I was 19 years old and interning for the first time at a church by working with college students. I had been at the church for about two months and the little group of students that had started with four had grown to 24. I knew that the Lord had been kind to us and we were experiencing real growth because, frankly, I had no idea what I was doing. I’ll never forget that morning when we hit 24 students. I came to the sanctuary for worship when I was stopped by a very faithful leader and volunteer at the church who asked how my morning had been. When I remarked excitedly that we had 24 students in attendance and the Lord seemed to moving he said something I’ll never forget: “That’s nice but it’s the summer and in a few weeks you will be back at school and they will all be gone.” I look back on that now and I’m sure that there were good intentions behind it but in the moment it crushed me. I went from soaring to under the ground in 10 seconds.

As we face the ongoing pandemic that has restricted some of what the church can do I wanted to write a little bit on pastoral encouragement. These are indeed strange times and we are feeling more isolated than ever. This is incredibly dangerous for pastors and the churches they serve. Pastors do not want the attention to be put on them because they seek to serve their churches but the truth of the matter is that pastors are human beings and Christians who need to be encouraged and supported during these days as well.

To be clear, I am not writing from a place of feeling like I don’t receive this or as some sort of underhanded critique of churches. I am blessed to serve at a church that is loving and has multiple staff members. I truly believe there are many church members who want their pastors to feel encouraged and supported but may not know exactly how to do this. In light of those feelings here are few ways that church members can serve to encourage their pastors as those pastors seek to minister to them:

Take Time to Check in on Your Pastor

From time to time it is important to check to see how your pastor is doing. You might find yourself as a student who is reading this. Check in on your student pastor. Send him a text letting them know that you are praying for them. Ask how you might be able to pray for them. You may find yourself reading this as an adult member of the congregation. When appropriate, ask pastors how they are doing with no agenda. Let them know that you are thinking about them and encourage them to stay faithful. Many a pastor has felt the benefit of receiving a note letting them know that you appreciate their faithfulness.

Share How God is Working in Your Life

A lot of discouragement in this season and other seasons comes from not being able to see the fruit of their labor. Pastors spend a lot of time preparing sermons and wonder if they are making an impact. If you have been helped by something that a pastor preaches or a Sunday school teacher teaches share that with them. You may be able to encourage them as well if a principle they taught was connected in another way in your own personal study. Pastors do recognize that we are, as Mark Dever once put it, spiritual mailmen. We deliver God’s message to his people and these are not our messages. Just as we are thankful for the people who deliver our mail, packages, and gifts we should also be thankful for those who deliver the most important “mail” in our lives. The fault, that I often fall into with my pastor, is in thinking someone else will encourage. I am trying to make it a regular habit to encourage and share how God is using my pastor in my life.

Build Safe Environments for Sharing Burdens

Recently I was experiencing discouragement in our ministry and felt like I was experiencing some spiritual warfare. I reached out to the leaders in our ministry and shared with them what I was going through and their support was so encouraging through that. They had created an environment where I as the pastor could be vulnerable to share with them. They went out of their way to encourage me. In fact, one of my leaders called me the next day to check in on me and talk through what I was experiencing. Another leader messaged me back privately and extended an invitation to meet up and talk with me and my wife in order to encourage us and help share burdens. For pastors this is incredibly freeing. They have the freedom to know that people don’t expect them to be superhuman but wrestle with struggles like any other person.

Point Pastors to Christ

Using my previous illustration, all of the people who responded to difficulty prayed for me and pointed me to Christ. Churches should always point their pastors to Christ as that pastor is pointing his people to Christ. Our great encouragement through this season and any other season is to make sure that we all recognize that Christ is our only hope. When we can encourage others we know the impact comes for a moment but I believe that when we encourage others with Christ the benefit goes beyond a moment. There have been many moments in my life where the most encouraging thing a person would tell me would be to get my eyes off of myself and look to Christ! Those were hard moments for me but the benefits outweighed the difficulty.

Encouragement for pastors is a lifelong need. In reality though, we are simply trying to do what Galatians 6 challenges us to do when we encourage others and especially pastors: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2ESV)