What a Good Pastor Does

I had an interesting conversation with my pastor recently. We met for lunch, and I had a very pressing matter to discuss. It concerned my struggle with another person, in which it seemed quite clear to me that the other person was in the wrong. After I related my horrific tale of how I have been abused and mistreated by this person, my pastor asked me a few simple questions. I walked away from those questions very troubled. I walked away unsettled. I walked away more humbled and confronted than I have been in a long time. I suddenly found myself begging God to show me the ways I have sinned in the matter. Without being presumptuous or overbearing, my pastor had asked me if I was willing to take the big fat log out of my own eye.

It seems that we often need to be gently confronted with the reality of our sinfulness in specific situations - something we are oddly blind to, no matter how much we practice spiritual disciplines and try to serve God. I'm fairly good at developing the theology of my general depravity. But when it comes to the truly humbling aspect of this truth applied directly to myself on a daily basis, I am woefully inadequate. I can't self-pastor. This is one of the reasons God has established the Church. It's one of the reasons He has commanded us to exhort, encourage, rebuke, restore and forgive one another. In essence, He tells us to "be Jesus" to one another. And that's what a good pastor does. I wouldn't trade it for a thousand purpose-driven sermons. I'm convinced that God is much more pleased with a servant who preaches the Gospel and authentically disciples others than He is with a CEO-pastor building a mega-"church" for the masses or leading a social movement. I know I'm helped more by the servant.