Transcript
Ben Fallon: Welcome back to “Ask Paul Tripp.” We have two very similar questions today, Paul. One is from a pastor and his wife, and the other from a couple, church attendees. “How should our church be providing pastoral care for us?” And then likewise, “How can our church provide pastoral care for our pastor and his wife? You were a pastor for many decades, and now you've been called “a pastor to pastors.” So, what should we be doing to shepherd our shepherds?”
Paul Tripp: Yes, I want to reinforce again that there is no indication in the New Testament that a pastor has grown beyond his need for the Body of Christ. A pastor is a member of the Body of Christ with a particular set of gifts and a particular calling but needs all the rich nutrients of grace in the body of Christ that anybody else needs. It's very important to realize that. And so, a local church needs to set up a means by which a pastor is pastored. You can't just say that; you have to set up a means. I'm going to give you some things.
First of all, I think it's very helpful for a pastor to be required to have regular spiritual counseling, a good biblical counselor who's in his life with whom he regularly meets. Second, it's essential that the core leadership team is the best gospel-rich, small group in the church so that the pastor is getting rich gospel accountability, rich gospel encouragement. Third, require your pastor to be part of a small group he doesn't lead. So, he's part of the regular fellowship of the church presenting himself as part of the regular fellowship of the church. Fourth, regularly check up on the spiritual health of his family because that's an indicator of how well this person is doing. Fifth, don't load the pastor with such an unrealistic job description schedule that it begins to eat into his devotional or family life. That's very important; the man only has so much time. And lastly, send him away, you pay for, to send him away to rich gospel conferences and times of just personal spiritual retreat.
Now, I think all those things are essential to the long-term spiritual health of a pastor because they connect him to the essential sanctifying ministries of the Body of Christ. Now, a pastor has to acknowledge he needs all those things, and he has to go into a church that he's called to requesting those things. If the church in which you are thinking of becoming a pastor, with whom you are negotiating, looks like they put their pastors on a pedestal and isolate them as spiritual heroes, that is not a church you should pastor because it's not a condition that sets you up for long-term spiritual health.
BF: Paul, I just want to circle back to that fifth point, I think it was, about not overloading your pastor with such an unrealistic job description. You said the man only has so much time. Now, a big buzzword these days is ‘self-care.’ You need to care for yourself or look after yourself, and I think there's a lot of secular danger there and potential for selfishness, but if we were to apply that self-care to this question about pastoral care, let's reframe it this way. “Assuming a church is providing healthy pastoral care for their pastor, how can that pastor individually take care of himself to avoid burnout?”
PT: I think it's very, very important that you have developed other parts of your person, your gift-set, besides just theology, preaching, counseling, if you're in ministry. I love to cook; cooking takes me away. I love the service of that; I love the artistry of that. I spend a lot of time reading cookbooks and thinking about cooking. I love cooking for my family; I do that a lot. Years ago, I began to develop my gifts in painting, and I have a studio, and I regularly paint. Man, you can do this stuff if you never show a painting or give it to anybody, or carpentry or gardening or physical exercise, biking or rowing. I mean, all those things are good for you; they're not just good for your body, they are good for your spiritual health. Luella and I love going to museums together, that's a wonderful thing, it takes us away. We just see beauty and the incredible gifts God has given people.
I think, now that we have streaming services, there are wonderful things to watch, not everything is dark and horrible. I love watching, for example, documentaries of somebody who was successful as an artist or a musician. You have to have something in your life that is enriching but also takes you away from the burdens of ministry. There are just so many options there. No one will say “No” for you; no one will carve out that time for you. You have to do that for yourself. It's important to be a whole human being with all the richness of what that means.
Eugene Peterson used to talk about our need of poets and musicians and painters and novelists in our lives because they enrich us and enrich our imaginations. I think that's very true. Also, rest is not ungodly–we need Sabbath. You can't be on the task all the time; you should not feel guilty when you take a day off or an afternoon off because you are a limited human being, and you can't be on task at all times. That's why you have the whole theology of Sabbath. Jesus says, “The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath,” Mark 2:27. It's a gift of God.
BF: Thanks for listening to “Ask Paul Tripp, ” and we would encourage you to please share this episode with your pastor. Or, if you're a pastor, perhaps this episode can be a starting point for a conversation about you receiving the pastoral care that you need from your elders and the congregation. And lastly, Paul has written extensively for pastors, which you can find in his two books, Dangerous Calling, and LEAD, 12 Gospel Principles for Leadership in the Church. God bless.
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