I have a few tough questions for pastors. 

Are you present in the lives of your people? Do they have to go looking for you or do you just show up in their lives? Are you kind of like the “out of sight, out of mind” part of their life? You know: do they see you so infrequently that they kind of forget about you and therefore maybe also forget about the church, gospel and God that you represent?

These are really tough questions. I ask myself these questions.

I think about my flock, my parishioners on a weekly if not daily basis. Some of them take a little more time in my thought and prayer life than others. But I am also a list-maker so that helps.  I try to think about and pray for all who are connected to my parish by physically looking over the responsibility list on a semi-regular basis. (I know I should do this more than I do!) 

But I also know this: when I am busy, lonely, stressed, the list of names and faces stays in my Bible and not on my mind. When I am up to my eyeballs in appointments, I may indeed remember and stay connected to the few I am meeting with or calling on but then I neglect the vast majority of the rest of them. Sometimes even when I have meetings with people, I may not slow down enough to see them, hear them and help them.

And we know that many, many people don’t have a list, aren’t disciplined to pray over that list and very few reach out and connect with the people they don’t regularly rub elbows with or accidentally bump into.

If that is the case, if you also are not pursuing relationships with people, is everyone in your sphere of influence living in a perpetual state of loneliness? Are we all surrounded by people online, on the street and the marketplace, yet strangely finding ourselves not connected, not encouraged and not edified?

Let these few words be a challenge to you to make a list, pray for those people and let the Lord Himself direct you to those whom you should call, email, text, visit etc. He might challenge you to buy a gift for them. Or write them a letter. Or volunteer to help them by lending an extra hand. 

May you and I be a part of modeling the ministry of presence and the development of friendships whilst simultaneously fighting the depressing loneliness people face every day. I know there is someone you can bless with the simple act of prayer and reaching out.

Praying that you will encourage someone today!

Mike J

Have you ever felt alone?

I know the better question is: when was the most recent time you felt all alone?

Was it last week? Yesterday? This morning?

It is miserable to feel all alone. And maybe it hurts just as much or even more to be with and around people and still feel unheard, unseen, invaluable and all alone.

Christians are not immune to this. And neither are pastors. In fact some might contend that pastors feel the weight of loneliness more than many.

Unless someone has been a pastor, it is hard for them to understand the burden that pastors carry. Pastors face the difficulty of the assignment, compounded by circumstances, the attacks of the devil, the complexity of the people and of course their own humanness.

It is overwhelming sometimes to even think about how impossible the task before us and how even if some people kind of understand what we are going through, we still feel the weight of having to face the difficult things more or less alone:

No one else can do the praying, preaching, shepherding, conflict management, administration that God has called us to do. Even though we can and must delegate, there are still certain things that God has placed before us, and there is a measure of fatigue and loneliness at times when fulfilling these tasks.

But of course the good news is that which we share with our people all the time: we are never alone. God is with us. God is for us. God is in the hearts of those who are born again. But sometimes we just want another believer, another pastor to stand with us, or sit with us, or cry with us. Sometimes we just want to know that someone cares more about us than the other distractions and duties in their lives.

I know I blow it more often than not in this category. The opportunities abound for me to listen to others, comfort them, share their burden. But far too often I hurry along. Lord have mercy on me!

And may the Lord be gracious and merciful to each of His under-shepherds. May God help us pastors know we are not alone because of His presence and because of fellow ministers who understand, who are praying and who are with us (in spirit and hopefully in body as well).

I pray that the loneliness you feel will be dispelled by a God-sent person who is willing to sit with you and share God’s hope and Spirit with you as well!

We’re not alone
Here within His love
Emmanuel
He is still with us

Lyrics from “Here in the Presence” by Elevation Worship

Please feel free to message me at pastorencouragement@gmail.com if I can be a listening ear and someone who helps you dispel the loneliness.

There is a temptation to ties one’s worth into what one can produce.

As if somehow what one does with their hands or with their time/gifting/energy etc defines them and their value. Indeed, for many of us, this is a temptation to consider that a person does not have quality of life unless they are producing something or contributing something. Instead, however we need to tie in value and worth with being made in the image of God.

If value is linked only to production this also lends to a person being “disposable” whenever they are not producing at all or as much as someone else deems “proper” or not as much as someone else. We may find that we pass this type of judgment on ourselves or on someone else. Somehow we have falsely been convinced to believe that we are only as important, valuable or lovable as our production value.

