October is pastor appreciation month. While the endless and thankless job that church staff do needs appreciation way more than one month out of the year, there is a lot that can be done during this time to help out. I am also willing to bet that if you actively spend the whole month showing your church staff they are appreciated, you will notice an impact in the church itself.
Before we begin, I want you to take a look at a statistics. If you are a person with limited experience in the church or have never worked in a church before you may not be aware of the culture of a church worker. Now all churches are different, but there are also a strikingly large amount of similarities amongst different churches. Following are some statistics about church staff and tenure
- The average stay of tenure for a youth pastor is between 18-24 months (Church Executive)
That's not a typo. That says months, as in two years or less. I want you to right now think about a person you see once, maybe twice a week. After a year a half, do you really know that person? Are they close to you? Someone you would feel comfortable confiding in, admitting your weaknesses and asking for help? I don't know about you, but for me that amount time is not going to cut it. So how can we expect our teenagers to be able to do something we wouldn't do as adults?
- The average stay of tenure for a senior pastor is between 3-4 years (Thom Rainer)
Here we do see an improvement, however at this time span there is still not much buildup of a relationship. 4 years is the amount of time it takes to graduate high school. How much did you change during those four years? What about the four after that?
"So what? you are probably saying that's not going on with my church." Well that is great, but a more accurate statement is "That is not going on in my church NOW", because at some point this will be a problem. As time goes one this is becoming an increasingly more common problem and will eventually lead to the depletion of those willing to work in the church. I say willingly because I believe many are called, however many are also not willing to fight people in the church just to have a job.
Here is what I mean by that last statement. The figures below are from pastor care, an organization committed to providing resources and support for those in service to the church. These statistics are derived from their experience uplifting pastors.
- 80% believe pastoral ministry has affected their families negatively
- 75% report a a significant stress-related crisis at least once in their ministry
- 50% feel unable to meet the demands of their job
- 90% feel they were inadequately trained to meet the demands of the job
- 40% report a serious conflict with a church member at least once a month
- 70% do not have someone they consider a close friend
- 50% have considered leaving the ministry over the last three months
- 50% of those who go into full-time serve drop out in the first five years
- 94% of pastor families feel the pressures of the pastoral ministry
- 66% of church members expect a minister and family to live at a higher moral standard than they do
This is feedback from individuals who have sacrificed in order to further God's kingdom, in order to shepherd God's flock, but have been beaten down by those same people. I know this is a difficult thing to understand, but please believe me it happens all the time. Even getting into a church position, often times the people they are going to work for know they are asking the impossible. The below quote is from an interview a young pastor had at a church
There was a whiteboard in the room, so I walked to the board and divided the board into the categories on the call sheet they had given me. Things like visitation, sermon prep, etc. Then I asked them for each category what they thought was a reasonable amount of time to spend on each area. Then, below their numbers, I wrote in the amount of time it actually took me to do some of those things. My point was twofold: first they wanted great sermons, but thought that a reasonable amount of time to spend on sermon prep per week was just three hours (I was expected to preach twice on Sunday, and once Saturday night).When I was done I pointed out that the actual amount of time that it would take me to do all of the things that they wanted me to do was in excess of 90 hours a week.They wanted to pay me $21,000 a year.They didn’t see any problem with that.
Before we get to the good stuff, I want you to do two things for me. Please...see I asked nicely. First check out CHURCH STAFFING and look at a couple job posts. Do you see all those job requirements. Many pastors are doing the work of four people. Can you imagine doing the work of four full time jobs for four years? You would be ready to quit too, I guarantee it. Next read THIS from Thom Rainer. That is the kind of crazy stuff that happens to pastors all the time. If you are really brave go ahead and read the comments section and hear some more. I stopped when I read about the pastor who went in for chemo therapy and was told by the church leadership that the time was counted as his vacation time... Four years is starting to sound like a long time now isn't it?
So, now we know undeniably that serving the church is tough, so what do we do? The great thing is the possibilities are endless. At the bottom I am going to list all the websites I referenced, there are some great blogs about how to help prevent burnout in the church. Directly below I am going to list a few different ways that YOU help to make sure your pastoral staff knows you appreciate them. (Yes, YOU!)
- Tell them: honestly you can not say enough times how much you appreciate them. When you are never sure what a church member is going to tell you after a service, there is nothing better than hearing someone be thankful for all the hard work you have put in to all you do.
