Pastors often get themselves into trouble and unnecessary conflict, otherwise becoming more and more discouraged, when they refuse to pastor the people who are actually at their church rather than the people they wished were at their church.
In doing so, pastors also could miss the fact that many people at their church are the best people they know.
Furthermore, we should be careful not to equate a lack of emotive expression with spiritual apathy. To be sure, certain seasons within the life of a church are marked by moments of collective exhilaration and excitement. But an absence of this spectacle isn’t a surefire mark that apathy is taking root.
The biggest question pastors must ask themselves is what they are doing to help their people take the next step in their journey with Jesus.
Excitement is not the antidote to spiritual apathy. Faithful discipleship is. While we may love a spectacle, and God does sometimes grace us with one, discipleship is more about “a long obedience in the same direction.”
