Keeping Your Pastor Healthy: Part 2

Warning: Doing the following will actually in the long run be a blessing to you.

Heb 13:17

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account. Let them do this with joy and not with grief, for this would be unprofitable for you.

This has to be one of the most unpreached verses in scripture right along with the topic of gluttony. The average pastor does not want to come across as lording his authority over God's people. Submission to authority and obeying leaders isn't exactly popular in our current post modern age. This lack of teaching has allowed a generation to flourish in the church that doesn't really see a need for leadership. We must point them to scripture.

Scripture seems to make several things clear in this one verse:

1. You can obey and submit to your pastors knowing that God will surely hold them accountable for their leadership. A pastor truly called to lead, feels the weight of "watching over your souls." In my experience God  has given me a supernatural love for the people I lead. This isn't a heavy burdensome affliction but one that feels like a deep sobering responsibility.

Note: I'm not talking about checking your brain at the church door and following leadership blindly. Everything should be filtered through the word of God.

2. The writer of Hebrews notes that walking in obedience and submission allows your pastoral leadership to do their work with "joy" and "not with grief." The author states that to not obey and submit makes it hell for your leaders and this in the long run is "not profitable to you." You do the math.

Jesus Christ is the chief shepherd and He has called pastors as under shepherds to lead His church. They are a gift to the church and should be treated as such.

The question then is do you make leadership a joy or a pain for your pastor? How do you treat them? In public and in private conversations? Are you constantly causing debate and strife?

Give a gift of obedience and submission this October,

Nathan