- An even better way to tell them is ask their spouse what their love language is and tell them in their language.
- Offer them a night out: Babysit their kids and give them a gift card for a restaurant, be forceful if you need too! Pool your resources with another couple or two and really make it a banging gift card!
- Send them a hand written note: Sometimes that one voice of thankfulness from a person is enough ti give you enough strength. P.S. this a great opportunity to teach thankfulness to your kids, have them also make a card or even do it as an activity in your children's ministry!
- Pack their fridge: This is a huge blessing for a family, bring in a big haul of groceries, especially for that pastor with a house full of teenagers
- Volunteer at the church for the jobs no one wants: The floors need to cleaned, the lawn mowed, the garbage taken out, spiders squished, coffee stains cleaned, furniture moved, if everyone leaves and it isn't done guess who has to do it? While many churches have a cleaning staff there are still little tasks around the church that "somebody" has to do, nine out of ten times that becomes a pastor.
- Bring them lunch: Many pastoral staff work straight through meals in an effort to meet everyone else need. Drop off a nice hot lunch and you will be their favorite person for at least a week! My father-in-law would be the first person at church on Sunday mornings (other than the Pastor) so when the coffee was ready, my father-in-law would bring the first cup to the pastor. Sometimes he would get doughnuts for just the 2 of them.
- Fix something: Have a knack for handy work, be that neighbor who is more than willing to take a look at a problem, or get that heater working before winter comes. People like this can be such an incredible blessing to an already budget strapped pastor. The feeling of non judgmental help being just a phone call away is an incredible blessing! Not handy, offer to rack leaves or wash their car.
- Take them to a game: This one is a little ambiguous, but just realize that a pastoral staff person feels like their financial decisions are being watched by everyone, and you better believe they are going to hear about it from someone when they buy a new TV, a different car, or go see a baseball game (especially if they didn't take the youth group, wait can youth pastors even get into a stadium without bringing 40 teenagers?) Make taking that break a little easier by taking them or just paying for them to go with their family.
- Advocate for them: For some reason pastoral jobs tend to be open to evaluation from everyone, that is a very negative environment to have to work in. If you hear this kind of behavior or anyone talking badly about them stand up for them. You don't have to agree with everything a pastor is doing to support them and encourage them.
- Be a family blessing: Too many times I have seen church staffers try to balance the church lives and family lives. Do the simple things like offer to hold one or more of their kids while they are talking after church, be willing to watch them during church functions so they can have the opportunity to talk to others. Be the person who is just always there ready to help out with whatever their family may need and give them the security to allow their kids to be kids!
- Give: The pastor and the church entity are able to turn on the lights and the heat because of the money you take out of your paycheck. If you wished the pastor was payed more, then do it yourself. Want to be anonymous? Just leave an envelope full of cash taped to their door. You will probably never know how much they need it, but chances are they really do.
- Be reliable: Don't just show up in October with a thank you card and then disappear into the pews for the rest of the year. Be a friend to your pastor, someone who is willing to take on some needs of the church and shows appreciation for the growth they are receiving all year long.
And now the absolute number 1 thing you can do to show them appreciation is: DO THEIR JOB! Now we all are not gifted and trained to be able to lead the church, but we all have absolutely everything we need to be a disciple of Christ. As long as we are longing to be Christ like, then by default we will be looking to be loving to the people around us, especially to those who are making sacrifices in their life in order to help us walk closer to Christ. So, to show them we appreciate this we must become the church. We must desire to evangelize and help the discipleship of others, we must also help others grow closer to Christ. If we do this, we decrease the need for our pastors to do it all on their own. We should be doing this, it is our duty as Christians. Too many pastors become burnt out and leave because the church has put the responsibility of being a Christian on the pastor alone. If there is a need in the church it our job as a follower of Christ to meet it. Don't you dare shrug off another opportunity to be like Christ because "that is the pastor's job, its what we pay him for".
So with October here we have the perfect opportunity to help change some statistics. Make your church as hard to leave as possible. A church body who is supportive of its pastors in every way.
“Will you pray for me as a minister of the gospel? I am not asking you to pray for the things people commonly pray for. Pray for me in light of the pressures of our times. Pray that I will not just come to a wearied end—an exhausted, tired, old preacher, interested only in hunting a place to roost. Pray that I will be willing to let my Christian experience and Christian standards cost me something right down to the last gasp.” — A.W. Tozer
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