I am not loved by God because of what I produce. You and I are not loved by God because of our performance. In fact I am not valuable to God because I have made anything but instead simply because I exist. We are valuable to Him because He made us and we are now alive according to His power and good pleasure.

Because God has chosen that I should exist, and because I am a product of His mind, heart and will, therefore I have value. This is not merely predicated upon some future promise of what I will do but instead entirely dependent upon who He is and what he has done.

What then, when our production value decreases?

• Are we then to be shunned?
• Harshly judged?
• Cast aside?
• Condemned?

Or is our value still significant and the relationship with God still available to us?

Indeed, God still desires to have a relationship with us. Even when we are not “producing” or “performing”. In fact He never bases His desire for relationship with us on our production value, our performance or the “return” that He someone gains from His investment in us.

God desires a relationship precisely because He gets to pour Himself into us. God yearns to be with us because He yearns to love, to bless, to beneficently and extravagantly give so that we might experience His joy, His life, and His perfect abundance.

What should we do then when we realize we have dropped the ball and stopped producing? What should we do then when we realize that we cannot produce as much as we once did or as much as someone else can or as much as even we ourselves potentially could if we worked harder or smarter?

• First of all we need to ask the Lord to break us of this incessant, diabolical and deceived stronghold of production and performance.
• Second we need to ask the Lord to instill in us an understanding and valuation of relationship and connection with Him as the premier and utmost place of life and significance/purpose.
• Third, we need to ask the Lord to help us to stop trying to produce at all and instead become tied in, connected with, sourced by and fully alive by abiding in Him. 
• Fourth, we need to ask God to help us to no longer see ourselves as producers but instead as conduits (tied into Him, receiving His life flow into and through us) so that everything that is produced is actually produced by Him
• Fifth we need to ask the Lord to help us view everything in terms of its connection to Him rather than in terms of its production value.

Remember that:

– Everything created by God has eternal and priceless value

– Everything created by God but not tied into Him will be grievously empty, flailing, and lost

– Everything created by God that is also tied into Him will be fully alive

– Everything not created by God has no value or worth and therefore will be burned up and destroyed so that it will not hamper, hinder, corrupt or harm His Beloved.

Finally, let us realize and cling to these truths:

• I am important and valuable because God made me
• God loves me and made me because He is love and He desires to be with me and to bless me
• What I produce and how I perform in this life is nothing
• Only what is done by God will last
• If I am tied into God I will know my value and I will be fulfilled and complete in Him
• If I stay tied into God, He will produce in and through me what He desires and I no longer have to try to figure out how I am doing or how I am comparing or how I am keeping up
• Instead I can just abide and receive the fullness of Him in myself

Have you ever had a weight on you that just kept pressing down with no relief in sight?

When I work out in the gym and I get to the end of a set of reps, my arms or legs can begin shaking under the weight; but at least I know that I only have one or two reps remaining so I can rest assured that there is an end coming.

Sometimes in life the weight keeps piling on and it seems like there is no end in sight. So then when our arms and legs get tired and begin shaking we kind of figure that the end result will simply be that we are crushed under it all. I kind of imagine a cartoon image of some character being flattened like a pancake underneath an anvil or a heavy wooden box.

But it is not funny in real life. I know that sometimes we have to laugh so we don’t cry, because the reality of the burden is more than anyone could possibly withstand.

But Christ, who is our strength, who has secured the victory, who has finished the work, and offers complete and abundant salvation, healing and wholeness, said that we could take His burden and yoke ourselves to Him so that our load would be light. It seems impossible and almost cruel to hear someone tell us that we don’t have to be crushed or weighed down beyond our ability to endure. We think to ourselves “that’s easy for you to say” or “you wouldn’t think that if you were in my shoes”!

Yet, may we hold out hope. May we be like Abraham who “against all hope… in hope believed” (Romans 4:18). I am praying for you that just like the words Paul shared with the Corinthians, that you would be able to bear up under it, endure and escape from that which threatens to destroy you.

I know that God is for you and with you, and that He Himself is able to deliver you.

2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who rescued us from so great a danger of death, and will rescue us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us

Have you ever had a weight on you that just kept pressing down with no relief in sight?

When I work out in the gym and I get to the end of a set of reps, my arms or legs can begin shaking under the weight; but at least I know that I only have one or two reps remaining so I can rest assured that there is an end coming.

Sometimes in life and ministry the weight keeps piling on and it seems like there is no end in sight. So then when our arms and legs get tired and begin shaking we kind of figure that the end result will simply be that we are crushed under it all. I kind of imagine a cartoon image of some character being flattened like a pancake underneath an anvil or a heavy wooden box.

