Last night I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of love during "Pastor Appreciation" night. There were so many kind and encouraging things that were said to my wife and I that it was hard to take it all in.
One thing that sort of comes with the territory when it comes to being a pastor is scrutiny. Every sermon, every decision, your wardrobe, your demeanor, everything in the church you are to some degree held responsible for whether the decision was yours or not......everything is scrutinized all the time by someone. Any pastor will tell you, a lot of the time the only people you hear from are the ones that have some negative feed back regarding you or the church. So as a pastor you have to develop some thick skin and let a lot of stuff roll off of you. You also have to learn from the scrutiny and change the things about yourself that need changing that you can change (because some of it you can't change, it's just who you are) and try to improve constantly. So the scrutiny can be a good thing......but honestly over time it wears you out......unless it is balanced with some encouragement and some positive feed back along the way.
Hopefully none of us serve the Lord for the praise of men. Ultimately we serve God because we love Him and we desire to please Him. But encouragement sure is nice. And last night I received a whole lot of it. Thanks Bethel for a tremendous outpouring of love last night. I count it a privilege to serve as your pastor.
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