While cleaning out old files in preparation for vacating the pastor’s office and moving across town into my office, I came across this and thought you might appreciate it. The heading was “Let Me Explain Your Pastor to You.” The source was a file from 1994 and, from the notes in the margin, I was talking to the ministers and office support staff at our church. I share it now for someone struggling to get a fix on your minister. Maybe this will help.

1. Your pastor is very sincere about the Lord. His faith, salvation, life, death, heaven, and hell—these are subjects that matter deeply to him. Yet, he loves to hear jokes and tell funny stories about them.

2. Pastors are generalists—not specialists—and interested in everything and everyone. He can do a lot of things fairly well, but almost nothing really great. He desperately needs people around him who can handle details. Match a pastor up with an assistant who is also a generalist and the church is in trouble!

3. He worries about his denomination. He gripes and vows he will quit attending its annual meetings, but he cannot say ‘no’ when asked to serve on a committee or program.

4. He has a strong sense of guilt that causes him to do a lot of what he does. He calls on his critics because he knows they are at least partly right. He’s usually too quick to apologize. He knows his own weaknesses so thoroughly that he is amazed God could use someone like him, and is not surprised that some in the church wish he would leave. That does not, however, keep their criticism from hurting.

5. The pastor has a love/hate relationship with the church. He loves it when the members are doing right, when they put their eyes on the Lord and do their jobs. But he hates the way church members sometimes bicker, do not keep their commitments, and impose impossible expectations on everyone except themselves. He loves to minister to people, yet sometimes-not always—resents being pulled away from time for himself or his family. You would never know this, however, because when he arrives at your home, the hospital, or the mortuary, he is in his place doing what God called him to do.

6. One of the main reasons he visits hospitals and shut-ins is becausehe hates being cooped up in the office for lengthy periods. His own inner needs demand that he occasionally get away from people and the tyranny of the urgent, to be alone with the Lord and his own thoughts. After making the rounds in the hospital, he can be found in the rear of the cafeteria with a cup of coffee and a magazine he’s been carrying around for a week, hoping to find time to read.

7. He has a love/hate relationship with preaching. He enjoys preaching, but has to make himself study. He thrills when his preaching makes a difference in someone’s life, but knows his methods could stand improvement. He is aware of his shortcomings, but takes it personally when someone walks out of church saying, “I was not fed today.” 8. He loves to be appreciated by the congregation but often forgets those closest to him. He frequently takes his family for granted and forgets to thank the other ministers and office staff whose labors are so crucial to his own success.

9. He fights a never-ending battle with stress. Sometimes he copes with the stress through exercise, walking, golf, television, and overeating, and at other times it gets to him as he grows negative, quits, or gets sick.

10. He knows he cannot satisfy everyone and should not even try, but it hurts when he learns that he didn’t . Jesus said, “I always do the things that please the Father,” and the pastor wants to be able to say it of himself. The Lord warned His followers to “beware when all men speak well of you,” but nothing thrills the preacher so much as hearing that church members are speaking well of him in the community. That’s one more reason for his guilt.

Every pastor needs strong people around him as helpers and advisers. He is such a mixture of strengths and weaknesses that, unless someone who loves him tells him the truth about himself, he will fail to live up to his potential and go down in the flames of his own inconsistencies.

Underneath the title of “Let me explain your pastor to you,” I see a scribbled footnote of 1994: “For 90% of you.” Meaning that not all pastors are this way, but most are. And not all ministerial staff members need help in understanding their spiritual leaders, but 90% do.

I hope this helps. I hope it does not disillusion anyone about your minister. If it threatens to do so, say to yourself, “Not my pastor. He’s a better man than that.” He probably is. Ten percent are.