I leave the house in the morning, and kiss my wife goodbye. I instinctively say, “I’ll see you after work.” And I exit the house on my way to the office.
I get a call from a friend or family member wanting to know how my day is going and they typically ask, “How’s work?”
I can even remember a moment where another minister friend and I had lunch together soon after I moved to my current position, when he asked me, “How do you like your new job?”
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a problem with philosophy on their part; instinctively we as humans will associate commonalities shared with other people to those in our own condition. That is to say, we assume that other people are going through situations like ours. This is a common and innocent assumption on their part, but it can be devastating if pastors and ministers assume such a philosophy.
When there is no pastor at a church, the role of the pastor must be dispersed over a group of other people. Some of the duties will fall on you, and you must begin to incorporate those tasks in the rest of the ministry to which you have been called. When these tasks come, there may be a desire to simply put them on the list of stuff that has to get don’t before Sunday, and attack them the same way a plumber fixes a leaky pipe.
But this cannot be the case for ministers.
I think it would be ridiculous for me to say, “Ministers don’t have jobs, they have ministries…” Because of the labor intensive nature to what we do, I believe a statement like this would cheapen our efforts. However, I do believe that we must differentiate between a job like taking out the garbage, and a ministry like developing a sermon, Sunday School lesson, or church event.
We must remember that our leadership and attitude toward laboring for the Kingdom in the absence of a pastor will prove to be a critical example for the church to follow.
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