Thank You

January 17, 2021

I think today ought to be National Thank Your Pastor Day. For nearly a year now and with no end in sight, pastors have scrambled and worked to minister to their congregations under circumstances challenging enough to discourage even the most stout-hearted of them. Their churches have been shuttered, they’ve had to master technology on the run, care for the sick and lonely through a maze of restrictions and cautionary means. They, along with our public school teachers, have persevered while watching those they love fall behind or by the wayside, and yet they keep soldiering on.

After watching our church service on TV this morning due to our quarantining, I caught a bit of T.D. Jakes preaching at the Potter’s House, an 8500 seat church in Dallas, only he was preaching to an empty auditorium. People were tuning in by live stream, but any preacher can tell you it is a world of difference between preaching to a packed hall and an empty one. For someone like Jakes, whose sermons are often punctuated by Amens and other assorted encouragements by the congregation, it must be particularly difficult.

Throughout this pandemic, I’ve often commented on how glad I am to be retired. I can see the toll all this has taken on pastors. They are tired, often worried about finances that have taken a hit since people aren’t there in person, and even more worried about those people in their churches who are on the edge; whose marriages are teetering on divorce, the substance abuser clean for just a few weeks and feeling the pull back into the old life, the lonely widow that can no longer be visited. 

These men and women need our prayers more than ever. Their families, who have to live with the one who carries a heavy load, putting in more hours away from home than usual, also need our prayers and support. People are hurting, and these caregivers are working overtime, without fanfare and often without adequate support themselves. So tonight, I pray for pastor Joe, for Brandon, Tony, and Nate, and for their families, to be strengthened by the Holy Spirit as they study the Scriptures, labor in prayer, and serve selflessly for us all.