Episode 35: The Pastor's Burden

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This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

This is it, Eddie.

This is it.

This must be where we cross over into more episodes than the first generation of the podcast.

I feel like Samwise in Lord of the Rings. If I take one more step, it'll be the farthest from home I've ever been.

That's right.

Episode, do you remember?

35?

Episode 35. Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I'm your co-host, Allen Nelson, pastor of Perryville Second Baptist Church. With me is my brother in Christ, one of my best friends, co-labor in the ministry, Eddie Ragsdale.

Say hello, Eddie.

Hello, everybody. Hey, brother. I just wanted to say publicly, now that we're on the podcast, I didn't tell you I was gonna do this, but thank you for faithfully preaching and teaching in our church this last Lord's Day.

It was a blessing. And so I just wanna tell you thank you for that.

Kind words, brother. I appreciate that. Thank you for the invitation and the fellowship. And I do wanna say this, there's something that's happening at Eddie's church and it's happening here. And I just can't emphasize it enough.

And that's just eating together. And maybe if you're listening to this and you're not doing this regularly, I'm not talking about going out to eat. I'm talking about just bringing food and either eating at the church or we do it.

Eddie does it at the church. We do it in homes. Think anyway, my friend, Jonathan Murdoch does it at the church. There's different ways you could do it. But boy, there's been some great blessings from just eating together and spending that extra time.

And if you could figure out a way to do that regularly in your church, it's highly recommended.

Eating Together as a Means of Fellowship

Yeah, you just, I can't explain in tangible terms the benefits, but you will experience the benefits if your people are eating together more often. The early church, they were eating together from house to house.

So like you guys are doing in homes for us, it works better to do it at the church because we're kind of a regional church and several, a lot of people in our church live 25, 35, 45 minutes away from the church.

And so it's just a lot easier for us to all eat here than it is to travel to somebody's house. But put that part, you do whatever works for your church, but God has made, you know, if you can go through the scriptures, God has made something about tying food to fellowship that we see all the way through the Bible.

Yeah, that's right. You know, you threw me a curve ball right there, Jeopardy. I'm gonna throw you one real quick before we get started. Will you turn in your Bible to 2 Corinthians chapter 11? 2 Corinthians.

I'm there, man.

Chapter 11.

Okay, read verse 28.

Verse 28. And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.

You know, the apostle Paul goes through that list there in 2 Corinthians 11. Basically what's happening is there's a group that's a false teachers, basically fleecing the flock as it were. And they're all about their prestige and their accolades and their pedigree.

And Paul comes in and he says, oh yeah, you wanna hear someone brag, I'll brag. And so he brags about all the losses he's had, all the times he's been beaten up and all the issues he's gone through. And then he says there in verse 28, what Eddie just read that he has the daily pressure of the anxiety for all the churches.

And obviously he's talking as an apostle and it's not a one-to-one correlation with the pastor. But I do wanna say this, there is a weight that a faithful pastor carries for his people that nobody else really can fully understand.

Your wife ultimately can't get it. The deacons can't get it. Even friends can't understand it. It's a weight that a pastor bears alone or which another reason I think for plurality elders is helpful or a plurality of elders bear this alone.

It's just a weight. You want the church to be healthy. You want the church to be in unity. You want the church to be doctrinally sound. You have brother so-and-so has a surgery tomorrow and you're concerned about him.

Sister so-and-so has a wayward child and you're worried about him or family so-and-so. They haven't been in a few weeks and you're just always thinking, you're just always going through. And I say this for a couple of reasons.

One, and we won't go into all the details. Eddie, you were telling me about a situation where you ended up having to sleep at your church last night. And you're not giving that out to brag or anything.

No, it was just the scenario. It was just circumstances brought that about just in the course of ministry. This verse has always been one that just would be regularly in my mind because I always thought ever since I've been a pastor, I know the daily pressure of the anxiety of one church.

Yeah.

It causes the daily pressure of the anxiety of all the churches. And I'm like, oh man, I couldn't imagine it. But to the issue of plurality of elders too, I would say this, and I wouldn't want to press this too far and I don't want to add to scripture, of course, or add to the qualifications.

But one thing, and we don't have multiple elders in our church yet, but that's the goal. We believe that that's biblical and we want to move in that direction. But with that being said, you look at the qualifications, you look at whether or not brothers are apt to teach, can they proclaim God's word, handle it correctly, all those things.

