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The Death of Pastoral Expectancy

 ·   ·  ☕ 7 min read  ·  ✍️ Greg Hinnant

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👀: Original post.

My Dear Friend,

Many a pastor has started out on fire and ended up on ice. How did this happen?

Full of the inspiring call of God, the young shepherd begins leading his (or her) sheep toward green pastures. He prays long, studies hard, and speaks passionately. Some sheep are stirred, but most are unmoved.

So, the zealous young shepherd prays more, studies harder, and preaches and teaches more excellently. A few more respond, but most prefer to mill about, grazing on politics, social issues, moneymaking, or the ever-present pursuits of pleasure, leisure, and entertainment.

Deeply disappointed, and not a little puzzled, the young shepherd prays and wonders what he should do. Bishops, pastors, and ministers conferences, he imagines, have all the answers. So, he seeks other shepherds' methods and goals and begins implementing them in his life and ministry. That will awaken his sleepy sheep.

Far too often, the “wisdom” he gleans from his peers is not God’s wisdom. The apostles chose to give themselves to prayer and the ministry of the Word so the early church could grow spiritually and numerically (Acts 6:4). Many ministers today, however, are taught to give themselves to current trends and their sheep’s desires. That will lead them to the green pastures of pastoral success. So, the struggling pastor gives it a try. Besides, God’s ways don’t seem to be making any visible difference anyway.

Soon the atmosphere in his church changes - but not for the better. Spiritual interest declines even more, remaining devotional fires are snuffed out, and the pastor himself gradually becomes diluted, distracted, and finally, impotent. He prays much less, studies rarely, teaches non-biblical subjects, and preaches tepidly, if at all. No longer is he presiding over a living, growing, winsome, fruitful ekklesia, but a dead, Spiritless, thoroughly stifled, barren group of discontented sheep.

His new job, it seems, is to keep them comfortable, never convicted or challenged. His new aim is therefore to give them whatever they want! Whatever issue stirs them, he preaches on it stirringly. Whatever new thing fascinates them, he explores it with fascination. Whatever subjects tickle their ears, he gives them an earful. Whatever activities other churches are pursuing, he pursues them. All this is merely to keep his sheep comfortable - in the fold, spiritually lukewarm, underdeveloped but satisfied, and perched comfortably on their pew come every Sunday morning. They come a little, sing a little, listen a little, give a little, fellowship a little, and go home - still little in their faith, though faced with large enemies, large challenges, a large-but-unfulfilled kingdom destiny, and the larger-than-life appearing of Christ on our End-Times horizon. And, oddly, his role is now completely reversed: his sheep are leading and he is following!

But because warm bodies are holding down his cold seats, and various religious activities are pursued with a semblance of zeal, the pastor imagines he is discharging his pastoral responsibilities. If not excellently, well, at least he’s doing so “faithfully.” What’s happened?

His pastoral expectancy is dead. All the high, Spirit-inspired, biblically fed hopes he began with are dashed, and he has substituted low, uninspired, unbiblical goals for his pastoral work. He’s lost his way.

No longer does he want to see spiritual births occur, or real baptisms with the Spirit. No longer does he yearn to see spiritual hunger causing his sheep to dive headlong into Bible study as if their lives depended on it, or so thirsty they just can’t wait to get to prayer meetings to spend more time in God’s manifest presence and carry more needy souls before His throne.

No longer does he desire, much less expect, character transformation from the people. They come as they are, go as they were, and stay as they wish. No longer does he try to cultivate in them the heart of true worshipers - who sing and praise daily, even in the worst adversities, and understand worship without obedience is mere empty religiousness, and sickening to God (see Isaiah 1:10-17).

No longer does he pray daily for his sheep. Let them pray for themselves or each other, that should be enough. No longer does he seek for just the right subject, text, and illustrations in his sermons. Whatever holds their interest for twenty minutes is all they ask of him, so that’s all he gives them.

No longer does he hope to prepare his sheep for the coming of the Great Shepherd. He’s no longer sure that “rapture thing” is going to happen anyway, and he misinterprets other pastors' doubt and confusion on this subject as divine confirmation justifying his neglect of studying and teaching our blessed and purifying hope.

Though he can’t see it, he has radically changed. He’s no longer a spiritual physician seeking and administering life-changing cures, but a ministerial mortician keeping watch over the dead to be sure they look religiously acceptable. At least to the blind.

Again, I ask the core question: what ungodly thing has happened to this once-godly leader of the godly One’s sheep? Instead of leading them to the spiritual highlands of his formerly rich personal experience of Christ, he has, by his own discouragement and consistently unwise decisions, allowed them to drag him down to their carnal lowlands. And now he wanders with them through the spiritually dry wilderness of worldly, unchristlike Christianity and wonders why they don’t receive the refreshing rains of heaven regularly - as the Great Shepherd’s Second Coming draws nearer daily!

Yet there is a remedy. Here’s a loving challenge to all pastors, fiery and icy, those with surviving biblical expectations and those without them.

If your ministerial “fires” - seeking biblical goals, pleasing Christ, leading your people into the fullness of Christ and His will - still burn in your heart, stoke them. Again and again! Keep to the path that keeps your devotion burning, your discernment sharp, your messages timely, your sheep-care personal and warm, and your sheep growing and becoming more like the Chief Shepherd. Don’t let anyone or anything, whether fiends or family, water down your standards or quench your fire. When occasionally overwhelmed with frustration because you can’t get your sheep to respond, stay patient, keep praying, and trust God to raise them in His way and time to live the same spiritual, Christ-centered, Word-fed, Spirit-led lifestyle you walk in.

To pastors who have grown spiritually cold, indifferent, lethargic, and spiritually impotent with “Eli-ism” (see 1 Samuel 2:12-36; 3:13), please listen. Remember where you once were in Christ and what you once desired for your people. You were not wrong then. You just lost your way - and substituted another way that cannot satisfy you, Christ, or your sheep’s deep heart needs. So, confess these, your sins, to Christ. Expect His forgiveness (1 John 1:9). Then return to the old goals, the old ways, the old spiritual disciplines in which you once believed fervently and walked steadily.

Become thoroughly biblical again. Seek God early. Pray fervently, pray in the Spirit, and pray longer. Prayerfully and diligently study your Bible from cover to cover. Cast off all sins and turn from every distraction. Forgive every offender, including the butting, horned sheep whose stubborn sins and opposition led (with your cooperation) to your fall. Diligently seek these first works until your first love rekindles. Then resume your first ministry aflame! “Who maketh . . . his ministers a flaming fire” (Psalm 104:4). And may yours be an eternal flame!

No pastor who follows these simple biblical instructions will start out on fire and end up on ice.

On fire…

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Odunayo Rotimi
WRITTEN BY
Greg Hinnant
As a speaker, Greg has for many years ministered in churches, schools, and conferences across America and abroad.