When a pastor leaves a church, we tend to ask a whole group of questions.
- Why couldn’t we keep him?
- Why did the elders force him out?
- What was the deacons problem with the pastor?
- Why did he choose to leave us? He was only here for four years.
- Was there something else we could have done or should have done to make him know we appreciated him?
- How did we not see the signs of his burnout?
- Was he too ambitious?
- Was he not ambitious enough?
- Our church was growing, why did he leave?
- I miss his preaching and teaching of the word of God. Will the new pastor preach as effectively to my soul?
- Why did God allow this to happen?
- Is God punishing us?
- Is God protecting us?
- What might God want to teach us?
- What might God want to develop in us?
Surely, some introspection is good. Just as surely, needless speculation is not good. I’ve listed 15 questions above but a good small group could probably come up with a 100 more in minutes. But I want to examine a thematic difference between the first 10 and the last five. The first ten are “horizontal” in focus. They are centered on human motives, purposes, and outcomes. The last five are “vertical” in focus. They are centered in the purposes and outcomes God might have in the departure of a pastor.
So, now, finally, I get to the point of this post.
I was reading the Memoirs of McCheyne by Andrew Bonar. The book begins with a collection of pastoral letters that he wrote to his congregation when he took a sabbatical leave to Israel. His congregation loved and missed him, and as a faithful pastor who loved his flock, he wanted to both comfort them and direct them to Christ. Here is part of his counsel to them in his very first letter
“Ministers are God’s tools for building up the gospel temple. Now you know well that every wise workman takes his tools away from the work from time to time, that they may be ground and sharpened; so does the only wise Yahweh take His ministers oftentimes away into darkness and loneliness and trouble, that He may sharpen and prepare them for harder work in His service. Pray that it may be so with your own pastor.”
“Second, with regard to you, my dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, this time of trial is for your furtherance. Does not God teach you, by means of it, to look beyond man to the saviour, who abideth ever: Is not God showing you that ministers are earthen vessels, easily broken, and fir only to be cast aside like a broken pitcher out of mind? Is He not bidding you look more to the treasure which was in them and which flows in all its fullness from Christ? It is a sad error into which I see many Christians falling, that of leaning upon man, mistaking friendship toward a minister for faith in the son of God.”
“Remember that before Moses was sent to deliver Israel, his hand was made leperous, as white as snow, to teach him that it was not the might of that hand that could deliver Israel (Exod. 4:6, 7). It has been the fault of some of you to lean too much on man. Now God is teaching you that, though the cistern may break, the fountain abides a open and full and free as ever–that it is not from sitting under any particular ministry that you are to get nourishment, but from being vitally united to Christ. Ministers ‘are not suffered to continue by reason of death, but Christ, because He continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood’ (Heb. 7:23, 24).”
Memoirs of McCheyne, p. 15-16
from the “First Pastoral Letter”
Observations:
- Sometimes God takes a pastor away to sharpen him for greater usefulness to the King.
- Sometimes God takes a pastor away because he is too important to the congregation. God never wants us to depend on a pastor. He wants to be at the center of all dependence.
- Sometimes God takes a pastor away because he is too comfortable and God wants to renew the pastors own dependence upon Him.
- Sometimes God takes a pastor away to teach both pastor and congregation that He is enough.
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