Depletion and Restoration
While doing some research on next week’s sermon, I ran across this and wanted to post.
I am not sharing this to put pastors on a pedestal, but as an encouragement to others in the ministry. It is from John Piper’s Brothers, We are Not Professionals, p. 66
Most of our people have no idea what two or three new messages a week cost us in terms of intellectual and spiritual drain. Not to mention the depletions of family pain, church decisions, and imponderable theological and moral dilemmas. I, for one, am not a self-replenishing spring. My bucket leaks, even when it is not pouring. My spirit does not revive on the run. Without time of unhurried reading and reflection, beyond the press of sermon preparation, my soul shrinks, and the specter of ministerial death arises. Few things frighten me more than the beginnings of barrenness that come from frenzied activity with little spiritual food and meditation.
The need of the church is for…pastors who feel the weight and glory of eternal reality even in the midst of a business meeting; who carry in their soul such a sense of God that they provide, by their very presence, a constant life-giving reorientation on the infinite God. If you want to stay alive to what is great and glorious and beautiful and eternal, you will have to fight for time to look through the eyes of others who were in touch with God.
With these words, he encourages us to pursue spiritually rich and substantial reading and gives suggestions. Read on, brothers — rest and restore your soul — and don’t forget to crave the pure milk of the Word like newborn babies!
Good post. Thanks for sharing!
Taking time to rest, reflect, pray, study & meditate on the word of God, expand one’s heart through Christian music & literature, receive encouragement from brethren in Christ, witness to others, and express one’s mind and heart through conversation, music, writing, art, hobbies, work and personal relationships is essential to being refreshed and replenished for anyone — especially for elders/pastors leading not only their own families but a congregation of families.
Individual believers need to find those who can and will encourage them; pastors need their fellow elders to help shoulder the work of ministry (including rotation of preaching & teaching); and churches need to consider their collective responsibilities & service together as fully-functioning believer-priests. Even with many people sharing the load and involved in proactive & constructive ways, labor is labor. We need times of rest. We need to accept that we are only one member of the body of Christ.