But it is not funny in real life. I know that sometimes we have to laugh so we don’t cry, because the reality of the burden is more than anyone could possibly withstand.

But Christ, who is our strength, who has secured the victory, who has finished the work, and offers complete and abundant salvation, healing and wholeness, said that we could take His burden and yolk ourselves to Him so that our load would be light. It seems impossible and almost cruel to hear someone tell us that we don’t have to be crushed or weighed down beyond our ability to endure. We think to ourselves “that’s easy for you to say” or “you wouldn’t think that if you were in my shoes”!

Yet, may we hold out hope. May we be like Abraham who “against all hope… in hope believed” (Romans 4:18). I am praying for you that just like the words Paul shared with the Corinthians, that you would be able to bear up under it, endure and escape from that which threatens to destroy you.

I know that God is for you and with you, and that He Himself is able to deliver you.

2 Corinthians 1:9-10 Indeed, we had the sentence of death within ourselves so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God who raises the dead, who rescued us from so great a danger of death, and will rescue us, He on whom we have set our hope. And He will yet deliver us

God is at work where you are right now.

If you look around you and see the people, places and things, you can know for a fact that God is working right there in your midst.

He is working there because He is always at work. He is working there because there is no place where He is not. He is working there because He cares about every person and every part of His creation.

The way that He is working is not always evident. And the outcomes may not be seen for a while.

But it is not only factual that He is at work, but it is also certain that the work He is doing is for your good. He is working to redeem you. He is working to set you free. He is working to make you whole. He is working to fill you with every good and holy thing in Him. He is working to bless with His grace and favor. He is working to reveal to you the depths of His love.

So today, look around you. See the things that seem broken. Notice the things that are beautiful. Take note of the people. Be cognizant of the feelings. In all of this, God is at work. No matter the obstacle or difficulty, God is at work to save and make whole and to make holy.

Rest in these realities. Pray and surrender your doubts and fears to Him. Simply rest in the peace of knowing that God has it all in hand.

I hope that your pastor is a great encourager and cheerleader in your life! 

I personally try all the time to increase my availability and to improve my efforts at affirming and building up my family and friends and parishioners. 

The truth is that many times I have dropped the ball. Many times I have gotten too busy, too distracted and too preoccupied to either notice the people around me or to see what they might need by way of prayer and support and Godly counsel. 

But when I slow down and allow God to open my eyes to the struggles of people around me and to break my heart for what I see, then I also notice that God places in me a deep desire to help them to know that if they will look to God and call on His name then He will save them. He will save them from their sins and even from their enemies and will deliver them through the circumstances they find themselves in. 

I find great joy in praying with someone, telling them that with God nothing is impossible and that as they look to Him they are going to make it! In one sense it kind of becomes compelling that once I encourage one person I can’t wait to find another to encourage as well. Kind of like a snowball building up as it rolls down a hill, so too one opportunity “snowballs” into another and it just builds momentum as it goes. 

If you don’t have such a pastoral encourager in your life, let’s pray together, you and I, that God will supply just such a person who can cheer you on, speak timely words of the gospel and of God’s truth to you and who will pray with and encourage you. But let’s also pray that God will compel you and I to be and to do this for others. Let’s receive the mantle from those who have gone before and take seriously God’s call on our lives to encourage others.

Can I ask you one final question? Who is encouraging your pastor? Many people seek the pastor out for help and counsel and prayer (and to complain too!) but who is the person who is praying for and encouraging your pastor? We hope and pray that your pastor is going to Jesus and that God is the One who is ultimately sourcing their inner heart and outward life and ministry but who is the earthly mouthpiece that God is using to build them up in their faith? Think about it, you may not be called to pastor a bunch of people but perhaps they are. And if you encourage and help the pastor, then in turn you are actually helping to encourage perhaps even hundreds or thousands through them. And in the meantime you are showing God’s love and tender mercy to someone who is just as human, just as in need of encouragement as you are.

Let’s pray to be encouragers and let’s pray for all the encouragers of this world!

Grace and peace, I know that with God helping you, you can do it!

Have you ever noticed someone around you “doing it wrong”? Or perhaps you realized along the way that you yourself were “doing it wrong”. This brief blog post is to get us thinking about what we should do when we see someone doing things in what we believe to be a wrong way.

