The most common complaint denominational people and guest preachers hear when they call on local churches is, “I’m unhappy with our pastor.”

Invariably, it’s some lay leader of the church speaking.

The outside “expert”–and that’s how they seem to the church member–is seen as one who knows about the inner workings of churches and might be able to help.

The visitor is immediately thrown into a quandary. Does he ask for more information? Does he run the risk of appearing to meddle in a church’s internal affairs? Does he just listen and try to offer good counsel? Or does he brush off the leader with the suggestion that, “You ought to take that up with your preacher.”

Let’s state the obvious here: some pastors we ought to be unhappy with. I’m thinking of one preacher who was known to curse, tell shady stories, gamble, and drink. When he was forced out of the pulpit–and he had to be ousted–no one shed a tear. Everyone had been unhappy with him, and rightfully so.

But what about all those other situations in which some church members are unhappy with their preacher?

Let’s see if we can do some good on this subject.

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I suppose it’s a vocational hazard.

We preachers walk through the valley of the shadow with people in the church and out of it. We do our best, weep with them, tell what we know, and offer all the encouragement we can. Then, we go on to the next thing. Someone else needs us.

That family we ministered to, however, does not go on to anything. They are forever saddled with the loss of that child or parent. They still carry the hole in their heart and return to the empty house or sad playroom. However, there is one positive thing they will always carry with them.

They never forget how the pastor ministered to them.

He forgets. Not because he meant to, but because after them, he was called to more hospital rooms, more funeral homes, and more counseling situations. He walked away from that family knowing he had a choice: he could leave a piece of himself with them–his heart, his soul, something–or he could close the door on that sad room in his inner sanctum in order to be able to give of himself to the next crisis.

If he leaves a piece of himself with every broken-hearted family he works with, pretty soon there won’t be anything left.

So he turns it off when he walks away. He goes on to the next thing.

He hates himself for doing it. But it’s a survival technique. It’s the only way to last in this kind of tear-your-heart-out-and-stomp-that-sucker ministry.

Case in point.

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It’s a hard lesson to learn in life, but fans of athletes and singers, actors and other television celebrities, would do well to adjust their expectations downward concerning the personal, private lives of those individuals.

The lives of very few superstars in any category will bear close inspection.

Life keeps trying to teach us this lesson, but so many in our society refuse to learn the lesson. So we are devastated when we learn the inner secrets and hidden activities of a Tiger Woods, a Michael Jackson, or an Edward Kennedy.

The reason we go on getting disappointed in such revelations is that we keep expecting other people to be better than they are.

And perhaps better than we are.

I was 18 years old when this lesson hit me up side the head. As a college freshman in Georgia and more than a little homesick, I was glad when I saw that a certain Southern gospel quartet was coming to nearby Rome for a concert. I had grown up singing their songs and had attended two or three of their programs, so this was like a little touch of home. I knew the personnel of the group and could sing most of their material along with them.

That’s why I decided to do what I did.

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If you’ve had the television on at all in the last 24 hours, you’ve heard of the senseless death of Cincinnati Bengal’s football player Chris Henry. Apparently, he and his fiancee, the mother of his three children, were having a Tiger-and-Elin-Woods type spat and he was angry. As she drove away in her pickup truck a few miles north of Charlotte, North Carolina, he jumped in the back.

A motorist called 911 saying, “A black man is in the back of a pickup, beating on the window. It looks like he’s trying to get in. He’s wearing a cast on one arm.”

The next call to the emergency system from a second motorist reported the man lying in the highway, motionless. “It looks like he’s dead.” He was.

The victim of his temper, his uncontrolled rage? It would appear so.

One after another, representatives of the NFL, of the Bengals, and of Chris Henry’s friends, have uttered to the media and the sporting community the same three things: It’s sad, we’re sorry, and he was turning his life around.

Henry is a native of our area. Belle Chasse, just downriver from New Orleans, the location of the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station, is where he grew up and played high school ball. People there remember how “he came from nothing” and quickly found what sports stardom can do for a person. It brings great opportunities and incredible temptations.

We’ve not been told what trouble he got into during his high school or college (at West Virginia) years, but the NFL suspended him several times. He was arrested 5 times in the last 3 years for marijuana possession, driving under the influence, and such. He was only 26 years old.

“He was turning his life around.”

Okay.

The fact that he died the way he did would seem to indicate otherwise, in my opinion, that he still had uncontrolled anger problems.

But no one wants to say a bad word about the deceased. And that’s just fine. There’s no need; what would be the point?

Now you know how pastors feel at funerals.

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Luther Little was a pastor any modern preacher could admire and look up to. I became pastor of the church he served early in the 20th century, some 40 years after he was off the scene. The more I learned about him, the more I admired him.

In the 1920’s, he became the first pastor in America, we’re told, to broadcast his church services over radio. For a time, millions of people up and down the East Coast considered him their radio pastor.

One of the most fascinating aspects to this preacher, the one that stood out and made me realize there was far more to the man than first appeared, is that he was a novelist. I have no idea how many books he wrote, but somewhere along the way–in a used bookstore, I think–I ran across “Manse Dwellers,” his novel about a pastor and his family. Clearly, he was following the number one dictum for novelists: write about what you know.

This is not a review of that book.

