Customer Reviews

Your Pastor Is an Endangered Species

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H.B. London, Jr. and Neil B. Wiseman have written an excellent book on how church members can help pastors.

The writers point out that "Today's pastors face crises unknown to any other occupational groups. Contemporary parish ministry, without anyone intending to make it so, has become an emotional and spiritual H-bomb, ready to explode any second." (page 15). Those of us who have served in pastoral ministry can relate to that. Many churches have a crisis or two brewing at any given time and though the pastor is seldom the cause of it, he often has to try to be the solution to it, and that is quite stressful.

The authors go on to say "Pastors dwell in a world of the unfinished tyranny, where they can't shut the door, walk out of the office, or know something is completely finished. There's always another Bible study, sermon, phone call, committee, hospital call, home visit or gathering clamoring for attention. When someone dies or gets married or is hospitalized the well-crafted schedule has to be abandoned and caught up later." (page 32). Most every pastor has had his day off, or even his vacation, cut short by a simple phone call. And there is not much that can be done about it, after all, when a family is in crisis, they need someone to help them. If a church is large enough to have more than one pastor, then perhaps they can rotate days. But few churches have that luxury.

Much of the stress pastors are under could be relieved if church members would be willing to help their pastor in his duties. Sadly, the writers also point out that "Pastors serve in a me-centered world where church members and attenders are becoming more and more apathetic." (page 32). But if church members could become less me-centered and more other-centered, they could learn to assist their pastor in ministry. That could make a huge difference in the health of pastors.

Dr. Terry Dorsett, author of "Developing Leadership Teams in the Bivocational Church," published by CrossBooks, a division of Lifeway