“Ahh here we are, October. One of my favorite and least favorite months. I love that it turns cool and fall arrives, the crispness of the air and the aura of contemplative reflection that it inspires. I hate that it is Pastor Appreciation Month.”
All tagged pastor appreciation
Hey! Anybody Listening?!?! (aka Pastoral Transitions 2020)
“I was in a meeting of church developers and I raised the question as to what people were doing for pastors transitioning to a new church this year. At first there were crickets. Then someone spoke up and said roughly that they were moving their usual face-to-face meeting to an online option. I pushed back.”
Remain Until You Leave
It is the only way we survive this life. You see, we are asked, expected, to love people deeply. And then a day comes, like ripping a bandaid off, when we stop loving that group of people and turn around and start loving another group of people, just as deeply. I know the theology behind this. I know the discipline, and it is a discipline I am called to. But that doesn’t make the reality any easier to live. So when we know we are leaving, we have to start giving ourselves the space we need to survive this life. We have to start making the transition from one people to another.
A Tale of Two Charges
“And so yeah, there was that banner, flying for a month across the street. It was the first I had ever heard of Pastor Appreciation Month, so I thought for a bit it was something that particular church cooked up. Maybe that’s what some of my people thought too. Except Google exists. And Facebook exists. So that delusion didn’t last long. So I went one long month, no cards or emails, but with my encouragement file on my desk instead of tucked away. It was hard. I know I shouldn’t care about such things, but when it is waving in your face, it is a little hard to ignore.”