First of all, we are often quite astounded at how wrong other people can get things and curious how it is that they can’t see the right way to do it. I remember one time in my life projecting this conclusion towards someone and thinking “if I were in their shoes it wouldn’t take me much at all to fix what they are messing up”. Fast forward a few years, and guess what? I found myself in “their shoes” and the craziest thing happened: it wasn’t as easy as I thought and I actually found myself rethinking what I thought I knew. 

Secondly, Jesus, the perfect Son of God, said to His disciples (and to us) that by Himself He can do nothing including making any judgments. What kind of judgments do you ask? Well the context of His statements makes it pretty clear that He really means any judgements about anything. He says He can’t and won’t judge unless He hears His Father speaking a judgment. In other words, Jesus Himself reveals that He won’t decide whether a person is wrong or right or a particular behavior is sinful or shameful or whether a specific decision is God’s will or not until and unless He has first heard His Father speaking to Him regarding the matter.

So what are we to do when we see someone else doing something wrong? Three things: 

1. First, we must pray and ask the Lord to help us know whether it is any of our business at all, and furthermore what we can learn from observing and whether we should say or do anything at all except wait, pray, watch and learn. 
2. Second, we must go to the Bible and prayerfully search out what the Scriptures say about particular thoughts, attitudes, speech, actions and reactions. The Bible truly reveals the will and heart of the Lord and by searching it we can find out about leadership, decision-making, holy living, wisdom, timing, patience and humility. 
3. Finally we must approach every situation with the attitude and humility of Jesus. We might be the ones who are making a wrong judgment. We may be jumping to conclusions. We may not know as much as we think that we do. We might have a wrong motive or a wrong perspective (think: “viewing angle”) or perhaps God is allowing us to see in order to learn and grow.

Every day we will see people saying and doing things that perhaps we do not agree with and think “I would never do that if I were in their shoes”. God allows us to notice a lot of things. But remember we can learn from bad examples as well as good ones and furthermore learning humility is a powerful thing. The slower that we are to jump to conclusions or make judgments leaves us open to learning and helps us to have a teachable spirit. Being quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to anger helps us to be more like Jesus. Let us make sure that we try and give the benefit of the doubt, that we consider that the other person’s behavior or choice may have some wisdom in it that we can learn from. Finally if God does indeed confirm that what we are seeing is “the wrong way” or a wrong choice, then even then we can pray for that other person that God will lead them along the right path and that they will not be trapped by the enemy but instead will receive wisdom and deliverance from the Lord.

Numerous times I have found myself in discussions about pastoral ministry burnout and how to come out of it (not to mention of course what we might do to avoid it in the first place). Without oversimplifying it or making light of the pain of burnout I want to offer a few words regarding how God has brought me out and how He has also begun “safeguarding” me against future burnout.

I have found that two basic things consistently must be present in my life for me to know that I have recovered from burnout. These two things reveal a renewed health in my soul and a fresh  outlook on life and ministry. The two things are faith and an inner calm. 

When I have been in the throes of discouragement and despair I look around and realize I have little to no faith that God is present with me, that God is working on my behalf or that God is working through me or around me. When I am burned out my faith is diminished to the point that every outward thing seems stronger and more pressing than any inner or spiritual thing that God might be doing. Without faith, burnout for me is inevitable (and of course along with it comes a lack of joy, peace and strength). This is not to say that the answer is to simply “have more faith” but rather that I must seek the Lord that He might somehow by His divine power restore the faith I once had, or better yet: grant me a deeper faith that I perhaps have ever had before.

The second thing that is strikingly absent when I am suffering under burnout has been a lack of calm. Whether you call it serenity or peace the reality is that burnout for me has meant a lack of a quiet inner confidence and resting in the Lord. I have found that rather than peacefully resting in God’s promises or joyfully celebrating God and His goodness, instead there is a cacophony of noise and accusations and fears and anxious thoughts swirling within and demanding my time and energy. Sometimes the noise gives way to quiet desperation and depressed anger and fatigue. And although that place of burnout is quiet it is not calm or with peace and rest in the Lord. Burnout for me is sometimes depression or a morose and melancholy outlook on life and ministry. 

So here is my two cents: when my faith is diminished and my calm is supplanted by chaos or a sense of being downtrodden and defeated, that is when burnout is either knocking on the door or has completely moved into my heart and mind. 

