When You Don't Like Your Pastor

from www.myownlittlereality.com

So here is some pastoral counsel on what to do if you don't like your pastor. Of course, if I'm your pastor that you don't like, you probably won't like what I have to say, but don't let that stop you from reading this too. But mainly this blog is dedicated to those individuals out there who might care about what I'm writing more than what their pastor is saying on Sunday morning.


Here is the big surprise: it is good to have a pastor you don't like. Oh it's good to have ones you do like too, and make no mistake, we like being liked. But we're not in this business to be liked and you didn't call us to simply be likeable, you called us to lead the congregation through the preaching of God's Holy Word. But know this, if you take this counsel seriously there are many things about having a bad pastor that will actually be for the benefit of your spiritual life. Here's what to do:

1. Trust Christ. Boom! Let's start here. Don't forget who this church really belongs to. It ain't that pastor and it ain't you. It doesn't matter that the pastor is the leader or you've been there since 1937, the church was organized to God's glory and Christ's mission. And Jesus is still the same. Even when you just lost your most beloved pastor ever, those sermons are still good. Keep trusting in Jesus. When the pastor is in your eyes a failure, good news: your church, your faith, your salvation rest in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross and the continuing work of Christ through the Holy Spirit. A bad pastor breaks the common idolatry of putting pastors on the pedestal and fating everything on the pastor's inherent awesomeness. Good pastors should be good in how they teach you to trust Christ, bad pastors are good in how they make you trust Christ. More than anything else, hear this good message that Jesus builds the church and wherever one finds him the church is to be found. At worst a pastor can ruin an institution in which the Church is found, but the communion of saints, the Church Universal, that is the product of the Holy Spirit and the very Body of Christ, a union made by His work. Even a closed congregation does not undo this confession of faith. Pastor's bear Christ, but they are not Christ. 
2. Start praying. Don't just complain and moan and hate your pastor, pray for your pastor. One moment that always stuck with me was the rantings of burdened Johannes in Bo Giertz's book Hammer of God (which I regularly have in this blog and will continue to recommend to you all). At one point Johannes reflects on his attitude towards the pastor. He says, "Then the pastor came to the pulpit. Potbelly, I thought. You can play cards and fish for trout, but you cannot feed God's poor little lambs with the Word." But then he realizes his own failure, "But I had not prayed for him. Was that love?" We often are quick to criticize and slow to pray, perhaps it ought be the other way around. I thought of this with the previous Presiding Bishop of the ELCA Mark Hanson. I have thought at times of writing to him a similar confession, that I was quick to criticize him and slow to pray for him which is not how it should be. People who think less of their pastor should all the more take to prayer for their pastor's sake. You'd be surprised what prayer can do, to both you and the pastor.
3. Study and do more for yourself and your church's ministry. If you take issue with what your pastor says, or suspect the pastor is not properly preaching law and gospel, or are "getting nothing from the sermon" then study for yourself. A bad pastor can be the initiative we need to be sure we know what the Bible actually says and how to interpret it for reproof, guidance, and comfort. It can be easy to almost let a good pastor enable undisciplined lifestyle, but when one can no longer lean wholly on such a place, those who hunger and thirst will search themselves. Really, both should be happening. The gospel should be preached and sought, but a "bad" pastor can ensure there is not just preaching and no seeking. Similar to when a pastor leaves a church and people pick up the slack and thereby actually take up more of their Christian call for the church, if the pastor seems inefficient you can actually still seek to help. If you think everyone isn't being visited: a) tell your pastor this, but b) help by doing visits too. If the pastor is rubbish at administration, try to help keep things running well (get involved in church leadership). There are actually a lot of ways people can assist the pastor, and many pastors welcome the assistance (and I'm sure all would welcome assistance over just criticism).
4. Listen anyways. You may not like your pastors sermons, but keep listening. Luther points out two things that tell us we should listen on when we don't like our pastor's preaching: a) we are more apt to praise a preacher for their style more than content (use of good stories or allegories). He would note that the people would "sleep and cough when we preach the article of justification but prick up their ears to stories." Basically, don't think simply because you don't like what they say or how they say it they are not speaking the Word of God. Scripture often shows the word to be despised as well as its preachers. The second thing Luther says is you are never too good for a poor preacher. "no man," he says, "is so learned or holy that he may neglect or despise the poorest preaching; for he does not know when the hour will come in which God will perform His work in him through the preachers." I've been guilty of thinking the bad preacher cannot preach the gospel. I once listened to a man speak, walked away totally disappointed in all he had to say. Next time he came I had no real interest in listening, but alas, I was expected to. Lo! And Behold! From his lips came wonderful good news and great stories and meaningful theology. God the Holy Spirit is at work in the church, thus you are not just listening to the preacher and should not just assume your pastor is the only one working when a sermon is preached. Always be open to the Spirit and the work of the Word. Those who shut their ears or disappear completely from church when they don't like the pastor do themselves no favors.
