If you are a Christian believer who has benefitted from the explosion of good resources in the last thirty years, someone else has shared their pastor with you.
Maybe that pastor didn’t come to your home or your church, but he came into your hearing and reading because someone else shared him. I’ve benefitted from the people of Grace Community Church sharing John MacArthur with others. He even came and spoke in Calgary a long time ago. If his church hadn’t shared him, he wouldn’t have come and the believers in Calgary would not have been blessed.
The Church Universal
When churches share their pastors, they show that they care about the mission of the church universal as well as their local church. Consider the generosity of Westminster Chapel in London sharing Martyn Lloyd-Jones in the sixties and seventies. Think how Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis sacrificed in sharing John Piper to take time to write books and speak at conferences. In each of these cases and many others you could name, the local churches paid the salary of men who were fruitful beyond their own local congregation. Their generosity by their sacrifice lead many others to be blessed.
Now it might seem obvious that Christians in these churches that I mentioned would want to be generous with their pastors and bless others with their time. But the fact is that many church members do not want to share. A friend told me his perception of what a congregation thinks about sharing their pastor. He said everyone thinks, “What’s in it for me?”
So pastors often have to persuade and promote the good work that they have opportunity to do outside of their church. Many times pastors are simply asked to help, asked to speak, or asked to equip. The pastor views it as a chance to do extended ministry. The church can view it as being cheated.
Painting the Neighbour’s Fence
Church members can feel this way when they don’t find that the pastoral care is sufficient, or that the organization of the church is to their liking. I have had people question why I would go to equip pastors in a difficult East Asian country for two weeks. They thought that there was more than enough ministry at home to do. Why go there? For many people, any service outside the church is like painting someone else’s fence when your own could use some touch-ups or even a second coat.
Neglect
Now there can certainly be a case when a local church pastor neglects his congregation in order to give his best time and effort to others. If that is the case then the church’s elder board ought to discuss the frequency of his speaking engagements and set limits on them. Or maybe that pastor needs to request a reshuffling of responsibilities so that his ministry in the local church is more effective, while he carries out important ministry outside the church.
Suspicion
Some people in the church are simply suspicious that opportunities their pastor has for wider ministry necessarily make him prone to pride, seeking a name, and the praise of men. Of course, these temptations exist when a pastor speaks, teaches or writes beyond his congregation. But they are not unconnected with the temptations in his local church ministry. If the church members and their elders see a consistent humility in a pastor while he leads the local church, they can at least know that he has a starting point for faithfulness in outside work.
Celebrity Pastors
Many of the “celebrity pastors” who have fallen have been marked by characteristics in their local church that got amplified in a larger area of influence. If they were bossy, or flirtatious, or attention-seeking while they are in their own church, the larger stage only amplifies those sins and works of the flesh. When I hear stories about the ‘behind closed door’ talk of some pastors who later had moral failures, often the wrecks could have been predicted.
Publicly Shared, But No Celebrity
Most pastors that I know are not celebrities–even ones that speak at conferences or have written a few books. They are not in the category of ‘celebrity’. But their churches have shared them, sacrificing generously to do so. The pastor who has been publicly shared by his church can then speak to others or create resources for them knowing he is accountable to his local church and supported by them. Church members truly are partners in that ministry. Paul showed his appreciation for publicly sharing him when he said to the Philippian Church:
I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now
Phil 1:4-5
If you read a blog post, read a book, listen to a podcast, hear a sermon, or read a book which comes from the labours of a pastor not your own, then you’ve benefitted from someone’s sacrifice. If you live outside of Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC, and yet you benefit from the ministry of pastors there, you have received the sacrifice of others. Another church has generously shared their pastor with you. If all of us took the attitude of giving and receiving with sacrificial generosity, then maybe our pastors would be more accountable because their churches would be more involved in the outside work. Maybe there would be more unity and fruitfulness among churches together as they share the gifts God has given them, including their pastors.
