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Think about it. If you had 100 church members, each one would have a different idea of what he or she wanted in a pastor.
God is the one who calls men to the ministry and to a certain church, and you have to accept the pastor that God gives you and be patient with him and try your very best not to compare him to other pastors. (Of course, I am not talking about biblically unqualified pastors or pastors who are leading the church contrary to God’s Word.)
You can say, “I wish my pastor would spend more time personally discipling his people like that other pastor does,” or, “I wish my pastor would spend more time with the youth like that other pastor,” or, “I wish my pastor would pay more attention to the children like that other pastor,” but he is not that other pastor.
Every pastor has strengths and weaknesses. The old deacon prayed for his pastor, “Lord, prop him up on the leaning side.” Every pastor has a leaning side. In fact, he will have multiple leaning sides, meaning weaknesses, even blind spots. And instead of criticizing his “leaning side,” we should follow the old deacon’s example and rather pray for him to be propped up on that side.
Every pastor has certain things that he will emphasize more and pay more attention to and be more gifted at. Every pastor must try to do everything that needs to be done, but no pastor has the time to do everything that could be done, and no pastor has every gift in perfection. Some will study more than others; some will be friendlier and more outgoing than others; some will evangelize more than others; some will personally disciple more than others; some will pray more than others; some will be more oriented than others toward building the families or working with children; some will be more oriented toward training preachers.
This is another reason why team ministries are so important and beneficial when God calls men to work together, as He did Paul and Barnabas (Acts 11:25-26), and when men can work together in harmony and humbly share the authority of leadership in a church. This is what we see in that church at Antioch, the first missionary church (Acts 13:1).
But the bottom line is this, church member: You cannot, and you will not, have exactly the pastor that you want. You will have the pastor that God gives you, and it is your business to benefit from that pastor’s ministry as much as you possibly can and to grow under that pastor’s ministry so that you walk in the perfect and acceptable will of God (Romans 12). That is your business, and it is a full-time business. It is your business to roll up your sleeves and to help build the church for the glory of God.
The same is true for marriage. You will not have exactly the wife or husband that you want. You will have the one that you have! Any individual that gets married with the idea of making one’s partner into what he or she wants that person to be will be sorely disappointed. The wife’s business is not to conform her husband into the image of what she wants in a husband. Her business before God is to love and honor and obey him and serve him as his help meet. The husband’s business is not to conform his wife into the image of what he wants in a wife. His business before God is to love her as Christ loved the church. This is emphasized in Ephesians 5:33. “Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband.”
Likewise, the church member’s job is not to try to conform his pastor into the image of what he wants in a pastor. His job before God is to love and honor his pastors (1 Th. 5:112-13) and obey them (Heb. 13:17) and to prosper spiritually as much as possible under their ministries and to support them and to do his or her part in building the church.
1 Corinthians 3:10-15 - “According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon. For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is. If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.”
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