5. Be a Christian to your pastor anyway. And by Christian, I mean a loving brother/sister in Christ, not a passive-aggressive jerk. This sounds obvious, but Christian hospitality in churches is not a given for anyone. We often take time to talk about it with visitors (be welcoming), but how about with your pastor. A visitor really you probably have little overall expectations for anyways, and so apart from them standing out, or you failing to notice them, they are actually relatively easy to be embracing of (at least initially). But a pastor is far different, because the pastor is more clearly there to serve you (although all Christians, members and visitors alike should be to some extent at one another's service), you're "paying" this "employee" (although that is not really an accurate term technically or theologically, at least in my church body). Because of this perception, it is easy to judge on those expectations over the common Christian call and identity. Just as much as the pastor can be the easiest person to see as a Christian (especially by the community) the pastor can also be the easiest to forget is a fellow Christian by the pastor-parishioner relationship (especially when that relationship is judged in consumerist ways). Therefore, if you do not like your pastor, then deal with them the way the brother is supposed to deal with the prodigal son...come to the banquet with him. Don't separate yourself from your pastor, but in Christian love by which Christ has truly removed the dividing wall love that pastor. The power of Christ compels you (just love that I got to write that) to do so, and a lack of such love is a lack of Christ himself. The Bible reminds us to support those who are leaders and servants of the Gospel.
6. Model what you want out of your pastor. Aggression towards a pastor is more likely to return aggression and discord. Be the person you want your pastor to be. Reflect Christ for them, so that as His light shines in you the pastor may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (ever think of Jesus' command that way before?). Many of these numbers above are examples of this, but it is to say, keep extending it. As a pastor, my ministry is my engagement with the study of the Word and the sharing of it among individuals. So how that word impacts you does impact me. And giving your pastor unconditional grace is precisely what the job is about. Don't drag each other down, build each other up. Practice forgiving and being graceful.
7. Communicate displeasure with the pastor in a Christian manner. None of this is to say no beefs with pastors are not legitimate. And sometimes you need to reprove the pastor, but your issues should be handled in a Christian manner. That means sharing them with the pastor not with others about the pastor. It is unChristian to defame the pastor's reputation, and it is to the detriment of your own church to do so actually. It is helpful to point out to the pastor where you would like to see improvements/change in the pastor. That doesn't mean the pastor will listen (sometimes because it is not a realistic or necessary change, sometimes because we too are stubborn and have a hard time taking criticism and think we're always right). But the bottom line is this, if you don't tell it to your pastor, you have no reason to expect the pastor to change/amend. If you tell it in an unChristian, overly harsh, or unrealistic manner, you shouldn't be surprised when the pastor does not change. Here in the midwest, confrontation is not something we are good at. We rarely do it, and when we do we often do it poorly. But I will also say this, once the pastor knows you are making the complaints behind his/her back before going upfront to the pastor about them, you've already done a lot of damage to ever positively impacting that pastor's efforts. I will also say this: anonymous complaints are to many pastors (myself included) worth very little. If you can't stand behind your complaint, you don't seem to be taking it very seriously, and you remove any chance for conversation/defense by the pastor. And we know how the "some people have said" argument is a tactic, that often tries to give undo weight to an argument by giving the perception that more are behind it than there are, and when used that way it involves others sometimes unnecessarily. Truth, love, openness, and involving others properly are all important towards good communication.

These should be enough to get you started. But as I said in the beginning, this is good for you too. That is, these are Christian practices inserted in the time when the devil would so tempt your spirit to not be Christian. Following these means even when you don't like your pastor particularly or get much along with your pastor, the presence of the pastor will still have you: trusting in Jesus, praying, studying scripture, reading Christian literature, helping out at church, being attentive to the sermon for a good word (and trusting the Spirit to be able to give you one), embracing and treating another as a Christian, proclaiming the gospel in word/deed, and being direct and helpful in our communication. I don't guarantee this will make your pastors who you want them to be, but I believe this will benefit you both.

And pastors who are reading this, a lot of this is two-way road advice. 

Or to put this another way: the Peace of the Lord Jesus Christ, be with you all.