But one thing that might be an indicator if God's raising up a brother to that ministry, do they share that concern for the saints with you?

Absolutely.

If you've got a brother in your church that's sharing that with you, sharing that burden. As a matter of fact, I won't go into the details on this, but you know, Quatro, about we had a pretty serious situation with all the family in our church on Sunday.

And another one of the brothers was quick to go to that family and really spend some time with them Sunday afternoon. And I was just so thankful that he was sharing that burden to minister to that family.

And I just think that's what God's calling us to as godly men in the church.

You have some guys that have a zeal, I think about the disciples with Jesus, and they're like, you want us to call down fire on this place, you know? And, you know, honestly, some guys that needs to be worked out of them before they can really step into the pastorate.

You know, there's so much burden. There's a fire over here that needs to put out. There's a complaint over here. There's an encouragement over here. There's a, these people want these type of songs or this type, more of this type of ministry.

And the others want the exact opposite. But on your heart, you carry the burdens of the people of God that he's entrusted you with. And your great goal in all of this is to show them Christ.

That's right.

Bring glory to God as you seek to love these people through the mountains and valleys, as you seek to see them mature in the faith and make it to that celestial city. So as we begin this podcast, this episode, I'll just say it for those brothers out there, is your prayer life geared toward these people upon your heart.

You know, if you're more anxious about your golf swing or the stock market or the big buck you're hunting, than you are about God's people, it's time to step out of the ministry.

Yeah.

Are you ready to stand in the gap, to admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all?

Yeah.

So that's all on my heart because we're actually talking this Sunday to a elder candidate. But anyway, let me give one more application there. If you're listening to this, and I know we've got some new listeners, so shout out to Michelle Leslie for sharing the podcast and such.

So we sure appreciate her and all that the Lord's doing with her. But if you're listening to this and you're not a pastor, the encouragement is to know this about your pastor, to know that he carries around, as it were, not a sinful anxiety.

Of course, that's not what Paul means, but he carries around, as it were, a burden upon his heart that you really, you try as you may, you'll never fully be able to understand that weight.

Or that burden.

So encourage that dear brother in your church and pray for him and seek to be a help.

Toward that.

And I think like you were saying, if he doesn't carry around that, if he doesn't have that sense of responsibility, that ought to be concerning. If your pastor just clocks in and, man, he delivers your money's worth in the sermon on Sunday morning, but he does his eight hours a day and don't call him after five, then that may be problematic in his ministry.

I'm not saying that guys don't have to set limits. We do have to do that. We have to prioritize our family first over the ministry. I'm not saying that. I'm not saying a pastor can never turn their phone off and take a break.

We need to do that. But I'm saying if a man's not carrying around a burden for his people and a love for the people in his church, he's not qualified to pastor those people.

Somebody said one time I was early in ministry and this is a older pastor about to retire and he was just talking about his day off and he was complaining about people calling him on his day off. And he was like, well, I don't call you on your day off.

You know, and it's just like, whoa, that really did not. I was very young. I wasn't even a pastor yet. I was a youth pastor. I was very young. And I was like, in my mind, I was like, man, that just does not seem right.

So I echo what you say. I understand. Yes, there needs to be boundaries and you need to take some time off. You need to have the ability. In fact, if you're listening to this and you're not a pastor, I encourage you to encourage your pastor to take some time off.

Set some time and say, hey, hey, pastor, the church wants you to take two weeks off here or a month off here and be able to recalibrate. Public school teachers, and this is going to, well, this would be a nice segue in just a minute, but public school teachers and typically private school teachers, they usually take a whole summer off.

And there really is, if you ask any of those teachers if they need that, what will they say?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And so I think

After this point in the school year, that's all anybody's thinking about. This last week was spring break. I've worked in the public schools before.

Yeah.

From here to the end of the year, all they're thinking about is getting to summer.

So if they're getting three months off a year, it's not out of bounds, I don't think, for a pastor who's at least been in a church for a few years to say, hey, you know what? Once a year, once every couple of years, we would like you to take a one-month sabbatical, you know, and just not, this isn't, you know, your time to go on a preaching tour or something.

It's time to get away, to unplug, you know? So anyway

Sabbaticals, Longevity, and Shared Ministry

Hey, hey, I know this wasn't our topic, but since it kind of is going this way, you know, there's a brother in our association, and I won't mention him, well, I'll mention him by name, Kerry Condray. His church is about halfway between mine and yours, probably, pretty close to that.

