The Jethro Group recognizes October as Pastor Appreciation month.
Your church has the potential to change our world for Christ. The health of your church is dependent on a unique and highly complex component. We call it the brains of the organization. Depending on this unique leadership engineering, your church will grow, drift into neutral or shrink. This marvelous component of leadership is so critical that its health mirrors that of your church. Without this unique component, your church thrives or dies.
Your Ministry team is the highly technical and complex component that keeps your church healthy. Paul encourages us to, “Honor those leaders who work so hard for you, who have been given the responsibility of urging and guiding you along in your obedience. Overwhelm them with appreciation and love!” (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13 MSG)
Gene Wood in his book Leading Turnaround Churches, illustrates, “each month more than 1200 pastors leave the ministry due to stress, church related issues, family issues, or burnout, fifty percent of seminary graduates leave the ministry after five years, and only 50 percent of pastors complete their working years as a pastor.”
Returning to my church office one day I spotted $18,000 worth of Pastoral encouragement on the sidewalk. Blue suede color with chrome highlights, crossover dual exhaust, slash mufflers, two cylinder 3500 rpm achieving a clean 45 mpg. Our visiting Pastor told us with great enthusiasm how his church gave his Youth Pastor and himself matching Harley Davidson touring motorcycles on Pastor Appreciation Sunday. This church invested $36,000 in Ministry encouragement. Now, the point is not the money and not the motorcycles. The beautiful point is every time these two Pastors ride to work, take a weekend tour or re-tell the story, they are reminded how much they love and are loved by their people.
I haven’t bought any of our Pastors a Hawg lately, but it is a dramatic illustration of what people working together in a team can do to collectively show their Ministry staff their love and appreciation.
Leadership is, ensuring your Ministry staff know that you care for them.
Yours in Service,
Laurie D. Kennedy
Leadership Coach
Jethro Group