Rather, it’s a little story about the realization that the pastor-author was strictly a man of his day with a glaring problem he did not even know about.

Luther Little had a blind spot.

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Over breakfast in a Cracker Barrel a few miles west of Nashville, Frank and I talked about his new job. After a quarter century of pastoring Southern Baptist churches, he has become a chaplain in industry. Recently, he went full-time.

“Basically, we walk the plant and talk to the workers, four or five minutes each. We’re not promoting a church or a denomination, but trying to get to know them.”

“Our object,” he said, “is to gain their confidence by showing them we aren’t selling anything or promoting anyone but Jesus.”

He works with everyone, he says, from Muslims to Jehovah’s Witnesses to Baptists to atheists.

“When we first start inside a plant or company, the workers are suspicious. They think we are a part of management.”

“Gradually, they learn we’re not. In fact, we cannot tell the boss anything they tell us without their permission.”

“Confidentiality is the rule,” Frank said.

You get your chaplains from the pastorate? I asked.

“We do. But first we have to train them, to detox them.”

That’s when I grabbed my notebook–usually along for the ride just so I can sketch someone or jot down a quick cartoon idea–and started writing.

“Tell me what you mean by detoxing the pastor,” I said.

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A few days ago, Bo Brown, pastor of Maylene, Alabama’s Community Baptist Church and as nice a brother as you’ll ever have, handed me several CDs and one DVD.

“We recorded your sermons from the revival. And Saturday when you did the deacon session, we video-taped it. It’s on the DVD.”

I was delighted for several reasons. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the churches I pastored were on live television and so every word I uttered, practically, was recorded and preserved. From 1990 onward, the FBC of Kenner, Louisiana, was not broadcasting its services, but they made periodic tapes of the sermons. I suppose they’re collecting dust in some box somewhere.

Recently, a friend in Michigan invited me up in early December to do the pastors/spouses banquet for his association. He said, “We’ll find a couple of churches for you to preach that Sunday, too.” But in order to do that–that is, to let the pastors see what they’re getting–he needed me to send him some of my recorded sermons.

Driving home from Lanett, Georgia, Thursday of this week, I decided to see what I’ll be sending Director of Ministry Bobby Gilstrap and popped the Sunday morning CD into the player.

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A friend who pastors a church not far from my home posted the following on his Facebook wall, inviting his friends to finish it: “Saturdays are for_______.”

I wrote, “You know the answer to that, Craig. You’re a pastor and you know that Saturdays are for worrying about Sunday and fretting over the sermon.”

All too true, I’m afraid.

Recently–again on Facebook–a pastor friend in Ruston, Louisiana, wrote on a Thursday, “Sermon finished. Heading home.”

What I wondered was whether he continued to fret with that sermon in his conscious and subconscious mind for the next 72 hours until preaching time arrived. I know I would have.

A young pastor whom I used to mentor some years back said in a recent phone conversation that sermon delivery is still a challenge for him. I suggested that he finish the sermon by Friday and then go for a walk or a drive and preach it a couple of times. I was surprised by his answer.

“The problem,” he said, “is the sermon is never finished by then. In fact, it goes right on growing and developing through Saturday night. Sometimes, it’s Sunday morning when the ‘aha!’ moment comes and I see what I’ve been missing in this message.”

I understand. Most preachers do.

One more reason to pray for your pastor.

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In the last few years of my ministry, as I’ve found myself addressing lots of first-time groups–something a pastor of a congregation rarely gets to do–several stories and quotes and points keep coming to the forefront.

Or, if you prefer: in my old age, I repeat myself a lot.

I like the first way of saying it better.

One expression which I now find myself working into revival sermons, pastors conferences, and now, onto my Facebook wall goes something like this: “The pastor’s job is not to make the congregation happy. In fact, his role is about as different from that as it’s possible to get. The Heavenly Father sends pastors to make the congregation healthy and to make HIM happy. When church members insist that he is there to serve and please them, they are usurping the role of God.”

Recently, I posted that on Facebook and drew a mixture of reactions.

Of the dozen or so comments, most were variations of “amen” or “I wish every church member knew that.” But one was different.

A longtime friend who made a career of campus ministry and along the way pastored a few churches and served on the occasional church staff, said, “But the opposite is true, also, Joe.”

I took that to mean that Bob Ford was pointing out that pastors should not think the congregation exists to make them happy either. A good point, Robert.

Not that most pastors would ever think that for a moment. But let’s admit the obvious here: some pastors have been royally spoiled.

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Dear Pastor, you’re a wonderful man of God. My family loves your preaching. However, there are a few things I’d like to call to your attention that will help you improve your sermons and your leadership….

What follows is a half-dozen pages of critiques, criticism, and suggestions. Pressure from the pew.

Some years back, in his book by that title, Marshall Shelley called these people “Well-Intentioned Dragons.”

These preacher-critics in the congregation mean well, I suppose–Marshall gave them the benefit of the doubt; I’m not entirely convinced–but they wear their preachers out and use them up quicker than anyone in the church.

In fact, I’ll go so far as to say that not only do the other members not know what these benevolent-serpents are doing, but they would be upset if they knew.

A little group of members of your church are harassing your pastor and doing it in loving words.

Here’s what happened to a local pastor just the other day.

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