How to Appreciate Your Pastor

Below is a nice writeup posted by a brother pastor...

How to Appreciate Your Pastor

It’s October, which means it’s Pastor Appreciation Month.

Now there are many websites giving suggestions for ways to celebrate your pastor. Some of their suggestions include giving a card shower, holding special banquets in their honor, giving a trophy, or even a surprise vacation.

Now, it’s not that those aren’t nice things to do. But this is not how you should appreciate your Pastor.

So how should you show appreciation for your Pastor? To answer that question, you must first ask “Why should a Pastor be appreciated at all?”

It’s not because he’s well liked, has a good personality, or is a snappy dresser. It’s not because he’s really good with kids or tells funny jokes. It’s not because he’s likable in any way. Your Pastor may very well be someone you can’t stand at all. Maybe you even pray that he takes a call somewhere else, and yet, you should still appreciate him.

Why? Because he’s the one chosen to stand in the place of Christ for you. He’s Christ’s mouth for you, delivering the Holy Words of God in Law and Gospel. He’s Christ’s hands for you, delivering life, salvation, and the forgiveness of sins in the Sacrament.

You appreciate your Pastor not because of him as an individual, but because of the office in which he stands.

So back to my original question, how should you show appreciation for your Pastor?

Here it is: Simply let him do those things for which he is called to do. Go to Church. Go to Bible Study. Let your ears be filled with the Word of God and your mouths be filled with the Body and Blood of Christ. Receive what your Pastor is there to give you. For when I urge you to go to the Divine Service and go to the Sacrament, I am doing nothing less than urging you to be a Christian. Be a sheep unto your under-shepherd, your Pastor.

Do this and your Pastor, if he’s worth his salt, will feel more appreciated than ever.

“For the gospel is not delivered unto us that we should thereby seek our own praise and glory, or that the people should honour and magnify us which are the ministers thereof; but to the end that the benefit and glory of Christ might be preached and published, and that the Father might be glorified in his mercy offered unto us in Christ his Son, whom he delivered for us all, and with him hath given us all things.”
Martin Luther, A Commentary on St. Paul’s Epistle to the Galatians, 5:25

Thanks for reading!

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HT: Rev. Anthony R. Voltattorni