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When Your Pastor Feels Distant · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 2: Well.
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  Speaker 1: It seems to be a very common dilemma for a
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  Speaker 1: growing church, predictable. Even the pastor, the guy we all
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  Speaker 1: knew so personally a friend and the shepherd of the flock,
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  Speaker 1: slowly begins to feel more distant as the pews get
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  Speaker 1: fuller and fuller. As things change, the pastor becomes more
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  Speaker 1: of a voice and a microphone rather than a friend
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  Speaker 1: who knows your name and everything about your life. This
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  Speaker 1: is one of the good problems of a growing church
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  Speaker 1: to wrestle with. But how does a leader bridge this
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  Speaker 1: gap to the best of his ability? And how does
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  Speaker 1: a congregation come to understand that the changes that come
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  Speaker 1: in a growing church. Today on askbestor John, when your
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  Speaker 1: pastor feels distant? The question today is from a pastor,
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  Speaker 1: an anonymous man, Pastor John, Hello to you from a
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  Speaker 1: longtime listener and a fairly new pastor of a small
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  Speaker 1: but growing church. Paul describes his pastoral ministry with tender imagery,
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  Speaker 1: like a nursing mother caring for her children and for
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  Speaker 1: Cssalonians two verses seven and eight, and he emphasized a
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  Speaker 1: willingness not only to share the Gospel but his very
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  Speaker 1: life with the people. In light of this model. How
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  Speaker 1: did you approach the work of pastoral care for individuals
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  Speaker 1: and families under your shepherding? What principle shaped your ministry
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  Speaker 1: to the herding, the wandering, and the grieving, especially as
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  Speaker 1: your church began to grow. How did you balance spiritual
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  Speaker 1: counsel from the pulpit, practical support, and emotional presence.
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  Speaker 2: The first thing to say is that I don't think
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  Speaker 2: I ever got this exactly right. I don't even know
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  Speaker 2: what exactly right looks like when it comes to every
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  Speaker 2: member being known and cared for and held accountable by
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  Speaker 2: biblically qualified church leaders in a church, say like ours,
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  Speaker 2: that was growing from three hundred to four thousand over
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  Speaker 2: thirty years. Like so many things in the New Testament,
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  Speaker 2: we're given guidelines, but not blueprints. I think the only
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  Speaker 2: way a conscientious pastor can survive over decades of ambiguity,
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  Speaker 2: and here I guess I'm just speaking out of my
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  Speaker 2: own personality or situation decades of ambiguity and a sense
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  Speaker 2: of inadequacy, is to lean on the blood bought for
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  Speaker 2: giving mercy of Christ and try over and over again
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  Speaker 2: to do it better. At least that's my autobiography. I
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  Speaker 2: feel like I never did much better than be minus
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  Speaker 2: or I don't know c plus when it comes to
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  Speaker 2: how do you know everybody? How do you care for everybody?
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  Speaker 2: And not just speak from the pulpit. So let me
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  Speaker 2: mention a few biblical texts that I think embody some
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  Speaker 2: of these guidelines, and then I'll give my own personal
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  Speaker 2: testimony of how I tried over the years to flesh
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  Speaker 2: those guidelines out. First first Peter five two and three.
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  Speaker 2: Shepherd the flock of God that is among you, exercising oversight,
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  Speaker 2: not under compulsion, but willingly as God would have you,
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  Speaker 2: not for shameful gain, but eagerly, not domineering over those
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  Speaker 2: in your charge, but being examples to the flock. So
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  Speaker 2: the guideline is, by all means, lead the church like
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  Speaker 2: a shepherd leads to green pastures and still waters and
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  Speaker 2: safety from wolves. But do it for the right motives.
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  Speaker 2: Don't do it for money, and don't do it begrudgingly.
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  Speaker 2: And do it joyfully, and don't do it with a
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  Speaker 2: domineering spirit to puff yourself up, but with a lowly
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  Speaker 2: spirit of christ like incarnation, getting down low and coming
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  Speaker 2: alongside the people, and being an example of what you're
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  Speaker 2: trying to preach. So that's guideline number one. Number two.
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  Speaker 2: First Thessalonians two seven, we were gentle among you, like
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  Speaker 2: a nursing mother taking care of her own children. So,
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  Speaker 2: being affectionately desirous of you, we were ready to share
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  Speaker 2: with you not only the gospel of God but our
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  Speaker 2: own selves, because you had become very.
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  Speaker 1: Dear to us.
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  Speaker 2: Oh don't you love the apostle. It just it was
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  Speaker 2: so theologically rich and so tenderly personal. So the guideline
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  Speaker 2: is to love your people with tender affection, not just dutifully,
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  Speaker 2: but with heart felt affection. We open our heart and
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  Speaker 2: life to our people. That's what we do. If we're shepherds,
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  Speaker 2: we're not distant or closed or evasive or detached or
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  Speaker 2: aloof that's not the way we do it. If that's
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  Speaker 2: the way you are by nature, you need to plead
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  Speaker 2: with God that he would change you. There are personality
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  Speaker 2: types probably should not be pastors. So that's number two.
