I was surprised how deeply Mike’s visit and prayer touched me.

I had told our church staff that Margaret would be having foot surgery the following day and that they should not bother coming by the hospital. And yet, the next morning, there he was–Mike Dupont, our student minister, come to pray for his pastor-and-wife on his assigned day to make the hospital rounds.

Margaret had been prepped for surgery and we were idling away the time, waiting for the OR people to come for her. In walked Mike. He gave Margaret a hug–she thought of him as one of her sons–and we chatted. Then he led us in prayer and left.

A warmth passed over me, a feeling of being loved and ministered to.

This certainly was not the first time I’d been in the hospital and visited by a church member or a minister. As a veteran of several surgeries, both serious and minor, beginning at the age of 9, I have known my share of hospitalizations and been ministered to on numerous occasions by clergy and laity alike. But this was special, for reasons I cannot tell you.

That was some six or seven years ago, and I remember Mike’s visit like it was this morning.

If I were a betting man, I’d wager that I’m not alone in being surprised at how a hospital visit and prayer could bless a minister. My strong hunch is that most church members have never given a thought to the pastor needing a personal visit and prayer or some similar touch.

Now, having said that, we need to try to clarify something.

Not every pastor needs a church member to walk in this morning and lead him in prayer.

We’re all different and all in a state of flux, of change, of growth and movement and transition. What works today doesn’t necessarily work tomorrow. What I crave today might be irrelevant in a week.

Some pastors need a note in the mail. Others do not. Some would love to have a pan of home-made muffins or chocolate chip cookies delivered at the pastorium this evening. Others might not. (I would!) A book or certificate to the local bookstore is ideal for some, not for others.

The church consultant told a panel of congregational leaders that their ministerial staff was feeling unloved and unappreciated. So, they ran a note in the bulletin that the following Sunday night after the evening worship service, a fellowship in the staff’s honor would be held in the parish hall. The ladies of the congregation served kool-aid and sugar cookies and people filed by to shake their hands and say, “We love and appreciate you.” The council checked this off their list. They had appreciated the ministers.

Some people just don’t get it.

The idea is to know your minister(s) and learn what would meet their needs most.

Remember Gary Chapman’s “5 languages of love”? Not everyone speaks the same language. Since we’re all different, someone is needing a gift, someone hungers for a word of affirmation, while another needs a hug or a helping hand. Someone needs a $20 bill slipped into his fist on the way out the door, and another pastor needs the official board to demand he take a two-week vacation and give him and his family a key to the beach condo that has been reserved for them.

Another pastor needs nothing like that. He is dying for a member of the congregation to stand up and speak out in his support regarding a crucial matter the church is facing and for which he is taking a great deal of flak.

Ask the Father what your preacher (or staffer) needs.

I told you about Pastor Ted Traylor of Pensacola’s Olive Baptist Church. He had been forced to ask for the resignation of a longtime staff member for good reason, even though he had worked for a harmonious resolution of their differences. The departing minister had hundreds of upset friends in that church and in the next monthly business conference, they made sure the pastor knew of their unhappiness. Pastor Ted was criticized, harangued, and opposed with all the vigor and fury they could mount. Over the next weeks, church members made the Traylors’ lives miserable, even to the point of sending anonymous notes to the pastor’s wife and speaking harshly to her in the market.

It was absolutely the lowest point in Pastor Traylor’s long ministry. Relating this story in Leadership Journal, he comments, “Had a pastor search committee arrived, I would have gone with them.”

Then, one night, when things were at their worst, the pastor and his son were returning from the boy’s ball game. They noticed three men standing under a street lamp in front of the pastor’s home. Ted recognized them as his best friends in the congregation and wondered if they had come to ask for his resignation.

“Pastor,” one of the men said, “Do you remember in Second Samuel 23 where David was in the middle of the fight of his life and began to wish for water from home, back in Bethlehem? And two men broke through the line and brought him some?”

“Well,” he said, “We’ve been on a little trip today. The three of us made the drive to Pisgah.”

Ted Traylor grew up in the Northeast Alabama community of Pisgah, several hundred miles north of Pensacola.

“We visited with your mother and your dad,” one said. “We recall how you speak about that artesian well back at home where the water is so cold and refreshing. When you were a teenager, you would bury your head in the water and enjoy it.”

“Well,” he said, “we’ve brought you this.” He handed the pastor a jar of water from the well back at home.

By now, the pastor was in tears.

“And not only that, preacher,” one of the men said. “You’ve told us how when you were a teenager and God called you to preach, you used to stand out on the brow of the mountain and talk to the Lord and practice your sermons. Well, we brought you something.”

He pulled two large stones out of a bag, rocks they had taken from that mountain. “Pastor, anytime you start to feeling low, we want you to stand on these rocks and remind yourself that the God who called you into this work is mighty enough to sustain you in it.”

“We noticed the rhododendrons on that mountainside, pastor,” one said. He pulled out a coffee can filled with soil, out of which a bloom was poking.

“We want you to remember that the Lily of the Valley is the Rose of Sharon and can put the bloom back into your life.”

“Preacher,” the leader of the group said, “we talked all day, six hours up and six hours back. And we want you to know something. We will die for you. We mean it, we will die for you. If you will be moral and biblical and faithful, we will die for you.”

He paused and added, “But if you are immoral and unbiblical and unfaithful, preacher, we will kill you.” And they all laughed.

One of the others added, “It’s not about you, pastor. We are doing this out of our commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Read your Bible and you will eventually see that the Lord takes personally the way people treat His ministers.

(I shared the Ted Traylor story last Sunday night at the ordination of deacons in our church to remind these new church leaders of a critical responsibility they have to care for the shepherds. Pastor Mike Miller said, “I’ve heard Dr. Traylor tell that story.” I read it, as I noted above, in a 2004 issue of Leadership, and believe it to be the finest example I’ve ever seen of people ministering to the minister at a time when he needed it most.)

Ideally, we would hope the church leaders–whoever that is in your congregation, every church is unique–would take the initiative in this. However, if you are not among the leaders but believe your church’s shepherds are hungering for a word of affirmation or encouragement, take the lead yourself.

Pull in your closest friends and get counsel on the best way to encourage the ministers. Think big. Be bold. Enlarge the movement to include the rest of the church, especially Sunday School teachers and committees and the deacons.

Be prepared to run into people in your church who want to keep the pastors needy. “We don’t want to spoil them,” you will hear. “We don’t want to set a precedent.” “Wait until his fifth anniversary.”

It’s truly amazing how miserly some shriveled souls can think, how unloving some who call themselves Christians can be, how sparingly some of us want to give.

Don’t be discouraged. Simply answer, “If you don’t want to have a part in this, it’s fine. The rest of us do.” Then go forward.

Do not do this because James Dobson says October is the month to appreciate ministers. Do not do this because Joe McKeever told you an inspiring story or laid a guilt trip on you.

Do it because it’s the right thing to do.

No church ever did anything but bless itself by being generous and loving toward its ministers.