How to have radical love for your church leaders – 1 Thessalonians 5:12–13, Part 3

Editor’s Note: This week we welcome guest blogger, Emily Marks. Emily is an adult & community educator. She and her husband Sean live in Lancaster, PA, with their dog Corvus. Emily grew up as a pastor’s kid, and therefore she brings a wealth of experience and a unique perspective to this week’s passage.

As you think about how you relate to the leaders of your church, consider the famous Love chapter of the Bible:

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4–8)

Will our pastors and leaders make mistakes? Of course. They are humans. The story goes that one time at Faith Church, Pastor Joel showed a little too much of the film The Matrix during a sermon illustration. I wasn’t a part of Faith Church at the time, but I heard it was rough. The next Sunday, he apologized. And if we love our leaders, we keep no record of wrongs. Losing esteem for pastors over mistakes they apologize for and grow from would not be in line with this exhortation of Paul’s to esteem and love the leaders who are spiritually guiding us.

Love is not easily angered.

Our pastors and leaders call us out, warning us against poor behavior. They sometimes say important say important things that might hurt us a bit. But if we love our spiritual leaders, we believe that God has things to share with us through them, and we should not be easily angered but instead challenged by what we learn from them

Love is not self-seeking.

We should not come to worship services and expect that our pastors are here to tell us what WE want to hear. That is not their responsibility. And if we love them, we will remember that and hold them in proper esteem when they say things that are not what we want to hear.

I’m not going to go through the entire love chapter because I think you understand what I’m saying. Think of what other attitudes and actions flow from relationships that are rooted in a Christ-like love.

For example, when you love someone, you care for others in their family.

If you see one of the pastor’s kids turning into “one of those pastor’s kids,” maybe instead of criticizing or judging, you approach with the posture of “raising kids is HARD. How can we lovingly support you while you raise kids like the rest of us, but in this unique situation?”

When you love someone, you respect their personal autonomy.

Pastors have lives outside of the church. Their personal lives should reflect Christ and his values always, as all of ours should, but their lives don’t need to look the way you “think” a pastor’s life should look. The church should also take care to ensure that family time is respected as much as possible. Pastor’s responsibilities don’t stop when they go home, because situations in which we may need pastoral care don’t always happen during business hours. So we should respect family time that happens, and we should be gracious and respectful with vacation days.

When you love someone, you care about their security.

You don’t dangle the future of someone’s career in front of them or hold it over them as a threat to get things done in a church the way you think they should be done. We as congregation members should remember that while this is a calling, this is also a job that sustains a family, and we should treat is as such.

When you love someone, you defend them.

Pastors have special giftings from God. Again, pastors will make mistakes, but if pastors are unfairly targeted by persons in a church, the other congregation members should come to the pastor’s defense out of love and recognition of the pastor’s calling, and not hold the happiness or satisfaction of a congregation member as higher than that calling. There can be one less person in a pew if the pastor is following Christ. Leadership behind the pastor should firmly defend the pastor and not allow congregation members to bully anyone into agreeing with opinions or preferences.

Our actions and reactions towards our leaders and their families and life situations should be rooted in radical love. Examine your attitude and actions toward the leaders of your church. Do you treat them with “radical love”?

Photo by Emmanuel Phaeton on Unsplash