Post-Easter is a tough time for many Senior Pastors. They likely had such a busy week the week before, and yet this Sunday most churches will still have a huge attendance drop. The demands on them throughout the year are so intense intellectually, spiritually, emotionally, and relationally, and few church members will ever know the weight under which they live and serve. Because some have disgraced their calling, the entire profession (especially megachurch pastors) gets painted with a suspicious brush. As one who has never been and will never be a senior pastor, I’m writing with a plea to be thankful for and support those who adopt such a demanding job.
Having never been a senior pastor, and not expecting to ever be one, let me say I am in awe of what they do and the diverse skillset such a position requires. I was reminded of this while reading my annual J.I. Packer book. I read one Packer book a year (and have never been disappointed by one). This year I’m reading A Grief Sanctified: Passing Through Grief to Peace and Joy, which is a modern recounting of Richard Baxter’s memoir of his wife’s life and death.
Baxter was 47 years old when he first got married. He waited so long to get married because he was such an earnest pastor that he did not believe giving himself fully to a church and a family was possible. He thought the demands of shepherding a church and shepherding a family were beyond the capacity of an ordinary man. The reason he finally decided to get married was because he lost his license to preach when he refused to conform to the Act of Uniformity of 1662 (essentially a battle regarding authority between Puritans and Anglicans that the nonconformist Puritans lost). After his license to preach and pastor was revoked, he devoted himself to the vocation of writing, which he believed could accommodate the demands of married life.
Can we allow Baxter’s earlier reluctance to marry to serve as a contemporary plea for more empathy for senior pastors, the overwhelming majority of whom are married? Social media holds especially megachurch senior pastors as suspect at best, assuming they’re in it just for the power or ambition. It’s likely some of them are, but I have met many who serve with a gracious and humble heart.
Continue reading this free blog on Substack HERE.