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  Speaker 2: Number three. Acts twenty Paul says to the elders of Ephesus,
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  Speaker 2: I did not shrink from declaring to you anything that
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  Speaker 2: was profitable, teaching you in public and from house to house.
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  Speaker 2: So the guideline here is that it is pastorally helpful
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  Speaker 2: not only to teach the people in large groups, as
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  Speaker 2: from a pulpit, but in smaller groups in informal settings.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think this is a mandate that a pastor
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  Speaker 2: must be in every member's house. We don't know how
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  Speaker 2: many people gathered in those house meetings. But the guideline
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  Speaker 2: is a shepherd is not content to speak from a
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  Speaker 2: distance to a crowd, but seeks out other less formal
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  Speaker 2: gathering for instruction and common life. And then finally number
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  Speaker 2: four Hebrews thirteen seventeen, Obey your leaders and submit to them,
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  Speaker 2: for they are keeping watch over your souls as those
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  Speaker 2: who have to give an account. Let them do this
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  Speaker 2: with joy and not with groaning, for that would be
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  Speaker 2: of no advantage to you. So the guideline for pastors
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  Speaker 2: here is to joyfully keep watch over the souls of
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  Speaker 2: their members in the awareness, the weighty awareness that we
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  Speaker 2: will give an account to Christ for how we did this.
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  Speaker 2: So that's the list of guidelines, and it could go
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  Speaker 2: on and on. Really it's not just four, but these
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  Speaker 2: few are what our friend wrote about. I mean, this
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  Speaker 2: is what he asked about, especially the relationship between the
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  Speaker 2: public ministry of the pulpit and the personal ministry among
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  Speaker 2: the people. Some of the ways that I tried to
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  Speaker 2: flesh out both of those, but the kind of both
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  Speaker 2: and ministry public ministry and personal ministry. I always viewed
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  Speaker 2: the pulpit as my primary way of shepherding the people,
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  Speaker 2: feeding the people, leading the people, protecting the people, strengthening
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  Speaker 2: the people, teaching the people, seeking to transform their minds,
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  Speaker 2: comforting them, guiding them, encouraging them, correcting them, even being
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  Speaker 2: an example to them. All of that I saw, that's
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  Speaker 2: what you do in the pulpit. Some of those don't
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  Speaker 2: go elsewhere only I think the pulpit is where emotional
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  Speaker 2: health and humility and strength and transparency begin in the
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  Speaker 2: local church. They don't see it there where they're going
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  Speaker 2: to see it. This is what people see over and
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  Speaker 2: over again. That's why it's so primary. They see it
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  Speaker 2: over and over and over again. This is what visitors
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  Speaker 2: see when they come. Does he communicate a genuine, healthy
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  Speaker 2: embodiment of biblical truth. That's what That's what they look for,
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  Speaker 2: and that's what they ought to see. It's possible, I think,
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  Speaker 2: to be radically God centered and at the same time
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  Speaker 2: deeply personal and transparent. He says what I tried to do.
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  Speaker 2: I felt that's the right thing to do. It is
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  Speaker 2: possible for the sheep to feel that they really do
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  Speaker 2: know their shepherd because of how he communicates his soul,
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  Speaker 2: his mind, his heart, his emotions in the pulpit. In
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  Speaker 2: the early days, when I was the only pastor, or
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  Speaker 2: maybe there were two, we hired a number two guy
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  Speaker 2: pretty quickly. When I came to a church of about
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  Speaker 2: three hundred in attendance, I visited people in the hospital,
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  Speaker 2: all of them. Anybody got sick, I was there. I
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  Speaker 2: was at the side. When someone died, I go to
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  Speaker 2: their home and grieve with them. I did all the funerals.
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  Speaker 2: I did the weddings. Noel and I opened our home,
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  Speaker 2: and we invited everyone in the church to open houses
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  Speaker 2: at Christmas. We had to do it over more than
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  Speaker 2: one weekend. We held New Members class in our living room.
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  Speaker 2: For years. We had a Sunday evening service where I
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  Speaker 2: did not wear my dark suit and tie, which I
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  Speaker 2: did very intentionally wear on Sunday morning, and I could
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  Speaker 2: give a whole rationale for why that was. I came
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  Speaker 2: down out of the pulpit on Sunday evening on the
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  Speaker 2: level floor with an overhead projector, and I dressed differently,
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  Speaker 2: I talked differently, I took questions. I became very personal.
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  Speaker 2: We described Sunday morning as the amount of transfiguration, where
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  Speaker 2: the disciples fell down on their face, is before the
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  Speaker 2: glory of the Lord. And we described Sunday evening as
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  Speaker 2: the melt of olives, where Jesus stretched out on the
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  Speaker 2: grass on his elbow with his disciples and spoke to
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  Speaker 2: them about how things were going. And then there were Wednesdays.
