{"id":1753,"date":"2016-10-26T14:17:16","date_gmt":"2016-10-26T19:17:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2016-10-26T14:17:16","modified_gmt":"2016-10-26T19:17:16","slug":"easy-ways-to-encourage-your-pastor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/2016\/10\/26\/easy-ways-to-encourage-your-pastor\/","title":{"rendered":"Easy Ways to Encourage Your Pastor"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Easy<\/a>This is the start of my most recent article for the Deeply Rooted Magazine blog<\/a>.
\nYou can read the entire article here<\/a>!<\/p>\n

I love church. I really do.\u202fI love the Church with a capital C<\/i>\u2014the church universal that Jesus died and rose for, filled with every tribe and nation and people and tongue (Rev. 7:9).<\/strong> And I love our particular church that meets every Sunday in a building that used to be a funeral home (a reminder of the beauty of going from death to life every week!). And after years in church ministry, as a pastor\u2019s wife and now as a seminarian\u2019s wife, I can unequivocally say that while church is messy and challenging and sometimes deeply painful, I know that there\u2019s nothing else I will give my life to\u2014because that\u2019s what Jesus did. If he gave his life for the church, then I will give my life to the church, to love and care for and serve his people.<\/p>\nIf Jesus gave his life for the church, then I will give my life to the church, to love and care for and serve his people. <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

While my husband and I are not in full-time ministry right now, I know what it\u2019s like to be married to a pastor, and one of the many things learned in those years of ministry is that\u202fmost pastors live in the simultaneous reality of loving what they do and also being tired.<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes pastors are just kind of tired. But other times they are exhausted. Getting to pastor the people of God is an incredible gift, but it is also a job that doesn\u2019t have very clear starting and ending times. Ministering is fluid; people don\u2019t have important questions and life crises only between the hours of 8 am and 6 pm. Work and ministry and life bleed into one another. And yes, sometimes pastors need better boundaries. But sometimes life and ministry are one and the same thing\u2014and that\u2019s ok. And tiring.<\/p>\nYour pastor is meant to be a gift to you. But you are also meant to be a gift to your pastor: <\/a><\/span>Share on X<\/a><\/span>\n

I don\u2019t know who your pastor is, and I don\u2019t know what kind of season your pastor is in. But this is the pastor that you have in this season of life, and he is meant to be a gift to you and your church family.<\/strong> The flip side of the equation is that you are meant to be a gift to your pastor, too.<\/strong> One way to do that is to intentionally encourage him and the other staff members at your church. So, as we end\u00a0Pastor Appreciation month, here are some simple ways you can encourage the pastors in your life:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Say thank you<\/strong><\/em>.<\/strong> <\/em>Say thank you when you see him on Sunday. Send a quick note of thanks to the office. Write a thank-you email regarding something specific that meant a lot to you. This will go so, so much farther than you can imagine.<\/li>\n
  2. Drop <\/b>off <\/b>coffee<\/b> or food<\/b> at the office.\u00a0<\/b><\/em>Find out when the weekly staff meeting is and drop by with donuts or coffee. You might just make the staff\u2019s entire week! They will know they are loved and thought of on days other than Sunday.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Read the rest of the article here, at Deeply Rooted<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    This is the start of my most recent article for the Deeply Rooted Magazine blog. You can read the entire article here! I love church. I really do.\u202fI love the Church with a capital C\u2014the church universal that Jesus died and rose for, filled with every tribe and nation and people and tongue (Rev. 7:9). […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1756,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4,5,7],"tags":[668,228,745,882,884,885,883,880,881],"class_list":["post-1753","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-god","category-life","category-ministry","tag-ann-swindell","tag-christian","tag-deeply-rooted-magazine","tag-encourage-my-pastor","tag-encourage-your-pastor","tag-family-ministry","tag-how-do-i-help-my-pastor","tag-pastor-appreciation","tag-pastor-appreciation-month","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Easy-Ways-to-EncourageYour-Pastor-1.jpg?fit=800%2C1200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1756"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/annswindell.com\/staging\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}