Appreciating Your Pastor's Family During Pastor Appreciation Month
It is week four of our pastor appreciation challenge. Pastor appreciation month is quickly coming to an end.
If there is anything harder than being a pastor, it is being the spouse or child of a pastor. The entire congregation calls upon the pastor during emergencies, and many a soccer game or date night has been skipped when a pastor urgently needed to meet, pray, and offer comfort to one of their congregants.
The family of pastors often feel like all eyes are on them at all times. The pressure of living up to the call of ministry can become very intense, especially when it may not be a call you personally feel. The family members of pastors often do a ton of unseen work at the church assisting in everything from ministry to maintenance work.
For this week's challenge, I want you to thank the spouse or children of your pastor. Let them know you appreciate everything they sacrifice on a regular basis and all the work they do behind the scenes.
But this time, I want you to pray and ask God to give you an idea of a meaningful way to bless or thank them. I believe the Holy Spirit will give you a thoughtful, personal idea that will show them that, not only were you thinking of them, God was thinking of them too.
Listening to God takes a lot of trust. Your first thought, after God gives you a good idea will probably be, "That's a terrible idea," or "That idea didn't come from God, it was just me." The devil will try to convince you that God won't answer your prayer and doesn't speak to you. Do me a favor, will you try stepping out in faith that you really do hear God? Will you try trusting that you have a renewed spirit that hears so naturally from the Holy Spirit that you almost can't even distinguish your thoughts from God's thoughts, except for that fight your flesh puts up to convince you that trusting you can hear from God is foolish.
You have to practice trusting that you can hear God, and this is the best time to practice, because worst case scenario, you bless your pastor's family in a way that isn't God's specific idea, but is still good. Best case scenario, you really heard from God, and I bet He will confirm for you that your listening and obedience mattered.
If you complete this challenge, let us know in the comments how it went for you. Tell us what idea you had. Let us know if it was a struggle for you to trust that God gave you an idea. Share your testimony of how God confirmed things for you. Or, of course, we always love to see photos of you completing challenges, because it inspires the rest of us that we are doing this together.
Amy Noel Green is a conference and keynote speaker. She is a writer and game designer who has received international press attention for her work on the video game about her son Joel, That Dragon, Cancer.
