Are you hearing me?

I wonder how many Pastors stand in front of a congregation and ask themselves,” I wonder if they are even listening?” Every Sunday they look out at blank faces praying to see a glint of something connecting from Gods word. Sometimes they see the Holy Spirit touch a person’s soul and an infusion of Holy Adrenaline called Joy fills the Pastors heart. In those moments, all of the hard heart work that has to be done becomes worth it.

However, it seems more and more common today that many who attend churches try and keep a stoic demeanor, in an attempt to conceal any conviction from Gods word. What they do not consider is they are literally starving their pastor to Spiritual death.

I need to see that look in my flocks face, it brings me joy to see Gods word working in and through them. To see the fruit of God so evident in their lives brings a joy and peace of Gods Calling into the ministry.  It is the very spiritual fruit I chew on that makes the hard times worth it. My faith as a Pastor is built upon it, I don’t know a Pastor who has not asked God, no pleaded to God about His calling into the ministry. Those who are not called will eventually find some excuse to leave the ministry, because it’s just too hard.

Charles Spurgeon wrote in Lectures to my Students,

“If any student in this room could be content to be a newspaper editor or a grocer or a farmer or a doctor or a lawyer or a senator or a king, in the name of heaven and earth, let him go his way; he is not the man in whom dwells the Spirit of God in its fullness, for a man so filled with God would utterly weary of any pursuit but that for which his inmost soul pants.”

In my 14 years of ministry, I have found my soul pants for God’s word and the effect upon people’s lives. It’s not about the money, there isn’t any, it’s not about the accolades, every nice word is directed back to Gods work in my life, it isn’t about celebrity, truth be told people avoid eye contact now that they know I’m a Pastor.  

It’s about the work of the Holy Spirit through Faith in Jesus Christs calling to be a Pastor. Many I have found view a pastor as some sort of Spiritual combatant, an employee who you can dismiss what they say when it doesn’t fit in your life. When the reality is the Pastor called into pastoral ministry is the Shepherd leading the flock to Good Spiritual food. His soul pants every waking moment to see his flock grow and flourish in God’s Grace. He toils over Gods word to bring solid Biblical food and holds it in his hands so the timid sheep can eat of it, he will be patient and put up with the pain in his back and legs when the sheep finally takes a nibble of Gods wondrous food. In that moment the Shepard’s heart soars in the heavenly realm.

Think on this the next time you hear Gods word preached, know that you may be discouraging the Pastor you are looking at. I’m not talking about some made up emotion, the pastor has discernment through the Holy Spirit to see it as fake. Just be authentic, do not look at the pastor as a combatant, but instead as one who feeds your soul. When we are convicted, encouraged or anything in-between that is the work of the Living Word of God in our lives. It is the very thing Jesus willingly gave His life for. 

In His Dust,

Pastor Ken Bascom 

Calvary Fellowship Hancock.