Things that Ministers Struggle With

I have said it before that being a minister of this great Gospel is far more important than being a pilot, way critical than being a doctor, certainly much more serious than being a policeman. Ministry is the only profession that deals with the eternal well-being of souls. Something that world professionals know nothing about. Try to imagine how dark this world would be if there was no longer any Gospel preachers. Now, as vital as your Pastor is, for example, he, alongside every other servant of the Most High, faces many struggles, most of which are private-never to be known. The point of this document is to bring these things to your Christian knowledge, hoping that next time you find yourself in prayer, your spiritual leaders will receive a fair share of your petitions on their behalf.

Insecurity

This is simply a lack of confidence about one’s standing before the people of God. Sometimes it has to do with what that pastor has, or doesn’t have, in comparison with other pastors. Insecurity also manifests itself when that leader always scolds his people for “gossiping” about him. It's just a sense of fear and worry about what people might say about him; how they view him. From my own struggle with this, the cure has always been to look unto Christ. To know that I will never be good enough. For a start, I do not even have a theology certificate. This presents me with a glorious opportunity to fully depend upon the power of the Spirit of Christ. And that through Him, I am what I am and will accomplish all that He requires me to do. Another thing, as long as we are leading people, they have the right to analyze us, and even discuss about who we are, things we say in our sermons and what we stand for. There is nothing wrong with that. If you are terrified of public scrutiny, then you might as well excuse yourself from being a leader in Gospel matters.

Pride

The opposite of insecurity is, of course, the usual suspect: esteeming one’s importance beyond reality. It is when your shepherd views himself as the centre of the Christian church. As if the sun will stop rising from the East the day that man dies. Believe me, a great many of our spiritual mentors struggle with high self-esteem. “I am the angel of the house”, “I am anointed”, “I am dangerous”, “I am this and I have that…” Others are they who do not boast their pride, instead, pretend to act humble so as to use that to win human admiration. I know that I have said it before, but I don't mind repeating the fact that pride is a contradiction of the word “Christian”. I mean, what do we have that we have not received? Everything that you are; every advantage, is all given for the benefit of God’s people, not self-exaltation.

Loneliness

Through the Biblical examples like Isaiah, Jeremiah, Elijah, John the Baptist, Paul, etc, you will notice that a call to be a messenger of the Lord is a call to loneliness. Once God hand-marks you for Himself, you just can no longer relate to everyone else. For this reason, it is the reality of our local assemblies that our pastors struggle with isolation and depression. They cannot even confide in anyone, especially during dry seasons, because everybody expects them to have it all together. That is just the way it is.

Comparison

This is closely tied to the insecurity thing that is discussed above. A majority of our leaders measure the success of their ministries by how many people attend their services. They look on TV and see masses flocking to prophet so and so. They observe the church next door and notice this and that happening, then they begin to ask themselves, “Why not me?” “Why can’t I have a similar crowd following me?” “Does that mean I am not gifted?” “Does that mean I am not this or that…?” This inevitably leads to jealousy, envy and finally hatred among church leaders. The whole thing becomes a competition for numbers rather than a faithful serving of the Lord’s people. The only cure for this is to reject the lie that ministry success is determined by numbers. In fact, when it comes to spiritual matters, numbers lie every time. The most successful minister is the one whose members are mature and bear the fruit of the Spirit, regardless of whether they are 5, 25 or 250.

Sin

Sin is the enemy that troubles even the best among God’s people i.e. the anointed leaders. You will be shocked if I were to provide you with statistics of church leaders who have admitted to having serious struggles with hidden sins like pornography. To deal with this, we must avoid two extremes: the first is a casual response which says, “pastors are human too”, and the second is a strict legalistic approach which says, “pastors can never do such wickedness.” Instead, we must approach this with what I call ‘strict grace’. That is, indeed, there is a standard that we expect from the ministers of the Gospel. They are not just “humans” who are permitted to commit immorality just because everyone else does it. On the contrary, they are the examples of purity. That said, we must acknowledge the deceitfulness of sin. Which, sadly, also affects even our trusted spiritual coaches. Hence we must be gracious to our injured soldiers and be willing to help them back to the path of righteousness. The same way that Jesus, our great High Priest sympathises with our weaknesses.

Spiritual dryness

Do you know that as God's children, we expect our pastor to know everything about the Bible? Not only that, but we also expect him to give us a new sermon every week, with fresh practical applications for our lives. As unrealistic as these expectations are, that is the reality of what ministers face. Nobody understands that a preacher can have a dry season too, with nothing new to say to his people. From experience, I can tell you that sermon preparation is one of the most difficult things you can ever do.  Worse if you are expected to preach to the same people year after year. I have heard that there is even an online AI thing that prepares messages for preachers. As desperate as that is, some ministers are so dry that they have no choice but to copy and paste from the web. To fellow Gospel messengers, I advise: let us always refresh our minds with Scripture as a habit. Also, do you know that theology books are still available in Christian book stores? And all the modern resources such as commentary apps, study Bibles, Spotify podcasts, YouTube material, are all there to refresh our spiritual favour with Biblical truth. So that when we stand before our people on Sunday, we have something to say to them. Finally, as long as we have the Gospel message, we do not really need a “new message” to present. We just have to repeat that old message that is still the power of God unto salvation.

Conclusion. Friends, the point of all these words is to stir your heart as you consider the men that the good Lord has stationed to watch over your soul. And to imagine them as those clay jars that ancient kings used to store precious stones. I plead with you, dear believing friend, support your local pastor. Care for him just as he faithfully cares for you. At best, remember him in your prayers. That is the best service you can ever give to the Christian Gospel. I thank you.

Sinothi Ncube

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