Blessing The Church By Encouraging Your Pastor

I love pastors.

I am a pastor, and I was raised by a pastor who, in turn, was raised by a pastor. If you’re counting, that makes me a third generation pastor. In addition, I now find myself in the wonderful position of helping other pastors to be encouraged and resourced.

Dan Nichols and I have a lot in common. In this article, Dan uses a colorful phrase (the “d**n sandwich”) to make a point we could all learn from about one of the simplest things any church member can do to build up the church, both locally and globally.

Also, you can check out my interview with Dan at Church Collaboration and Killing Consumerism in a Post-Christian Context, with Dan Nichols (ep 79).

—Karl Vaters

We might be living in the greatest pastoral leadership crisis in American church history.

Major moral failures are consistently coming to light from the famous and non-famous.

• The shortage of pastors going into vocational ministry is worse than it’s ever been. (See here, here, and here).
• The average age of lead pastors rose to 60 years old in 2024.
• Almost 40% of pastors said they’ve considered quitting post-COVID.

Recently, a pastor let me know he tried to take his own life but was thankfully unsuccessful.

Being a pastor’s kid my whole life, I saw the ugliest sides of church you could imagine — stories that would make soap operas look tame. It traumatically wounded me, my father, and my family, and caused me to hate the church for many years.

But God miraculously transformed my life’s trajectory through a supernatural calling. After being a pastor for 12+ years now, I love the church and other pastors very deeply. And I believe there’s one big reason why we’re in this pastoral crisis today.

I call it the “d**n sandwich.”

You know it as “d****d if you do; d****d if you don’t.”

Is this the only reason why we have a pastoral leadership crisis? No, of course not.

Don’t all jobs, professions, vocations, and callings have serious, unique challenges right now? Yes, of course.

But renowned leadership expert Peter Drucker put pastoring in his top four toughest jobs ever list for a reason, and I believe the “d**n sandwich” has a lot to do with it.

Blessed By The Church

Before we dive deeper, please know I’ve had the honor of serving two amazing churches who have treated me and my family better than we could ever dream.

I’m not writing this from a bad, bitter head space; I just desperately want to help pastors – especially those where I serve, in the most unchurched, post-Christian corner of the northeast United States.

If you are with me on that, please embrace what comes next because you can be the help and hope that American pastors need. If you’re part of the American Church, it’s time to ditch these “d**n sandwiches” because your pastors need you to.

Some Examples

After collecting examples from tons of pastors across the country, here are some they’ve encountered . . .

• Grow the church, just not too big.
• We need change, just not that change.
• Reach new people, just not those people.
• Preach the Bible, as long as it fits my politics.
• Help us get healthy, but it’s gotta be comfortable.
• Call out sin, just make sure it’s their sin (not mine).
• Let’s take big steps of faith without too many risks.
• We don’t need cultural diversity, just visual diversity.
• Raise funds effectively, but don’t look like you want to.
• Give me community, but don’t cut into my personal time.
• Help me grow, but don’t tell me what to do or keep me accountable.
• Live a healthy, balanced life that’s always available on-demand for me.
• We want fresh, vibrant worship, but please stop introducing new songs.
• Jesus can redeem and forgive anyone, as long as they’re not related to me.
• Intuitively anticipate my frustrations, because I won’t share them proactively.
• We want more events at the church, but we might not actually come to them.
• Pour your heart and soul into my life, but we’ll leave the church without saying boo.
• Preach deep, profound, engaging, funny, inspiring messages in minimal time frames.
• We need to mobilize more volunteers as long as they don’t make too many mistakes.
• Encourage honest, open questions, but don’t act like Scripture gives us solid answers.
• Be your authentic self as long as you’re just like my favorite podcast/YouTube preacher.
• Be friends with your church members, but don’t share any unguarded thoughts with us.  
• We want younger leadership as long as they have decades of proven experience and wisdom.
• You should enjoy social media like normal people, but don’t come off too happy or successful.

So, maybe our current pastoral leadership crisis isn’t that surprising after all. It seems like our Christian critic culture is making healthy pastoral ministry the exception rather than the rule.

Hear me clearly though, this reality does not negate the other realities of spiritual abuse and brutal religious trauma that are so very real for many, including me. I’ve personally experienced spiritual abuse and religious trauma repeatedly throughout my life.

There are many thoughtful, caring leaders today sounding those alarms and providing healing opportunities for victims of twisted spiritual leadership gone wrong. I’m so thankful for those who have helped me find healing from my own spiritual abuse scars.

But as Billy Graham said to Larry King, “Thousands of planes take off and land safely every day, but you only hear about the crashes.” As true as that is, I’m trying to sound the alarm that over the next few years, there won’t be many pastoral planes left in the air at all!

But I don’t just want to sound an alarm. I want to suggest a solution.

The Need: Pastoral Encouragement

It’s actually a very simple, biblical spiritual discipline called . . .

Encouragement.

And it’s exactly what your pastors need.

They don’t need more “d**n sandwiches.” They need courage. And you can give it!

Encouragement is dishing courage out rather than sucking courage from. Biblical encouragement is coming alongside someone else and giving them the courage to be who God’s calling them to be and do what God’s calling them to do.

Here are 5 simple ways you can encourage your pastors:

1. Care more about the kingdom than your own comforts.
2. Directly share constructive criticism while offering your helping hands.
3. Clearly and specifically let your pastors know why you’re thankful for them.
4. Share good gossip behind your pastors backs instead of tearing them down.
5. Engage church conflict with grace and truth by using a simple technique like “O.I.C.” – Observation: “Here’s what I’m seeing,” Interpretation: “Here’s how it makes me feel,” and Clarification: “Help me understand…”

You probably have more awesome ideas too. Run with them!

If we’re going to flip the script on our current pastoral leadership crisis, let’s ditch the “d**n sandwiches” and dish out courage to those who “keep watch over you as those who must give an account. Do this so that their work will be a joy, not a burden…” (Hebrews 13:17).

(Photo by Tendenci Software | Flickr)