Some Pastors…

A few months ago, I had a dream. The reason I remember this dream is because I have so few of them. In this dream I was at church and the men in white suits were leading me away. I was in a strait jacket and I was just babbling away. As I got into the vehicle, I heard one of the Pastors say, “I’m going to miss Paul, he volunteered for everything!”

I truly believe God was trying to tell me if I volunteered too much…again, I would go crazy! If this were true - that being “too involved” is what makes people “crazy” - then every Pastor of every congregation in the land would need to be outfitted with straightjackets.

Of all the people within a church, the Pastor is often THE most committed and involved of any. If this was true, then many of you reading this would be irritable and difficult to be around, because you are highly committed to serving God. It’s been my experience that the “more involved” a person is in ministry, the more satisfied and fulfilled that person is - not the other way around.

Yet, people do get frustrated serving God. Sometimes it’s because they are faced with difficult circumstances, or difficult people, or a shortage of resources. But even those frustrations can be overcome if God’s people understand two things: Who they are, and why they are doing what they do.

1 Peter 2:5 "...you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."

1 Peter 2:9 "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light."

You and I are Pastors for God. Peter was not the only one to tell us that. John wrote in Revelation: Jesus “… has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father…” (Revelation 1:6) Isaiah prophesied hundreds of years before Jesus were born, that under the New Covenant you and I would “be called priests of the LORD, you will be named ministers of our God...” (Isaiah 61:6)

And now because we are priests of God, we have a right to handle the holy things of God. We have the privilege of coming before God in prayer. We have the right to touch and partake of communion. We have the right to baptize others into Christ. We have the responsibility of knowing and teaching the Word of God. PLUS we have no need for anyone other than Jesus to intercede for us before God.

Last week, I went into the Sanctuary Men’s Bathroom and saw a peculiar site. There were 4 men washing their hands at the same time. That’s a miracle! (I’m kidding here) What amazed me was when all 4 men finished washing their hands, they took paper towels and wiped around the sink. They cleaned up the overspray of water from washing their hands.

Why did these people act this way? They were acting like adults. This was their church and as far as they were concerned, when something had to be done there, they saw it as their responsibility – not the janitor’s, not youth minister’s not the Pastor’s – but theirs.

As a church we’ll only attain our full strength when as many of us as possible realize we are Pastors of God. When we realize that as God’s ministers that jobs need to be done – and we’re the ones to do them. And when we realize that we are called by God to work together (Ephesians 4 ) so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.”

That word ‘together’ reminds me of a story I once heard. In a Sunday school, they were teaching about Church. One of the little boys in class only had one arm. The teacher led them in the age old hand gesture of, “Here is the church and here is the steeple”. The teacher, realizing the attention it would bring to the little boys disability, quickly glanced in his direction. At that very moment, a little girl sitting next to the boy looked at him and said, “Let’s Build the Church together!”

Let’s build and maintain the Church together!