And he actually is just right now finishing up a one-month sabbatical. That his church, you know, it was actually, his youth minister last summer went to the church and said, hey, we need to encourage Kerry to take this time.

And that's apart from his normal vacation time. Like, he still has his normal two weeks or whatever he gets as a part of his normal plan, but he's been at the church, I think, maybe 10 years, maybe something close to that.

And I'm not saying every 10 years or every seven years, I'm not laying all that out. Every church can't do a one-month sabbatical, but we really do need to think in terms of, of how do we have ministries that are, built for longevity?

You know, I think we both know that over the last several decades, really, maybe longer than that, pastorates have gotten shorter and shorter and shorter. And that is not good for the health of the local church.

I don't know what happened to you, but during COVID, we actually, my time actually got busier.

Yes, mine did too.

What happened is I ended up taking over everything, teaching wise, I ended up taking over everything. And what played out there for about almost three years, I was doing Sunday school, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night.

And also I, this is on me, but I, and then I did, I do a men's Bible study Thursday morning. And then I was teaching last semester, you know, I taught, I did that Spurgeon Academy class. So I added that on there.

So I was at one, two, three, four, five, like six, six. And there was really two on Monday. So like seven teaching things a week, you know, and I was like, whoa, but now, and this is another reason for plurality of elders encouragement.

Now we have a brother that is teaching Sunday school. And then once a month, he's gonna preach on Sunday nights. And then we have another brother who's not, he's not an elder candidate or anything, but he's been teaching a class on Wednesday nights, just a little series, you know, and I'll take that.

But anyway, it's really, really great. And then our friend, Randall Easter, now he's been at his church like 20 years or something, but they actually, he actually takes a sabbatical every year in October.

And what he does during that sabbatical is, first of all, I think he takes like a week or two just to unplug. Obviously he's going to church and all that, but not there. But so like, he's not preaching.

He kind of gives that as a stipulation for himself. You know, I'm not preaching places and doing that kind of stuff. And then he does a lot of planning for his church during that time as well. And so it's not just like he's hanging out at Disney World or something, you know, but it's time to shut your mind off, to reset, to recalibrate.

And anyway, I think that's good. I love what you said about longevity. You know, if you're going to carry around this burden for the church, doing that well for 365 days out of the year, 24 hours a day, you know, seven days a week, it's going to wear on you, you know?

And so it's important to take appropriate times, you know.

And another argument for plurality of elders, I think, is if I can speak frankly, your church is hopefully, Lord willing, about to install this brother as an elder. And I'm sure that after that point, even probably this last Sunday, it was probably easier for you to come to my church knowing, because you already trust this brother, you know him, you love him.

Yeah, of course, yeah.

And so you didn't feel like, man, I hope things go all right at our church. You knew they were going to go all right at your church.

Yeah, the last couple of years it's been like that, whether I've, you know, Harold Smith has come or whoever, but there have been times before though, before that, when I didn't know, you know, like someone else was like, well, I'll get somebody, you know?

And you're like, and you're just like, you just don't know, you know?

And so I think, you know, plurality of elders really allows when any one of those elders does pull back to take a sabbatical or just his vacation, plurality of elders allows him to actually do that, to actually unplug and say, hey, I'm going to be gone.

You guys know you can call brother Jacob. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

You know, you can, I'm praying for you guys, but I'm going to be, you know, three states away. So as opposed to when it's just a single pastor, you're like, who are they going to call? Ghostbusters?

Yeah.

And just to be clear, I do want to read it. It's not wrong to be interested in other things. You don't always have to be reading theology books or watching John MacArthur sermons or whatever. Like it's okay to hunt and it's okay and it's good to do things with your family.

You ought to be doing that. In fact, if you don't have a, if you don't ministering well to your family, you shouldn't be pastoring in the church. That's Paul's requirement. If you're not managing your household well.

And so it's not about not doing these other things. It's just about, there's a burden. My point, it really was just an introductory point, but turned into a whole episode. My point was carrying around this burden for the local church is something that really only a pastor can understand.

That's right.

And it's something that if you're listening to this and you're not, if you are a pastor, I already know you're saying amen. But if you're not a pastor, even if you're a pastor's wife, you ought to think about these things and just know, so it's like sometimes like, well, how many hours a week do you work?

