A proven elders view of "Spiritual Authority"

I recently had the opportunity to sit down and talk with an esteemed elder , who had pastored for over 50 years. I was very grateful and excited to have the opportunity to visit with him and honored that he would take close to three hours of his time to talk with me. As you might imagine we had opportunity to discuss many things during that time, and I won't try to disclose them all here. However there were a few things that jumped out at me and I would like to share them with you.

After completing a nice meal that he and his wife had so graciously served us, I led in to the conversation with this question. "Elder can you speak to me as a young new Pastor about how a man keeps his peace of mind while Pastoring"? Without hesitation the elder gave me an answer that I was not expecting. He folded his hands together, sat forward slightly, and said, "don't over-preach pastoral authority." Seeing what must have been a bit of a surprised look on my face, he continued on and began to explain.

You see, excessive focus on Pastoral Authority elevates a man to a place of unrealistic expectations. Expectation both from himself and the people he serves, becomes greater than what he can live up to. This creates stress, drives him to secrecy in his failures, and leaves him easily offended. The stress comes when he is trying to perform at a level of "near divinity" which the people have come to expect. He begins to hide his sin because he cannot admit his faults or failures with this perceived level of perfection, and the offenses come because he feels that he deserves better than what he is getting! And all of this because he built himself up through his own preaching!

The remedy, the elder said, is for a man to view himself as a servant. When he views himself as a lowly servant he won't build these unattainable expectations. The elder paused and smiled as he said, "you can't knock a man down when he's already on the ground, you can only knock him down if he has elevated himself. You can't offend a servant, when you tell him to go get your water or to wash your feet he will only smile at you and say I would be glad to! The servant isn't offended because the servant doesn't feel he deserved better than what he got! "

Close to the end of our conversation, he said to me, "Jesus is our example and when he came he came as lowly as anyone could come. He lived an humble life with the attitude of a servant and was not offended. Although Jesus knew what it was to hurt, He wept but he never pouted!" I left that evening with much to think about, and today I am still thinking … and trying to put it into practice!


This was forwarded to me by one of my friends. He agreed to allow me to post it.

Consider it....

As always I welcome your comments.

Thank you for reading today



Lm
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