This excellent little article by Jay Sampson sums up what most of us pastors would like for Christmas.
One of my personal favorite things about Christmas is the giving of gifts. I'm just kinda wired that way. I enjoy the idea of getting something for someone that I know they will like but they might not necessarily buy for themselves. At my best (which is rare), I pay attention to conversations starting around October and pick up on things that are mentioned in passing and then look on with boyish glee as my unsuspecting target of tribute receives a token that shows someone was listening!
Many times, the things that our loved ones desire are not items that we will need to scrape and save to acquire, but rather they are things that we will need to prioritize and plan. And very often these things that they truly want – family time, appreciation, encouragement – are not things that will appear on any list they put together.
And so it came to pass that I was asked: what might be on the “unpublished wish list” of pastors this Christmas? It certainly isn't uncommon for pastors to receive presents from their flock, you know, coffee mugs and ties and the like. But what if we applied the same rubric as above (real listening) to pastor gifts? What if we the congregation heard what our shepherds talked about in living rooms and coffee shops? What would we get – or do – for them that would show, "Someone was listening!"?
It may surprise you, but if pastors made a wish list, the presents that would populate the parchment are not physical trinkets at all. They are not even gifts that they themselves would receive, but realities and realizations that their people would come to embody. These are things that pastors want for their people but can only be given by the true Gift Giver – the Holy Spirit of the Everlasting God.
As I didn't want to present simply "Pastor Jay's Unspoken Wish List," I asked a few pastor friends to chime in. Here's what we came up with as The Top 5 (Okay, 6) Things Your Pastor Really Wants for Christmas:
1. For Our Eyes to be Opened
A friend pointed out that Christmas is particularly a time in which we are reminded of the Omnipresence of God. He is and has been everywhere at all times in all of history and the future and we remember at Christmas the “fulness of time” in which he chose to reveal to us that Messiah had come. A gift that many pastors are praying for is that our people (and all people) will stop and consider the humility and wonder of God revealing Himself to men.
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