Well, do you mean how many hours am I at the office? Well, that might be a set number. That might be 40 hours one week. It might be 61 week, might be 31 week. But do you mean, are you talking about all the time that I'm actually praying about a situation or thinking through a situation or writing out notes or going and visiting somebody or you mean that?

Well, that can be a whole lot of hours. Ministry has seasons. There might be a couple of weeks where like, man, there's not a lot going on, praise the Lord. Then there's other weeks that everything, that seems like if something's going on, it's all happening at once.

The first several years that I was pastoring here in Marshall, I figured out pretty early on that I could kind of gauge, I don't live in Marshall. I wish that I did, but I don't. I live in Shirley, which is about 40 minutes away.

And I could kind of gauge how busy things were with how many trips I made to Marshall. I make five trips a week, any week, I mean, every week, but including Lord's Day. But I learned early on that there was a season every summer when we had whatever children's ministry we were doing and a few other things going on, where about every summer there would be a season where I would make a trip to Marshall every day for about 20 straight days.

Yeah.

Well, I couldn't do that year round every single day, but it was a good gauge for, okay, I'm gonna know this season's always gonna be this kind of busy.

Yeah.

Right, that's just gonna be the life of our church, it's gonna happen. And so we just have to plan for that and we have to budget our year, not just our days and our weeks, but hey, there's gonna be busy seasons and then we have to be willing to take some rest and some, okay, this couple of weeks is gonna be, our family's gonna be taxed.

Yeah.

And so there's other times when our family has to be rejuvenated.

And I'm just gonna tell you, if you're sitting there thinking, my pastor will come, he will let our church know when he needs some more time off, that's almost never gonna happen. If a pastor ever comes to you and says, I need some time off, you probably ought to be like red light, red light, red light, because for him to get to that point,.

Yeah.

It's serious. So you have to do this. And let me also say this, your church every year, usually a church says, well, we wanna give our pastor a little raise, inflation, all that, but you might not be able to keep up with the Biden economy.

You know?

No kidding.

And so there might be things that you just can't do raise wise, but you can do time off wise. Like, hey, pastor, we're gonna make sure we're adding an extra two Sundays or whatever, or four Sundays, whether it be a sabbatical or whatever, and we'd say, and we really, really strongly encourage you to take this time off.

It'll be better for him and better for the church. He'll take care of the church better. You know, that line in Paul's thinking there in 2 Corinthians 11, it's almost though that's kind of last, it's almost though people are, it's almost though he's saying, you know, all this other stuff's fine as long as the churches are healthy.

If I have to be beaten, if I have to be whipped, if I have to be shipwrecked, if I have to be left for dead, if I have to be let down in a basket out the window, so be it, so long as the churches are healthy.

And faithful pastors, that's sort of how they live. You know, if I have to lose out on sleep, if I have to take personal loss, if I have to lose out financially, if I have to hurt emotionally, so be it, so long as the church will be healthy.

But I'm just gonna tell you that you can't have a pastor live that kind of life for very long before he just dies, you know, so, so make sure that you understand that reality of the ministry and that you are praying appropriate for your pastor and encouraging him when you're able, and then, you know, if you have the ability to encourage your church to give him the time, you know, that he needs, and encourage him to take it.

I know pastors pretty well, because I am one, they can be stubborn sometimes. I don't need a time off. Yes, you do, brother, you do.

Yeah, yeah. Hey, you know, something you said there spurred another thought for me. We even see it historically, right? Not questioning God's sovereignty and his timing, and we know that, you know, God ordains whatsoever comes to pass, all of that being said, so that I can keep my Calvinist card, so nobody come at me for what I'm about to say, but we see brothers who were kind of poured out quickly in their life, in the history of the church.

I think of a man like Robert Murray McShane, who died at an early age, but he was burdened for his church and for his ministry, and it's almost like he burned so hot that he burned quick, or even a genius like Brother Spurgeon, who died at a relatively young age.

He was only like 58, I believe.

Right, yeah, and so we look at men like that. Was it McShane 29, when he dies?

Yeah, yeah.

So we look at men like that, and we say, man, look at how amazing, yeah, amazing, and it burned him up.

Well, I'll tell you, also, you know, George Whitfield wasn't a pastor, but he died relatively young, but there's another example of someone who made it longer, and that's Martin Lloyd-Jones, and nobody would look at Martin Lloyd-Jones and say, boy, he was slothful.