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  Speaker 2: We had Wednesdays, and I taught Wednesdays in the same manner,
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  Speaker 2: very open, very personal, and relational. So I wanted people
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  Speaker 2: to see Piper is a thundering prophet on Sunday morning
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  Speaker 2: who could also be very nurse like and tender, but
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  Speaker 2: he dresses up. He is reverent, there is dignity, there's awe,
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  Speaker 2: and he's another person on Sunday night, because that's the
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  Speaker 2: way the Gospel is, and that's the way God is.
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  Speaker 2: He's both of those kinds of realities. So I tried
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  Speaker 2: to take the people to both theological and practical reality,
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  Speaker 2: and all of the Christian life brought into the pulpit
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  Speaker 2: and the more personal, smaller gatherings. As a church grew.
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  Speaker 2: As it grew from zero elders to forty elders, we
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  Speaker 2: didn't have anyone I came. I had to persuade the
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  Speaker 2: church that elders were biblical. Took ten years to do that,
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  Speaker 2: but then eventually we had pastor type elders, and we
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  Speaker 2: divided the church into small groups with trained small group
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  Speaker 2: leaders and accountable elders. They were accountable to elders, and
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  Speaker 2: we tried in that way to see to it that
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  Speaker 2: everyone was known and accountable. And as the church became
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  Speaker 2: thousands instead of hundreds, the way I made myself available
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  Speaker 2: to pray with people was to linger after services as
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  Speaker 2: long as they wanted to to share a burden. I
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  Speaker 2: said to them very publicly, I said, this is not
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  Speaker 2: a time for extended pastoral counseling. We can't do this
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  Speaker 2: for three hours, but I will hear any burden if
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  Speaker 2: it leads to prayer. And so that's what I did,
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  Speaker 2: and I would typically stay for an hour or more
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  Speaker 2: after that second service. First service you only can do
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  Speaker 2: it for about twenty minutes, but I would stay until
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  Speaker 2: they're all gone. I was regularly the last person to
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  Speaker 2: walk out of the sanctuary absolutely exhausted, because standing there
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  Speaker 2: and praying with people is more taxing than preaching. And
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  Speaker 2: yet everybody knew the pastor. Does that anybody in this
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  Speaker 2: church can walk right up to him, take his hand,
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  Speaker 2: speaking into his ear, cry on his shoulder, and get
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  Speaker 2: prayer from our preaching pastor. I think the fact that
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  Speaker 2: you know only maybe you can number the people in
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  Speaker 2: hundreds who did that instead of thousands. All of them
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  Speaker 2: knew about it, and that made a huge difference in
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  Speaker 2: the way they perceived me and my availability. My shepherd bent.
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  Speaker 2: So There's lots more that could be said, but I
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  Speaker 2: think the main point, our friend, for our friends who's
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  Speaker 2: asking this is the Biblical guidelines. Pray them into your heart,
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  Speaker 2: and as situations change in your church, just keep trying
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  Speaker 2: your very best various strategies to mingle public and personal ministry.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, some great memories of Saturday night Bethelhem downtown services,
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  Speaker 1: talking with friends for thirty or forty five minutes and
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  Speaker 1: then leaving and looking back, and there always was a
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  Speaker 1: line waiting to meet or talk with pastors on Saturday night,
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  Speaker 1: so you'd be there.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember making too too. This is not
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  Speaker 2: a time for signatures. We don't do autographs here. This
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  Speaker 2: is for prayer. And then the people obeyed it didn't.
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  Speaker 2: I mean even even guests felt very self conscious doing
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  Speaker 2: more than just praying.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, special time. Like so many things in the New Testament,
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  Speaker 1: were given guidelines, not blueprints. Yeah, and no perfect blueprint
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  Speaker 1: for this. In the New Testament, pastors lead from true care,
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  Speaker 1: not for money, not domineering, but with a lowly christ
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  Speaker 1: Like affection for the flock number out of the size
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  Speaker 1: of the church, opening their lives to the people in
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  Speaker 1: whatever ways are possible. But a hospitality that has begun
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  Speaker 1: from behind the microphone and in the pulpit. That's a
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  Speaker 1: line that I wrote down. Quote, is possible for the
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  Speaker 1: sheep to feel that they really do know their shepherd
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  Speaker 1: because of how he communicates his soul, his mind, his heart,
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  Speaker 1: his emotions in the pulpit. End quote. Yeah, thank you
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  Speaker 1: for all this, Pastor John. And if you are in
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  Speaker 1: the process of trying to find a new local church,
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  Speaker 1: what do you look for in that church and its leadership?
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  Speaker 1: See the Aspector John book on pages four seventeen to
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  Speaker 1: four to twenty eight for more on making that crucial decision.
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  Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us today. If you have a
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  Speaker 1: question to ask Pastor John, find a link to email
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  Speaker 1: us and find our complete episode archive at the same
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  Speaker 1: place ask Pastor John dot com. God's plan for your prayers.
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  Speaker 1: That's next. I'm Tony Ranky. I'll see you on Thursday.