But I don't.
What I have to say is thank you. Thank you for reading these little rants of mine. Thank you for being people who care about your pastors. Pastors, thank you for taking care of one another.
"Get Rid of Your Crappy Pastor" came out of a particular frustration. Over the last few months, I have watched multiple pastor-friends get used and abused by congregations. It was made known that significant portions of the congregation no longer wanted them to serve as pastor, and their lives were made miserable. I have more than one pastor-friend who has been so miserable that they just quit - before having a new congregation lined up to work in.
So I wrote "Crappy Pastors." And it hit a nerve. I have watched it spread over the last two days. For the first day, 600 people an hour were reading my blog. That's right, in one hour more people looked at my blog than are members of the congregation I serve ... In the last week, I have had almost as many pageloads as there are people in Brenham, Texas. I am humbled.
Since writing this post, I had friends from around the country contact me saying, "I want to be a crappy pastor, so people will get rid of me like that!"
Shhh ... Here's the secret: We're all crappy pastors. Yup. I'm a crappy pastor. I regularly fail, let people down, say the wrong thing, forget important things, and hurt people's feelings. I am a crappy pastor. Pastors: go ahead and admit it. Trust me, it is freeing to face up to and be honest about our shortcomings.
And any pastor who can't make that admission is a crappy pastor because they are not aware of their shortcomings. We are all crappy pastors. The perfect pastor is like the Sasquatch: We've all heard of them, but no one has actually seen one.
We are all crappy pastors, because we are all sinful, imperfect, and flawed. We need the love, encouragement, and prayers of our colleagues and the congregations we serve.
And the congregations we serve? Yup, you guessed. They're crappy, too. Filled with sinful, imperfect, and flawed people who need the love, encouragement, and prayers of one another and the pastors who serve them.
The good news? Our God is head over heels in love with flawed, imperfect people. We are just God's type!
So thank you. Thank you for being people who love imperfect, crappy pastors. And thank you for being pastors who love imperfect, crappy people. And thank you for reading. One of these days another one of my posts might just be clever and strike a nerve.
