Being Known
Simply stated, a community is a place of belonging where people unify for one reason or another. For the pastor, his community often consists of the sheep that he is called to shepherd. This shepherding consists of feeding, praying, caring for, counseling, evangelizing, and even disciplining. For a pastor to accomplish all these tasks in both a biblical and efficient manner, he must know his sheep well. Most pastors understand the high calling of knowing their sheep well, which is why they spend so much time preparing, planning, preaching, praying, and providing for all sorts of spiritual needs for their congregation.
While knowing his community is vital to the pastor, it is just as vital to allow the community to know him. He must not only feed his flock, but his flock must feed him. He must not only pray for his flock, but he must let his flock pray for him. He must not only care for his flock, but he must let them care for him. He must not only counsel his flock, but he must allow them to counsel him. He must not only remind his flock of the Gospel, but he must listen for Gospel reminders from them. In some cases, he not only disciplines, but allows the flock to discipline him.
Don’t skip over this vital task too fast. Spending one’s time and energy getting to know his flock is hard, exhausting, frustrating, and at the same time, very rewarding. There’s a personal gain at the end of those actions. Conversely, giving someone permission to enter the most intimate parts of a pastor’s life (heart, mind, will, and desires) by being open, honest, and vulnerable can be scary at best and horrifying at worst. It’s scary because information of an intimate nature can be used against someone in a punitive way. It can be horrifying because exposure could mean the loss of income as well as community. Punishment, loss of livelihood, and loss of community are three massive factors that can lead many pastors to keep everyone at arm’s length relationally.
Pastors were never meant to pastor in seclusion, as seclusion allows for self-deception and secret habitual sin oftentimes resulting in destruction. Destruction might be in the pastor’s family, his church, or even his own life. Whatever the result, if a pastor is going to care for the sheep to the best of his ability, he must allow his flock to know him. A pastor who is unwilling to allow his flock to know him sets the proverbial stage for his flock to receive some of the most devastating blows. An unknown pastor can upset the faith of some (2 Timothy 2:18), lead others astray (2 Timothy 3:6), as well as shipwreck his own faith (1 Timothy 1:19). Perhaps the great horror of the unknown pastor is that one day as he stands before Jesus, he will hear, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23).
How to be known
Be wise and selective
Wisdom in choosing your closest community is of paramount importance. Two or three mature members of that community who know both Scripture and your heart should be sufficient to hold you accountable in ways that will be helpful and hopeful. Using wisdom must never keep you from finding at least one or two people who know your desires, where you are prone to be tempted, where you have fallen into temptation in the past, what your mind is prone to think about when it’s not forced to think about anything, and so on and so forth. You must have a community in your life that knows you so that they can care for you.
Use Emotions
Emotions are simply pleasant and unpleasant indicators highlighting how the spiritual heart is functioning. Like lights on the dashboard of a car or a smoke detector in a home, emotions are tangible indicators in your life signaling spiritual inner man activity. Using these indicators, you can allow others to know you by sharing how you feel about your relationship with the Lord, your wife, your kids, the congregation, and so forth. Sharing your emotions will allow those in your community to begin to ask wise mature questions to draw out the purposes/desires/motives of your heart (Proverbs 20:5). One strong emotional indicator is fear. For you to be better known, someone from your community might ask, “What is something that you fear the church will find out about you?” or “Which emotion do you feel the strongest when you think about your marriage?”
Develop Specific Questions
General close-ended questions can deceive you into thinking that there are those who know you, when they do not. For instance, if you were to be asked the question, “Did you struggle with sexual sin this week?” you would probably answer no. Both you and the one(s) asking the question could leave that discussion feeling as though “being known” had taken place. This bit of data accomplishes very little when it comes to you being known. In contrast, if they ask you a specific open-ended question, there is a much greater opportunity for you to be known. A specific open-ended question might sound like, “Last week when your family was away for two days and you were alone, how did you spend your time?” Or, “If you could have that time to do over again, what would you do differently and why?” Specific open-ended questions help prevent self-deceit and offer a chance for your community to know you better.
Build Trust
Trust is built as promises are both made and kept. As those in your community take time to know you, and as you honestly allow your community to get to know you, you begin building trust. Building trust can be compared to building a bridge. The lighter the materials (wood) used to build the bridge, the less cargo can be carried across the bridge. Conversely, the heavier the material (iron, steel, concrete), the more cargo can be carried across the bridge. Using this analogy, if your community rarely takes time to get to know you, and/or you rarely allow your community to know you, the only “cargo” that will be carried in that relationship will be fluffy, unimportant, surface-level cargo. The harder things of life (suffering, fears, worries, temptations, failures) will never cross the relational bridge between you and you community. Out of fear, the bridge will fail, and you will remain unknown, to your detriment as well as to the detriment of those whom you have been called to shepherd.
Being known by selecting two or three people who aim to build trust with you through asking specific questions is a way for a community to love their pastor, as well as a way for a pastor to love his community. Without this kind of community interaction, both you and your congregation are at great risk. One does not have to dig too far into the annuls of the internet to find church after church that has been destroyed because the pastor was simply unknown. For the glory of God and care for the church, it is time for pastors to take a step out in faith and become known.
The post The Pastor and His Community appeared first on Focus on the Family.
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