pastor's sermons and ask questions.

01:22:52

Give gifts for date night's babysitting and a gift card. Older couples gift cards or double dates for encouragement.

01:22:59

We need to remember our pastor is human. Hey, just to let you know, just when

01:23:04

I finished recording and had this scheduled to go, we ended up listening to a podcast from the

01:23:13

Bible Sojourner. It's one of the podcasts from the Christian Podcast Community. His title was

01:23:18

Eight Insights Your Pastor Wants You to Know About Podcasting.

01:23:23

And listening to it, there was more than just that, but Peter Gobman from Shepherds Theological Seminary gave a lot more of what we can consider, and I thought it was helpful to listen to that one as well.

01:23:35

I linked it in the show notes. Check it out because there's other ways you can encourage your pastor. Even like we said, let your pastor know what books you're reading.

01:23:43

He suggests letting your pastor know what podcasts you're listening to. Listen to it because I think this will be a great add -on to everything you've heard already.

01:23:53

And with that, that's a wrap. This podcast is part of the Striving for Eternity ministry. For more content or to request a speaker or seminar to your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

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