How to Appreciate Your Pastor (and Why I Appreciate Mine)
Some practical tips as well as some very biased opinions about why I have the best pastor
This post is part of a series I’m doing in October on pastoral ministry. If you’re new here, my husband is currently the lead pastor of a church outside Savannah, Georgia. We’ve been in full-time ministry since 2009, and he’s been an ordained pastor for almost 10 years. I am writing out of our experience in hopes that it will encourage those in ministry as well as those who love people in ministry.
These days it seems like there is a day or a month to celebrate everything. Some of them seem a little contrived, but I’m all for the ones like Cheese Appreciation Month and National Ice Cream Day. Then there are the ones no one bats an eye about celebrating, like Teachers’ Appreciation Week in the spring. Having considered teaching my children at home and ultimately deciding against it, I am 100% for appreciating all that teachers do.
In 1994, Focus on the Family began promoting October as Clergy Appreciation Month, which now has come to be called Pastors’ Appreciation Month. Apparently Hallmark even sells cards for this! I don’t know, because I have no idea where the closest Hallmark store is (one does not tend to find Hallmark stores in close proximity to cow pastures). I am sure there are some grumps out there who think this is dumb much like the married person who thinks Valentine’s Day is dumb. I appreciate my pastor all year! OK, but do you actually show your appreciation? I want to encourage you to do that, especially this month.
Scripture gives multiple principles about how pastors should, in our vernacular, “be appreciated”:
Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed. —Romans 13:7
In Romans 13, Paul is talking about how Christians should relate to those in authority over them. If you are a committed member of a local church, then your pastor and/or elders have authority over you, and Scripture tells you to show respectable and honorable pastors your respect and honor.
In the same way, the Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. —1 Corinthians 9:14
While some pastors are bi-vocational, whether a pastor receives a full or partial salary from his role at your church, Scripture tells us that it is right for a pastor to be paid for proclaiming the gospel. Paying a pastor well is a way of honoring him for faithful ministry.
Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and doctrine. For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and “The laborer deserves his wages.” —1 Timothy 5:17-18
This Scripture gives a lot of insight. First, it implies that there are some elders who do not rule well. We’re not talking about those elders. It tells us that elders who do rule well are worthy of not just honor but double honor. It also implies that pastors deserve to be paid for their work.
I do believe pastors should be shown appreciation and honor all year long, and one way that can be done is to pay pastors well. Before Christian was ever ordained to full-time ministry, a wise older woman sat with me at a Starbucks and told me that before we committed to any church, we needed to make sure Christian would be paid fairly. “Ministry is stressful enough,” she said, “so if they aren’t paying you enough to live on, the stress will be too much.” By God’s grace, we are currently at a church that is so generous and truly honors Christian in how they pay him and provide for our family. I can only hope that every pastor’s family could be cared for in the same way (but, honestly, I know that’s not the case).
But aside from being paid fairly, pastors need other kinds of appreciation. Ministry is by and large a thankless job. Church members and attenders have their own lives that are full of joys and sorrows, and they may end up unintentionally taking their pastor for granted. Pastors bear up under this, because they care for the members of the church. They don’t expect thanks. But I don’t know a single faithful pastor who isn’t dying a slow death of discouragement. It’s death by a thousand cuts over days and months and years, whether it’s low attendance, conflict within the church, conflict between churches, financial struggles, disagreements among elders and deacons, or simply many members going through many hard things all at the same time.
Being a pastor is like wading upstream against a current of discouragement, not unlike Christian’s journey in Pilgrim’s Progress. There are respites along the way, but they are few and far between. But any church member can make this journey a little easier by encouraging their pastor, and you don’t even have to do anything extraordinary. Here are a few practical ideas to show appreciation for your pastor this month (or any time):
If they have children, offer to keep their kids for an evening while they go out on a date. Bring dinner for the kids and give your pastor and his wife $20 toward dinner.
If you have specific skills, ask if there are any home projects that you can help with.
Ask your pastor how you can pray for him and his family. He is almost certainly praying for you.
Consistently come to church on Sundays, or during other church activities. Whether it’s a weekly Bible study or a congregational meeting, showing up is always an encouragement (because a lot of people don’t show up).
Write your pastor a letter or a card sharing some of the ways he has blessed you with his ministry. It could be something specific from a sermon that you remember (he will be pleased you remember something), or it could be a way that he encouraged you, or it could be that you are aware of something gracious he did for someone in the church or community. I promise you that this will not go to his head.
Get to know your pastor’s kids, if he has any. Come to their sports events or music recitals.
In short, think about things that would be encouraging to you, and put yourself in the shoes of a person who goes through the same things as you and has also committed himself to care for your soul. Hopefully your pastor does so cheerfully and not begrudgingly—but it is still a burden.
I love my pastor. His name is Christian, and he has been one of my pastors for almost 10 years, but he has been pastoring me for almost 20 years now as my boyfriend, fiance, and husband. Here are some of the things I appreciate about him, from my front-row seat to his ministry:
He prays for the individual members of our church and checks in with them regularly.
He prioritizes the intake of God’s Word.
He takes point in teaching our kids God’s Word and the truths of Scripture.
He sets healthy boundaries for himself and for our family
He is loved by — but not indispensable to — our church. (In other words, he delegates! If he died tomorrow, the church would not fall apart.)
He encourages the church to pray together.
He doesn’t expect more out of me or our kids than he does any other church member’s family.
He spends long hours counseling people going through extremely difficult things, and he never complains about it.
He perseveres even when he is weighed down by conflict and disagreement.
He has intentionally sought relationships with other local pastors, and never tries to compete with them.
I hope that you can say at least some of these things about your pastor. If you can, encourage him! Encourage his wife! Encourage his kids, if he has any! And encourage the other members of your church to do the same—not just in October, but every month.
In closing, I think I hear some of you saying—But Chelsey! Sometimes pastors are not good pastors. I know that better than you might realize, and I plan to write about that later in the month. I have a few more ministry-related posts to share first, though. If you’re not subscribed already, please do so—that way you won’t miss The Venn Diagram of Relationships for Pastors and Their Families, a non-peer-reviewed theory I have come up with and made very terrible diagrams to illustrate.