What then is the answer? Books have been written on this, by men and women far wiser and more experienced than myself. So what can I say in a few words that will help? First of all, when I have been burned out I likely did not have the wherewithal to read an entire book so perhaps a few concise words can help you to begin a journey back to health and wholeness…

So just as 2 lacking things have been clearly connected with my experiences of burnout so too a receiving of those same 2 simple things have been part of my recovery. When burnout is wreaking havoc, only a God-imparted faith and calm have been sufficient to bring me out. So how can you and I receive and walk in this elusive faith and calm? 

Burnout usually is precipitated by fighting many battles (often alone), serving long hours over many days, weeks, months and years combined with a lack of visible and/or measurable results. But this comes slowly over time. So unless we want to take a long, slow journey back to health by committing 30 minutes per day for years, we will need to take 4 or 6 or 8 hours per day, multiple days per week until the healing comes. What will we do during this time to precipitate healing? 4 things:

1. Get alone in the prayer closet
2. Go regularly to a worship service at another church
3. Get together with other pastors and in a safe environment bear each other’s burdens
4. Seek out professional help from a counselor or therapist or pastor or doctor or fitness coach

When in the prayer closet for hours on end, pray, pray and pray some more. Pray the promises of Scripture. Pray the miracles of Scripture. Pray with thanksgiving. Give thanks in advance of your healing. Give praise in advance of your breakthrough.

When in the prayer closet for hours on end, read your Bible. Chunks of it at a time. Read whole books. Read and reread chapters (especially the Psalms). Do a concordance search and find out what God says about you. Compare every good promise and every name of God to the situations you find yourself in and then prayerfully claim every promise of who He is and what He does over the situations.

Go regularly to another church where you sense the Lord leading you and through whose ministry you know you can be poured into and have a safe place to worship, rest and listen to God’s voice shaping and forming you. Don’t just go once or twice. Go regularly until God heals you and then keep going so as to sense His continued sourcing of Shalom in your life.

Find pastors you admire and look up to and who are safe to talk to, confess your temptations and sins and struggles to. Ask questions of those you respect and who build you up in the faith. Don’t hide your struggles from yourself or from them and let them speak into you, let them pray over you. There will of course be time for you to share your pain and suffering but don’t neglect letting them fill you with their hope and faith, wisdom and knowledge.

Finally seek out professional help for your mind, heart, spirit, relationships and physical well-being. All of these are interconnected and God has graciously provided professionals who are trained and equipped to address each of these. Don’t let any stigma or preconceived notion keep you from seeking out help from God’s servants. We hope that our people will come to us when they need spiritual help and we train accordingly, recognize then that others are available to you as well. 

This is already longer than I intended but let me close with this. For your pain and suffering I am truly sorry. I have gone through burnout and the pain is almost unbearable. I grieve with you and pray for you and for your family. Please feel free to reach out if you need a listening ear, Biblical counsel or prayer partner. And though this is brief, please don’t think that I am not hearing your cries or oversimplifying the process of recovery. It probably took a long time to finally break your spirit and it might take a long time for it to be restored. But I also believe in the God of miracles who can do in a moment (or a series of moments) what normally takes a great deal of time. Please, go today to your prayer closet and make plans even now to seek out help from other churches, other pastors and other professionals so that God can bring you through this burnout and into a place of vibrant joy, faith and peace in the Holy Spirit. I know God is able and He can do it for you!

Have you ever stopped to think about all the things we spend time worrying about and working on, and yet they really don’t matter?

I have often asked myself the question “Ten thousand years from now, what will it matter?”.

Somehow this question can help to put things in perspective. Most often the situation doesn’t matter, but my response to it does. Many times the temporary outcome doesn’t matter but how I behave myself in the midst of it does matter immensely. 

Think about it: ultimately it doesn’t matter how long we have to wait at a traffic light, or which team wins a sports game, or who wins an argument. In 10,000 years we won’t remember or care. 

But what will matter is how we brought honor and glory to God with our behavior in the midst of the situation and whether or not our behavior helped others to look to Jesus as their Lord and Savior. 

• Yeah, we could blow through the intersection angry that we had to wait.
• Yeah, we could lose our patience and “blow our top” when the sports game doesn’t go the way we wanted.
• Yeah, we might be able to show how smart we are and argue down someone else.

But what about pleasing God?

What about helping our neighbor?

What about loving people?

What about getting people into a relationship with Jesus Christ so they can be delivered from sin, guilt, shame, death and hell?

Please don’t be nearly so concerned about having everything turn out just like you want it to in this life. Instead, be completely committed to living in such a way that people will be drawn to Jesus and so that in 10,000 years you will rejoice that God was able to use your behavior on earth to usher other people into His eternal kingdom!