4. Appreciation from people who talk about you behind your back.
Yes, this is similar to number three, but it’s also unique enough to have its own category, and since I’m standing on my soap box, I’ll just keep going.
If you are going to slander your pastor and totally and completely overlook the biblical process of peacemaking (think Matt. 18:15-20), please don’t give them a gift basket when you are done.
Chances are, they already know that you’ve said things about them.
Instead of helping your pastor grow, or even giving him an opportunity to change, you decided to negatively influence other people toward your pastor and then gave him a gift. I’ll take “Betray the Son of Man with a kiss?” for two hundred!
5. It makes me feel uncomfortable.
Perhaps this is more of a personal reason why I’m not big on Pastor Appreciation Month, but it’s awkward. This past Sunday, our administrative assistant put something in the bulletin about it and then someone mentioned it during the announcements, and all I could think was, “I wonder if people think I’m trying to get appreciation?”
Maybe that’s a dumb reason, but I often wonder if all this focus on appreciating pastors makes people who are less familiar with church culture a little uneasy. People already think that pastors don’t work much, despite the fact that research shows that pastors work, on average, more than 50 hours a week. Now people probably think that all this focus on appreciating the pastor was probably created by the pastor!
Anyway, those are five reasons why I’m not a huge fan of Pastor Appreciation Month.
What reasons would you add?
Or maybe you are of the opposite opinion and love it! Why?
And just so all of the readers know, this is supposed to be thought-provoking. I don’t really hate October or think it’s satanic in origin. I also realize that not all pastors are serving in positive ways, so don’t think I’m giving people in ministry a blank check either!