No, he labored, he worked hard, and let me just give an admonishment to pastors real quick. Don't be lazy.

That's right.

The pastor, you have that whole joke, oh, you only work one day a week, or if you do Wednesday, oh, you only work two days a week. You know why that's a joke? Because some people think that, you know?

And they see And because, let's be honest, some pastors do that.

That's right, you know? If you're out golfing all the time, and you're always, you know, hunting or whatever, or you don't care about, you're not visiting your people, you're not praying for them, your sermons stink, because you're not studying well, you know?

That's a problem. So don't be the reason that people think that. So work hard. But Martin Lloyd-Jones, he worked hard. But also, I think he took like 12 weeks off or something. Maybe it was just later, but like he took summers, you know?

But I'm not saying that per se. I'm just saying nobody would look at Dr. Lloyd-Jones' life and say, oh boy, he was lazy. No, he labored hard and labored faithfully. And I think he lived to like age 81 or something.

Or you look at presently, you look at MacArthur, you know? And the longevity he's had. So really this episode, as we're winding down, really this episode has turned into thinking through about the pastor's burden for the local church, how he should respond to that, and how the churches, local churches should respond to that.

What else you got, Eddie? Anything else important to add here?

You know, I would just say, pastors, you gotta love your churches. I mean, if you can't, I'm not saying that we're equal to what Paul's experiencing here in 2 Corinthians 11, 28. But I would say, man, brother, if you can't identify to some degree with at least the emotion that Paul is expressing here, man, just spend some time in prayer.

Because you've gotta have that. I think to minister to our church as well, you know, I'm preaching through Philippians. And you know, Paul tells the Philippians in Philippians chapter one, that he holds them in his heart.

He says it is right that he would have this affection for them because he holds them in his heart. And I would say, brothers, if we don't have that kind of affection, holding the people of our church in our heart, where we're genuinely grieving with them in their brokenness, rejoicing with them in their blessings, then how are we gonna minister to them?

And churches, you've gotta love your pastors this way. You gotta love them where you're grieving with them when they're hurting over ministry struggles or family struggles or just the lostness in the community.

And where you're rejoicing with them when the ministry is going well or God is blessing and people are being converted, we're able to rejoice in that together. Not because the pastor did it, but because look at what God is doing in his church.

Loving Pastors and Churches Well

Yeah, I'll close with two exhortations. One to pastors. Pastors, if all you're concerned about is the money that you make at the church or using this specific church for your next church, you know, you're just worried about the professionalization of your ministry and you're just worried about the next big, you know, gig or platform that you can have, do us all a favor and get out of the ministry.

That's right.

Repent and get out of the ministry, step away. Don't just repent and stay in, repent and get out for a little while, recalibrate yourself. Maybe it is God has called you to the ministry, but you've just stepped into foolish sin and you need to just have some time to reflect and to refresh and to repent, but maybe you're not called to ministry at all.

And then my exhortation to churches, churches, if you're working your pastor to death, if you have expectations upon his ministry that he's on call 24 seven, can never step away from the pulpit, can never have time away, can never have time away with his family.

You need to repent. You need to encourage your pastor. You need to love him well. You need to know that God has blessed you. Look, you look around today and you just think, oh man, there's godly men all over the place.

Well, that's true in some sense, but if you are a church that has a godly pastor, maybe he's not the best preacher. Maybe he's not the best visitor at times. Maybe he doesn't dress the best. Maybe his shirt's not always iron.

Maybe there's things that he needs to improve, but he genuinely loves the Lord and he genuinely loves the word of God and the church and he's seeking to labor faithfully. You need to honor that man, pray for him, help him in the areas he needs help in, but be a church that loves pastors, not one that chews them up and spits them out.

That's right, that's right, agreed. I do have to say, since you mentioned clothing, well-pressed shirt and everything, Quatro did get encouraged by a lady in our church that maybe he would rub off on me that I would dress a little better from the morning when he was here.

Ah!

Ah, no, it's all good. Hey, as I always say, Eddie, you've got the perfect face for podcasting.

That's right, that's right, I agree. I agree 100%. Thank you guys for joining us.

On this episode of the Ruled Church Podcast. Say goodbye, Eddie.

We'll see you guys next week.

The Church as God's Masterpiece

If you really believe the church is the building, the church is the house, the church is what God's doing, this is his work. If we really believe what Ephesians says, we are the hoemos, the masterpiece of God.

How are you gonna respond?