Both Saturday and Sunday of last week, the members of the church that I have had the honor of leading for the last fourteen years gave me and Sandy a wonderful surprise. They expressed their love by celebrating our ministry there! It was wonderful! I can’t remember the last time I laugh and eat so much. The gifts were wonderful, the fellowship was outstanding and the expression of apparition could not have been matched—even if they had spent a million dollars.

Each year in the African American tradition of church, there is this type of celebration and show of apparition for the pastor and his or her family. In the past I have struggled with this, because I did not want—and still don’t, want a church built on my personality and thus, me focused. However, over the past three years I have experiences personally, what I had only know intellectually. That is the pain of lies, and betrayal. As a result, this year was a new beginning for me and a greater apparition of people wanting to love on me and my family.

Leading God’s people is hard work! All of the data shows this to be true. A study of 301 clergy revealed: 66% feel lonely and isolated, 80% sometimes experience feelings of futility, and 90% suffer stress because of problems with parishioners. Many are tired after a 55-hour week, but most say they are 95% satisfied with their work. The pastor teaches, though he must solicit his own classes. He heals, though without pills or knife. He is sometimes a lawyer, often a social worker, something of an editor, a bit of a philosopher and entertainer, a salesman, a decorative piece for public functions, and he is supposed to be a scholar. He visits the sick, marries people, buries the dead, labors to console those who sorrow and to admonish those who sin, and tries to stay sweet when chided for not doing his duty. He plans programs, appoints committees when he can get them, spends considerable time in keeping people out of each other’s hair. Between times he prepares a sermon and preaches it on Sunday to those who don’t happen to have any other engagement.

Then on Monday he smiles when some jovial chap roars, “What a job—one day a week!”
Not long ago a well-meaning group of laymen came from a neighboring church to see me. They wanted me to advise them on some convenient and painless method of getting rid of their pastor. I’m afraid, however, that I wasn’t much help to them. At the time I had not had the occasion to give the matter serious thought. But since then I have pondered the matter a great deal, and the next time anyone comes for advice on how to get rid of a pastor, here’s what I’ll tell him:

1. Look the pastor straight in the eye while he’s preaching and say “Amen” once in a while and he’ll preach himself to death.
2. Pat him on the back and brag on is good points and he’ll probably work himself to death.
3. Rededicate your life to Christ and ask the preacher for some job to do, preferably some lost person you could win to Christ, and he’ll die of heart failure.
4. Get the church to unite in prayer for the preacher and he’ll soon become so effective that some larger church will take him off your hands.

I thank God for the members of Come As You Are Community Church! There expressions of love on that Saturday and Sunday reminded me of the reason I joy accepted their invitation to me to be their pastor. Oh, that every pastor and/or leader could experience what Sandy and I experienced they love, labor over and lead. Once during Queen Victoria’s reign, she heard that the wife of a common laborer had lost her baby. Having experienced deep sorrow herself, she felt moved to express her sympathy. So she called on the bereaved woman one day and spent some time with her. After she left, the neighbors asked what the queen had said.
“Nothing,” replied the grieving mother. “She simply put her hands on mine, and we silently wept together.”
Over the past three years, we wept together. Over a period of frothy-eight hours we laughed, song, shared tears of joy and eat together. I never, will forget it! And I thank God for what we are together.

THANK YOU!
D'onta Sanders gives his impression of me durning durning the Pastorl Celebration of 14 years.