The struggles of the smaller church pastor

This past week I've had the opportunity to talk with people who are either pastoring a smaller church or have recently pastored such a church. One group is part of an association that was holding revival services in different churches that week, and they were commenting the attendance was steady but down from last year's event.  Interestingly, most of them admitted they had attended few of the services themselves due to other obligations.  Some of them were bivocational and simply did not have the time to attend a service every evening while others had demands on their time that prevented them from being at the revival meetings every night.  I'm certainly not judging them nor putting them down because I know how demanding bivocational ministry can be.  I also noted in their discussions that they were not complaining about the slightly lower attendance.  They understood the busy schedules people have today.

Another individual was a former bivocational pastor who had resigned his ministry under a tremendous amount of pressure from church members.  I believe he is doing some supply preaching but expressed no interest in returning to pastoral ministry.  It's a shame because he had taken a fairly small church and grew it to a very respectable membership for its location.  Unfortunately for him, he had grown it to a size that was unacceptable to the controllers in that church who feared they would soon lose their ability to control what was happening in their church.  While this pastor tried to withstand the challenges for a season, he eventually gave up and resigned.  The pastor the church called after him encountered the same issues and quickly decided he wasn't going to fight them.  He resigned within months.  The church is now seeking a new pastor.

The issues of time and dealing with church controllers seem to be two of the primary struggles many small church pastors face.  There is never enough time to address everything that seems to demand the pastor's attention.  Unless the pastor has a clear sense of his or her purpose this is a problem that can quickly become unsurmountable.  If I had to guess I would suspect some of the lay folks, especially some who are retired, have complained about the pastors "not supporting this revival" because they weren't there every night.  As a younger leader I would have probably been one of those complaining because I used to be naive enough to think I had to be at everything that was going on related to our church.  That is not the case, and the wise small church pastor needs to realize that as quickly as possible if he or she wants to enjoy ministry and life.

Controllers are another story.  Hebrews 13: 17 says, "Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.  They keep watch over you as men who must give an account.  Obey them so that their work will be a joy, not a burden, for that would be of no advantage to you."  Talk about a verse that needs to be preached from the pulpit!  Ministry is to be a joy, not a burden, but in too many churches it is a burden.  One of the sobering things I often considered as a pastor was that one day I would give an account to God for my ministry and of every person who sat under my ministry.  That is burden enough without having to also deal with the burden of trying to deal with church controllers.

My advice is simple.  Get control of your schedule and make sure it is in alignment with the vision God has given you for ministry, and confront the controllers in your church as soon as they raise their ugly heads.  The advice is much simpler to give than the implementation.  Your best schedule will soon be disrupted by a phone call that requires your attention, and dealing with controllers is like trying to herd cats.  However, until you address these two things you will continue to experience stress in your life and ministry.  If these are issues in your ministry I recommend you read my book The Healthy Pastor: Easing the Pressures of Ministry for some ways to deal with these and many other issues that cause stress in the life of a minister.