Thom Rainer offers quality suggestions for encouraging your pastor. The last one is the most important.
I have written on many occasions about the level of stress and pressure felt by pastors across our nation. I have specifically expressed serious concerns about some of the critics who constantly berate and demoralize our pastors (here and here).
In this post, let me offer some practical suggestions on ways we can encourage our pastors. The list below is not exhaustive, of course. But it does represent some of the most frequent ideas I have heard from pastors and their families.
Let your pastor know specifically how you learned something from his sermon. Pastors spend dozens of hours each week preparing sermons. They put their head and heart into the preparation of these messages. Many pastors at most, however, hear church members simply say, “Good sermon.” The pastor is left wondering if the message really was used of God to touch and convict the listener. I once preached a message on reconciliation between Christians. I later got a letter from a church member who let me know that she had initiated reconciliation with her estranged father of more than twenty years. That type of specificity is a great encouragement to those who pour their lives into their sermons.
Read the rest here.
A box of Crunch and Munch never hurts either.
