Pastor, You Must Abide
By Mike Craig
“Why, I feel all thin, sort of stretched, if you know what I mean: like butter that has been scraped over too much bread.” (Bilbo Baggins, The Fellowship of the Ring)
The Regular Grind
I’m not sure I’ve ever come across a better description of the grind shepherding has on one’s own soul than the words above. I’m assuming you’ve felt it. When I get to the end of a Sunday, after waking up early to pray over and put the finishing touches on my sermon, then arriving early enough to meet all the new faces (I may never see again), then preaching my guts out (only to hear it somehow missed the mark by a casual attender as they head out the door), then after a quick bite I head over to teach our interns for an hour and a half, then home to see the family, then back to lead our New Members class (where one couple becomes visibly angry over one of our doctrinal stances), then I arrive home at 8:30pm only to receive the text, “we need to meet soon,” from the husband in a troubled marriage. I crawl in bed thinking what could have happened. And then wake up, and it’s Monday.
Running on Empty
Maybe your grind looks different, but what every pastor has to deal with is the reality that our work requires more than just energy. It doesn’t just exhaust us; it empties us. We cannot do our job well and not love those we serve and lead. To merely go through the motions of ministry devoid of love would make us a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1). But, how easily our care bucket gets depleted, as the things we labor and desire to see most: the spiritual good and growth of those under our care, we are powerless to produce. I believe this is at the root of the ‘pressure’ Paul describes in 2 Cor. 11:28-29…
And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant?
Love means we feel the weakness of the weak, and are emotionally affected by the spiritual ups and downs of our people. And this doesn’t just exhaust us, it empties us. So the temptation is to stop caring, to stop loving; to become jaded, to become cynical, to become someone who learns how to remain emotionally distant and disconnected from their people. In other words, we learn how to give the impression of love, without its substance moving and motivating all we do.
The Vine and Branches
But that is not the way Jesus shepherds us. He is not distant and disinterested in our well-being. And if we are to be shepherds after his own heart, then we must learn to draw from Him what we need to shepherd His people as He does.
But we aren’t sufficient for this. We weren’t intended to be. So we must be comfortable with this. We must even expect this. Because only then will we understand the necessity of abiding. As Jesus says in John 15:5,
“ I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”
There is so much truth packed into this one verse which neatly summarizes the massive impact our union with Christ has on our daily life. And it makes clear that the love we are to continually pour out to others is not meant to come from us, but to be drawn from Him.
The Art of Abiding
If we, pastors, are simply branches, then the vine must be the steady and continual source that we draw the love we are called to so readily and freely give. Many of us know because we’ve preached this passage that abide means, “to remain” (as in ‘to remain vitally connected to or to remain a part of). And yet, while we grasp the concept, the practice of daily dependence, of living with our souls sustained by the vine, looking to Him to bear the fruit of love that we must constantly produce, we are very poor at.
We have mastered the concept of abiding, but not the art of it. And yet, there may be no group of people who need to master this more than pastors. Our ministry demands a constant labor of love. It demands a constant pouring out. But if we think for one moment we are sufficient for these things then we won’t abide as we ought.
I find that many pastors struggle with abiding because of the inherent weakness it admits. We are the ones who our people depend on. We are the ones with the answers. So we struggle mightily with embracing our insufficiency and leaning into our dependency.
We know what we should do to be sustained in ministry. We know we need to spend time in the Word and prayer for our personal benefit and growth. We know we are meant to live throughout the day with a posture of dependency and prayer. And yet, how easy is it to do the right things but with a heart that is neither dependent nor desperate for the Lord to sustain us?
When we come to the Lord, through His Word and prayer with the posture of weakness and dependence we come ready to abide. When we come lackadaisically and haphazardly or hurried, we show we don’t truly understand our desperate need. We aren’t coming hungry, ready to be fed. We aren’t coming empty, ready to be filled. We must come recognizing that we are dry and brittle branches devoid of anything our people need in and of ourselves. But when we are abiding in the vine, drawing our strength and love and grace from the all sufficient source, we have all we need, and all our people will ever need from us! So, dear brothers, let us master the art of abiding!
Mike Craig is a former Mathena Center Intern, a graduate of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, and the lead pastor of Lakeside Baptist Church in North Myrtle Beach, SC. He is married to Emily, and they have 5 children.