Feb 27, 2023 5 min read

14 Lessons From The Imperfect Pastor

2023 has been the most difficult, humbling, painful, amazing, and restoring year of my life, and we’re only two months in. God’s grace and mercy toward me has left me speachless more than once. James 5:16 is telling the truth. I have seen God restore brokenness beyond anything I could imagine.

But Peter learned what we all do in the ashes of ministerial rooster crows. Jesus comes for us. He hasn’t left us. His steadfast love endures forever.

In the midst of this season, I was given this book. I have a “want to read” list in Goodreads that I put any book recommended to me by another person. Do I get to them all? Not at all. When more than one person recommends the same book, it moves up the list. But when my best friend buys me a book and tells me to read it, I press pause and start reading.

Here are fourteen lessons I learned and questions I’ve wrestled with from this book. I pray you are encouraged and challenged.

Pray less, but more often

This lesson came toward the end of the book, but it was the most impactful to me. Eswine talks about casting your anxieties on Jesus and allowing Christ to be your portion 4 times a day. Morning is 6am-noon. Noontime is noon-6pm. Evening is 6pm-10pm. The night watch is 10pm-6am. I’ve heard about the “daily office” but it always stressed me out and I always failed to pray at specific times of the day. This approach clicked for me. Pray during the morning for Jesus to sustain you, cast morning anxieties on, pray for that 9am meeting. Do the same thing for noontime, evening, and the night watch. Before you move into the next slot, thank the Lord for his provision, confess your sins from that block, and ask the Lord to be your portion in the next block of time. This has cause me to slow down, to pray shorter but more consistent prayers throughout the day.

Pace yourself. Move slowly. Don’t stop.

What If I’m an Unnamed Mountain?

Obscurity and greatness are not opposites.

There are tons of mountains you’ve heard of because of their height: Everest, Kilimanjaro, Fuji, Mont Blanc. There are even more super tall mountains that you will never hear of because they are 10ft shorter than the famous ones and don’t get names.

I desire to be great. I want to be noticed. I want people to think I’m smart, successful, and wise. I cannot get this question out of my mind. It is what Jesus calls me to as his disciple, his servant, as a pastor. But this thought of being overlooked puts my sinful flesh in panic mode. It’s like in Fight Club when Edward Norton realizes who Brad Pitt actually is. My pride is big and strong and evil and wants its name written in lights. Mount Everest or nothing. Jesus calls me to be an unnamed mountain.

Do I possess a stamina for going unnoticed? Can I handle being overlooked?

This leads me to the next lesson…

I need to die

Every man has a man within him who must die. -Christian Wiman

Jesus calls me to take up my cross and follow him. Jesus says to lose my life is to find it. Paul in Romans 12 commands me to “present my body as a living sacrifice.” I am to put to death the deeds of the body, crucify the flesh.

I need to slow down

I think the besetting sin of pastors, maybe especially evangelical pastors, is impatience. -Eugene Peterson

We all know we need to slow down and ask “what’s best next?”

To the important pastor doing large and famous things speedily, the brokenness of people actually feels like an intrusion keeping us from getting our important work for God done.

Patience is a virtue I need the Holy Spirit to produce in me. Scripture calls us to preach the word with complete patience (2 Tim. 4:2), to be patient with our people, to be patient with our family. Fruit grows slowly.

A pastor is a human being

Being human does not mar greatness; it informs it and sets its noble boundaries.

Often times I forget this, holding myself to some made up standard that is not God’s standard. I am finite. I am insufficient. Christ is infinite. Christ is sufficient.

”The Boundaries of your calling reveal God’s pastoral care for YOU.”

I cannot be everywhere

You and I were never meant to repent for not being everywhere for everybody and all at once. You and I are meant to repent because we’ve tried to be.

He tells a story based on the shepherds in Luke 2, how they were right where they were supposed to be. God puts us where he wants us, and we need not think about being anywhere else. Those shepherd spent the rest of their lives telling the story over and over again to younger shepherds, to their kids, to their grandkids. “It was an ordinary night, and we were watching our flocks…”

I cannot fix everything

You were never meant to repent because you can’t fix everything. You are meant to repent because you’ve tried.
There is nothing we can do in ministry that does not require God to act, if true fruit is to be produced.

Only Jesus can fix everything, and sometimes he leaves it unfixed until eternity.

I do not know everything

But you were never meant to repent because you don’t know it’ll. You are meant to repent because you’ve tried.

Reading is good for me because it gives me knowledge, but more importantly it teaches me how much I do not know.

How do you handle it when other people get things wrong? Does anyone you serve have room to make a mistake?

I don’t handle being wrong well, so I hold myself and others to unrealistic standards. I need Jesus grace over and over and over again. Lord I need you.

I need to be quiet

To study to be quiet refers to a willingness to be overlooked “out there” and to forgo what the world desires so as to be faithful to God with the portion given.

God’s attention is enough. Wait for his will and let him lead.

Quiet is a means of God’s grace. Within it, God shows us our inner poverty and misguided ambitions.

I need to behold God more

To behold God in all things daily changes the way we learn and alters what we look at.

When I behold God first and often, I do not try to fix things I have no business attempting. I do not try to be everywhere. I do not try to be someone I am not. I do not try to know everything.

I must let Jesus handle my anxiety

Jesus handles our anxieties with us by asking us to place them within a one-day-at-a-time pace for life.

Just like praying in 4 blocks, our pace must slow. The Lord’s prayer asks for daily bread, not weekly.

I need to humble myself

Philippians 2:3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

I have a pride problem, so in addition to the unnamed mountain point and the human being point and the not being able to do everything points I felt I needed another reminder to humble myself.

Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Following Jesus is hard. Disciples of Jesus, trust him, trust his word, trust his character.

But sometimes trusting Jesus will mean that you and I must do what we would rather not so that those we serve can see what they must of him.

Think local

No matter how great or gifted we are, God invites us to himself for the sake of local people in a local place with the long learning of local knowledge in Jesus until he comes.

The local church is still God’s plan A for reconciling creation back to himself through Jesus Christ, and there is no plan B.

Attending to God’s work among the faces, names, and stories where you are is to do already what God considers significant.

Prayer and ministry of the Word, pastor, right where God has you. Nothing is more significant.