The Thread Of Tenderness
"But I will gather the remnant of My flock out of all countries where I have driven them, and bring them back to their folds; and they shall be fruitful and increase. I will set up shepherds over them who will feed them; and they shall fear no more, nor be dismayed, nor shall they be lacking,” says the LORD.
(Jeremiah 23:3-4)
"The story goes something like this...when Dwight Eisenhower was President, he was speaking about leadership to a member of his staff. He put a small piece of string on his desk and then pushed it as the listener watched. The string got bunched up and moved nowhere. He then pulled the piece of string and it moved quite easily. "Pull the string and it will follow wherever you wish. Push it, and it will go nowhere at all". (Linkedin.com)
After almost 50 years of pastoral ministry, and now in a retirement stage, I can look back on those years, and remember the different feelings I had in pastoring the churches God gave me to serve. They were feelings of excitement, hope, and joy. But there were times when I had feelings of discouragement, despair, and exasperation. When progress was at a standstill, or crawling along at a very slow pace. When cooperation was not happening, and I felt the urge to take it out on my congregation.To my knowledge, I never gave into those urges. Looking back, I am very glad that I never scolded the people of God, I was serving. I tried very hard to love my congregations, and tried to lead by example. I am not saying that I was a perfect pastor, I was far from that. But I tried to softly, lovingly, encourage with God's Word. I can relate to what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Church at Thessalonica: "...Just as a nursing mother cares for her children, so we cared for you. Because we loved you so much, we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well." (1 Thessalonians 2:7b-8)
If you are a pastor of a church today, I pray that you will have this approach. I believe you will accomplish more in your time of ministry, with this approach, than being consistently critical, and causing your congregation to become discouraged. That is not to say, as the apostle Paul said in Ephesians 4:15 "Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ." There may come those times when a pastor must as Paul says to be "speaking the truth in love."
We must be careful as Christian leaders, in those times when biblical correction is necessary, that love be communicated in all of our exhortations. As the saying goes: "They won't care how much we know, until they know how much we care." GP
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