Skip to main content

What Keeps Me awake at Night

James Emery White writes an insightful article about the things that keep pastors awake at night.  Personally I don't have the stress of the first thing he lists, but the other four are spot on.

A recent cover story in the Harvard Business Review was titled, “What Really Keeps CEOs Awake at Night.” The article explored such things as brand building, executive pay and managing Millennials.
It made me wonder about a similar question for my field: “What really keeps pastorsawake at night?”
I travel a fair amount speaking at various pastors’ gatherings and, as a result, hear from a large cross-section of pastors from across the country. I also am one and have been for nearly thirty years.
So what does seem to keep the majority of us up at night?
At least five things, and I will offer them in ascending order:


#3 Departing Members/Attenders. Here’s a little secret you may not know: Every pastor takes every member departure personally. 
They can’t help it. 
Every pastor worth their salt treats and leads their church like a family. And they are the parent of that family. When someone leaves, it’s a knife in their relational heart. It feels like disloyalty, abandonment and relational treason. 
It doesn’t to the person departing. All too often (sadly) it’s a consumer decision, like switching from Costco to Sam’s Club. But not to the person who has invested his or her life in building that Costco.
Read the rest HERE

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Families' Fridays

From Focus on the Family 10 helpful tips for single parents Imagine this: you’re the sole parent for your children. You get them up, get them fed and send them to school. You do the housework, maybe you go to work yourself, you get home and you’re still the only adult there. There’s no one to relieve you. No one to pass the baton to while you take a shower or take a few minutes for yourself. You make dinner and gather the family around the table to eat. You play with them, read to them, give them baths, get them to bed and there’s no one there to sit with and process your day. There’s no one there to laugh with you or pray with you. Instead you keep working. You clean up the house again. You pack lunches for the next day. And you eventually crash into bed, knowing you’ll be doing the same thing tomorrow. For many, this is not an imagined scenario. When you parent alone – whether due to divorce, the loss of your spouse or having a spouse who works away from home for long periods of...

Death For a Believer

We picture death as coming to destroy; let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending; let us rather think of life as beginning, and that more abundantly. We think of losing; let us think of gaining. We think of parting; let us think of meeting. We think of going away; let us think of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers,  "You must go from earth," Let us hear the voice of Christ saying, "You are but coming to me."   Norman Macleod

Let Me Introduce

It is almost a joke to imagine I am introducing John MacArthur Jr. to you.  In our circles of evangelicalism his is a well known name.  He has spoken at the national convention of our Fellowship of Evangelical Baptists on at least three different occasions.  However, the last of these was almost twenty years ago.  I believe that is because we have changed as a Fellowship and have strayed from the message that Dr. MacArthur preaches.  Dr. MacArthur has served his congregation since 1969.  That, in itself, should commend this man's message to us. As a pastor, I appreciate his commitment to the expository preaching of the Bible.  He has published an entire New Testament commentary set based upon his faithful preaching of the text.  I have never met this man personally, but I have appreciated him laying down a faithful path which younger men, like myself, have been able to follow. Grace to You