What I wish I'd known before becoming a pastor

I’ve been in ministry for 38 years. The summer of 1987 was my first experience in “getting paid” for serving others in the name of Jesus. I was an activity coordinator for the summer at a Methodist children’s home in Little Rock, Arkansas. I had just completed my freshman year in college.

Here’s some church background. I grew up in Southern Baptist churches. When I was seven, I had become a Christian. I was deeply sincere about giving my life, in faith, to Jesus. I wanted to follow Him. I was confident through both personal, inward experience and through the clear teaching of the Bible that God made me, loved me, and wanted me to trust His Son Jesus as my Savior. So I did. It was a conscious decision.

It wasn’t until junior high at a youth camp that I began to understand what a relationship with God looked like. Up until then, I was confident that God loved me and that I loved Him (that’s most important, see Matthew 22:37). I don’t remember being clear on what I was supposed to do — how to live, other than the specific do’s and don’t’s of the Bible.

At that retreat, a speaker talked about how to follow God daily, how to speak to God in prayer and how to listen for His voice through reading scripture and living in spiritual sensitivity. He taught me how to have a “daily quiet time.” For the uninitiated, that means a specific time set aside in — normally in the mornings — to read the Bible, pray, think about what you’ve read, and meditate on the truths you’ve read and how they might apply to your life that day.

That began a spiritual journey of intentional pursuit for me. I began that routine, and I can’t imagine life without spending time with God in a personal, focused way each day.

Fast forward to 1987. When I went back to campus that fall, I felt “led” to inquire about helping at my church. I helped with the youth ministry. Over the next summer, I worked as a summer youth minister in a small Arkansas town and loved serving the students and seeing them respond to the good news of Christ, that they too were loved and could experience a daily relationship with the God of the universe through faith in Jesus. There’s nothing like helping others discover the joy available in a real relationship with God.

When I returned to campus the following fall, I began serving on staff in my local church as the youth minister. For the next year I did that, and also served as the assistant to the pastor the following summer. In spite of being immersed in ministry, however, I did not consider “Full-Time Ministry” as a vocation. I just loved serving the church and helping people fall in love with God.

It’s a long story for another day, but becoming a business owner as a college could have derailed me from ever embracing vocational ministry. Thirty-eight years later, though, I look back on several years in youth ministry, eight years in college ministry and now 22 years as a pastor.

When I “surrendered” to ministry after college vocationally, I didn’t have aspirations to be a lead pastor of a large church. I just wanted to be used by God to bless His people and to help others find God.

What I wish I knew?

I wish I’d known how good it is to live life serving God as a pastor. I’ve been so deeply blessed along the way. I’ve learned so much. The hardships, struggles and burden of caring for a church are numerous. Yet, God has never once failed to be near. I’ve experienced Him working in and through people, circumstances and life moments in tangible ways.

I also wish I’d know that church people can be as cantankerous as… people. Just because they’re “churched” doesn't make them… not human. As Christians, they are saved and forgiven by God, but we all still sin in many ways. When a church or groups in a church strays away from following God’s Word, it gets messy. I knew “no one is perfect” before ministry, but along the way, I’ve had to remind myself that’s especially true in the church — and of my own personal life as well.

I wish I’d known that you can’t “clock out” from being a pastor. You’re always on call, always expected to respond to crises, always expected to have right answers — to everything from politics to sociology. It’s this “always-on” that it’s direly important to learn how to live with in a healthy way.

I wish I’d known the reality of “living in a glass house.” A pastor and his family are under public scrutiny. We’re held to higher standards. A pastor’s wife and kids have high expectations placed on them.

The apostle Paul detailed some of his struggles he had as he lived his life on mission with God. After a long list of specifics (including being beaten and shipwrecked), he added what to me is the most important thing I wish I’d known:

Not to mention other things, there is the daily pressure on me: my concern for all the churches. (2 Corinthians 11:28)

I wish I’d know that to be a pastor correctly, you must genuinely carry concern for your people. Then, you must be able to cast that concern upon Jesus. Only He can carry the burden of ministry and empower the pastor to stand underneath it.