This article was written with a heart of trying to challenge pastors to not see "day off Monday" as a right but a privilege...IT IS AN OPINION PIECE and not a doctrinal stance. However, some have seen it as something more sinister and even unbiblical since I did not use a series of Bible verses, but I have now corrected that "error." Also it was written to SOME pastors as I clearly stated SOME pastors numerous times in the article (I have highlighted them with all caps to clarify that). If you are easily offended by pastors being called out for something based upon an opinion then I suggest you do not read this article. Also I am NOT better than any other pastor but after 30 years, I just know that I have seen too many churches destroyed by hirelings who see their church as a cash cow and not a ministry to serve!
Being brought up in a bi-vocational pastor’s home, “family time” was not common. We would grab a day here and there to go fishing, my father and I, or our entire family would go out to eat once in while as a special treat. But to have an entire day every week to do what we wanted never really happened. You see, my father was a bi-vocational pastor almost his entire ministry, and surely he was my entire life as I recall. Either he was teaching in a public school, he and my mother were cleaning apartment buildings, or our entire family was painting commercially to make ends meet, all the while he planted and pastored churches in the Midwest. To be honest, I really do not remember my father ever taking a certain day off. So when I got into the ministry after college and heard preacher after preacher talking about taking a “day off,” usually Monday, I was a little confused as to how that worked. I had never seen it.
But now after nearly thirty years of serving as a youth pastor (9 years) and now senior pastor (21 years) I guess I get the gist of this day off thing as pastors see the need for down time, but I still have questions:
- When did SOME pastors start seeking every Monday as their day off? It’s almost as if Sunday is such a draining day that they have to have a day to recover. I guess I am a little strange, but I thought ministering was a blessing not a burden, so shouldn’t Sunday be the pastor’s best refreshing day of the week? Yes, it is physically demanding for me to preach four times every Sunday, as well as be available to listen to people’s concerns, but that is what the ministry is all about. That should not a burden, its why pastors do what they do. Isn’t it? How can fulfilling the actual call of the ministry be such a burden that I need the next day off every week? (1 Timothy 3:2 "given to hospitality" and Mark 6:31-34 - where Jesus tried to get away but the people followed Him and did not turn them away.)
- Why should I completely disconnect from my church family one day a week? I mean SOME pastors actually ask their church family to leave them alone on Mondays so they can recover from Sunday. Yet these same pastors ask the same church members to often serve just as much on Sunday as they do, and even ask them to take their other day off, usually Saturday, to go soul winning and work around the church building, even though they have worked all week in their “real” job. No wonder some people see SOME preachers has having an easy job. (Matthew 14:23-24 shows that Jesus got alone and then when His disciples were in trouble, He immediately went to them by walking on the water.)
- Why Monday? I mean think about it. When a pastor takes every Monday off he is saying, indirectly, that he gave everything he had the day before and he has nothing left. Isn’t that kind of shallow Christianity? Should we not daily be able to lean on the Lord and not be so emptied that we cannot continue to minister to people? Think of Christ - on the cross he was suffering yet he ministered to his mother and John. (Galatians 6:9 and 2 Thessalonians 3:13 came to mind here.)
- Do our families not see that everyday is ministry day? So many pastors take Mondays off to “care for their families” and that I understand….to a degree. But SOME pastors have sacrificed their families for the sake of the ministry and that is unbiblical as our family IS our first ministry. But shouldn’t our families see our heart for people, no matter what day of the week?
Please understand that I am not saying pastors don’t need time away for themselves, their marriages, and their families. But I am questioning the motives behind the every Monday off mindset of SOME.
Is it possible that we pastors carry too much on ourselves instead of taking it to God and so Mondays off are necessary to recover? Is it possible that we think we MUST have all the answers to every burden and problem people have and so we stress ourselves out every week beyond reason? Is it possible that we need to spend more time before Sunday learning to fill ourselves daily with the Lord, so that when Sunday comes we simply do not EMPTY ourselves so deeply that every Monday off is necessary?
Why Monday, pastors? Why?
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ReplyDeleteAmazing how that is article has been criticized, via emails, as attacking pastoral time away. I am NOT challenging a pastor's need to have a day off, but challenging the reasons why they often give for that time away. It also amazing that the most viral attacks of the article are from laymen not pastors! I just returned last week from teaching/preaching to the "preacher boys" of two of the largest fundamental colleges in the US and I have to agree that some of them might be looking for positions not ministries. But to be fair, there were many, several dozen at each place, who came to me afterwards and thanked me for the honesty and transparency I shared about these issues as well as the "kick in the seat" challenge I gave them. (Their words not mine). Many of them told me, they were tired of the current feel good ministries being shared via social media and feel its time to "PREACH THE WORD!" They recognize, as do I, that there are a lot of preachers that are angry and don't care about people, but they also see the swing to the other way into the "feel good let's just share our inner most feelings" type ministries. I love serving the Lord in ministry and want others to know that it's a blessing and not a burden if a person goes into it that way. I take time away all the time, but not at the expense of my church family....but I've actually come home from vacation to do funerals, because it was the right thing to do, and, my family gets it too! My tank is full on Sunday morning and preaching doesn't empty it, it fills it again, that's why Monday is not a day off for me. That was the gist of the article but it seems that was lost in translation/presentation here.
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