Pastors Are People

Over the last year, I’ve had a revelation. It’s something I knew before, but I think I forgot: pastors are people.

You see, prior to this past year, I attended rather large churches—eleven years at a megachurch and about another four at a not-as-big-but-still-pretty-big church. When I moved to Michigan seventeen years ago, freshly married, my husband and I started looking for a church. We searched for a few weeks, but as twentysomethings, we fell for the megachurch. The worship, the people—it was all great. While meeting people and building close relationships is sometimes hard in a megachurch, we were able to get connected quickly in a young marrieds class that met every Sunday after the service.

Here’s the thing, though: we didn’t know the pastor. I mean, he was the pastor! He had a security guard follow him around. It was like he was a celebrity, and if he said hi to you when he occasionally walked the halls, your day was made.

Prior to getting married, my husband and I both attended smaller churches. Churches where we knew the pastor and were known by the pastor. Pastors who knew the ins and outs of our lives, with whom we shared meals, who married us. I’m not sure why, but I guess we never thought it odd that we didn’t know our pastor at the megachurch.

A little more than a year ago, we found our way to a smaller church, one that was connected to our current big church, but in another city and much smaller in scale. While we only intended to attend for a few weeks while the larger campus was closed, my whole family, kids included, fell in love.

We felt like we and met and talked to more people in a matter of a couple of weeks there than we had in a few years at the larger church. One Sunday, before service began, the pastor came and sat in the row in front of us, introduced himself, and chatted with us for a few minutes.

Since then, we have talked with him on several occasions, I’ve texted and talked with his wife on the phone, and we have shared meals at the church. Our pastor is a person we are getting to know.

I’m not saying attending a larger church is wrong; it was the right fit for us for several years. However, now that we have found our way to a smaller church, I can’t imagine calling a church home if I couldn’t have a relationship with the pastor.

Over a year ago, I attended a memorial service for a friend’s mom. I remember listening to the pastor share story after story about my friend’s mom. He knew her as a person, he knew her gifts and talents, and she knew that he loved her brownies.

In today’s technology world, we have access to thousands of pastors. We don’t need to leave our homes to attend church. We can watch whatever church service we want from the comfort of our couch and in our pajamas. If we don’t like what one pastor says, we can pick another. However, I don’t think any of those pastors would show up to do your memorial service, let alone have any stories to share about you.

Additionally, I think we tend to forget that pastors are people when we see a 45-second clip of a powerful message and share it with our whole online community, raving about how good the pastor is. As I’ve recently listened to the podcast, The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill, I can see the damage that is done when we don’t remember that pastors are just people.

In 1 Corinthians 3, Paul writes, “What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow” (1 Cor 3: 5-7 NIV).

I love how he says, “only servants.” They were preaching and teaching, planting seeds and watering, but they were only servants. They were doing the work the Lord had called them to do. They weren’t celebrities; they didn’t have security guards assigned to them; they were servants of the Lord.

Whether you want to overly praise a pastor or overly criticize him, let’s remember that pastors are people. Only servants, through whom we came to believe.

Heather Gerwing is living the full life with her husband, Jeff, four kids, and a dog in Metro Detroit. Heather enjoys reading, writing, coffee-ing, and serving in youth ministry. She was born a Jersey girl and feels most at home on a beach. She is the host of the monthly link-up, Share Four Somethings. You can join Heather on the journey to living the full life at www.heathergerwing.com.

Photograph © Diane Helentjaris, used with permission