Pastoral Lessons from Paul

"We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ." -- 1 Thessalonians 1:2

Paul opens his letter to the church in Thessalonica with these words, and what encouraging words they are! In this brief opening, he offers words of appreciation for the members of the community. He thanks God and prays for them. He notices the work they do and the faith, hope, and love they possess. He cares about them, he's proud of them, he is thankful for them -- he loves them. And he's making sure they know that they are loved.

I've only been a pastor for a few months, but I already know the importance of the phrase, "Thank you." Pastors are surrounded by "so great a cloud of witnesses" in their congregations, yet often all I hear is negativity from my colleagues:

"The trustees still won't fix my refrigerator."

"It's like pulling teeth to get someone to read Scripture."

"Not enough youth are coming to youth group."

"These people still don't understand they need to get off their butt and do something."

"No matter how much I visit Shut-in Sally or Nursing Home Nancy, they complain I don't visit enough."

Maybe I'm too "fresh" out of seminary to be negative and cynical. Maybe I just haven't really experienced the bad side of ministry yet. Whatever the case may be, I hope that I never allow myself to move away from this state of "freshness", a state where I am not ruled by cynicism and negativity but instead appreciate and acknowledge the great things happening in whatever congregation I serve.

Too many times, we as clergy fail to appreciate all that our laity do in our congregations. We forget to give thanks to God for them. We forget their work of faith, their labor of love, and their steadfastness of hope. We even forget to name them in our prayers. And in doing so, we fail to appreciate the work of God through them.

There's a story of a pastor who asked the trustees to replace the flooring in the entire parsonage. The trustees were unable to replace all the flooring, but did replace about half of it. Instead of thanking the trustees for the half they replaced, the pastor openly wondered why the other half wasn't done. Needless to say, the other half never got done. And can you blame the trustees for lack of motivation? They'd just been told that what they did wasn't good enough. They saw that the only work recognized is the work they did not do.

For United Methodists, Laity Sunday is this week. I hope and pray that all clergy will remember the laity in their prayers, and publicly thank them for all the work they do for the transformation of the world and the coming of the kingdom of God. Paul remembered the importance of the work of God's people, as well as the need to acknowledge it. How have we forgotten so easily?