Guest post: what support for your pastor looks like
October is Pastor Appreciation Month, but like all Hallmark observances, this observance really points toward the need to value who your pastor is and what your pastor does all the time. Recently Rev. Joanna D’Agostino, pastor of Lakewood Congregational Church in Ohio, told me about the ways her congregation supports her. She graciously agreed to guest write a post about what this care looks like, what it means to her, and how other churches might show appreciation to their leaders. Below are her good words in response to my questions.
On a recent call with Laura, I was sharing about some of my frustrations with ministry and church, time-management and focus, and just the heaviness of it all. But I felt the need to clarify to her, “I have so much support from my church.” Ministry is really hard, but it’s a game-changer to be a part of a church that values my health and my clarity of call and recognizes that we are in Covenant with one another. I’ve felt this at both churches I’ve served over the course of 10 years of ministry, but I don’t think I’m in the majority in that regard.
What are a few specific ways your congregation has shown that it values your ministry?
Small ways: They laugh with me. We’re silly together. It’s really in the little things – we have a bust of William Shakespeare that our custodian moves to a different, unexpected part of the building every week or so, just for fun. Recently someone put googly eyes on it, which makes it even funnier. We have a pretty robust musical theater ministry, which means every once in a while someone pops into the office with some costume elements they picked up at the thrift store. We test them out, and we just laugh.
I have occasionally talked about the fact that I played the bassoon through college, but stopped playing when I graduated because I didn’t own one. Recently a church member, who is the band director at a local high school, came into worship and handed me a bassoon reed (it’s a double-reed instrument) and said, “You now have a bassoon on loan in the music office. We expect you to play in the church talent show.” (Yes, we have a church talent show!) So, now I’m trying to learn how to play again. It doesn’t seem like your traditional understanding of “support,” but it reminds us to find joy. Always find joy.
Larger ways: They pay me well. It feels so obvious that justice-oriented churches should pay their pastors well. Unfortunately, it isn’t a given. I know budgets are tight and times are hard. It’s not always simple. But the reality is many pastors don’t know how they’re going to pay their energy bill, and it is really hard to do good ministry from a place of personal scarcity. In many ways, that’s a whole different blog topic, but I guess I’ll just say this: It is worth the budgetary stretch to pay your pastors well. (P.S. I’m not trying to say I’m making millions over here; just that I have enough.)
They trust me to make decisions about my time. I’ve heard a lot of pastors talk about their congregants critiquing their schedules: that they’re in the office too much or not enough; they don’t attend enough meetings or need to do more home visits; they should work on their sermons more or be more visible in the community. Time management for pastors is incredibly challenging. Ministry is in the interruptions– and there are so, so, so many interruptions. And on top of that, many of those interruptions are confidential, so we can’t explain why our focus for the day changed so drastically. Especially in a small-staff church, the work of a pastor falls almost entirely under “other duties as assigned.” We might have a plan for the day, but one interruption can send it off the rails. The point is – hearing critiques from church members about how we spend our time is really just salt in the wound that leads pastors to feeling so deeply misunderstood and underappreciated for the hard work of prioritizing when everything feels important.
I’ve rarely met a pastor who wasn’t working hard. It means a lot to be surrounded by people who really believe we’re doing the best we can.
What difference does that support make for how you show up as a pastoral leader?
The churches I’ve served have helped me to see that I can lead from a baseline of grace. That means I don’t have to show up perfectly every time. Not every sermon is going to be out of the park. Some days I’m going to be in a bad mood. I show up knowing that the worst case scenario is that “tomorrow is another day to try again.” The worst-case scenario is that someone will come to me and say, “You know, I had a bad day too. You’re not alone.” Sometimes the most beautiful pastoral care moments flow from just being human with other humans.
And, to return to the point I made about laughing: perfection isn’t very funny anyway. Messing up is funny. Being a human with other humans is funny. And humor is so very, very full of grace.
What advice would you give to a church wanting to show appreciation to a minister, particularly in this season when pastoral burnout is rampant?
Don’t sweat the small stuff. Choose your battles. A bulletin typo isn’t the hill to die on, I promise.
When was the last time you asked your pastor how they’re doing? Not, “Good morning, how are you?” but a real, genuine, “How is it with your soul?” Ask it. They might cry. The answer might not be what you want to hear. But I cannot overstate the importance of just letting pastors (or anyone, really!) know we genuinely care about their well-being.
I remember once when a colleague asked two questions that I have carried with me: 1. What brings you the most joy in your ministry? 2. Does your congregation know that? I really think it’s easy to lose track of why we’re in this work to begin with. It’s especially easy to lose track of it if we haven’t let our congregation know. If you’re a congregant, my advice is: ask your pastor about their call story. Ask them about where they see God in their ministry today. Ask them what brings them joy in ministry. If you’re a pastor you might need to offer some prompting: tell your call story. Tell your church where you saw God this week. Tell them why you’ve dedicated so much of your life to this messy human institution. Because when we begin to tell stories about discipleship and grace and joy, we start to remember why church matters, and that’s where the Spirit thrives.