Paper Pastors

Here is a link to an article the Lord used to convict me. It's over at Pyromaniacs' blog.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Now, some professed Christians sin outright, by never physically attending an actual, in-person church. We've talked about that, and they aren't our focus. But others do attend a church — physically. They come in, they sit down. They sing, they may give financially. They may look at you, Pastor, as you preach. But you know their heart belongs to another. Their real pastor isn't you. It's Dave Hunt. Or it's John Piper. Or it's John MacArthur, or Ligon Duncan, or Mark Dever, or David Cloud, or Joel Osteen. Or it's Charles Spurgeon, or D. M. Lloyd-Jones, or J. C. Ryle. Or Calvin, or Luther, or Bahnsen, or de Mar, or R. B. Thieme, or J. Vernon McGee.

Vanessa and I have been blessed to be apart of such a great church for the last 2 years. However, we must confess, there are times when we fail to recognize how blessed we really are to sit under teachers who love the Lord, desire to walk in the Spirit, and the Lord has blessed with such great knowledge and the ability to teach His words.

The article goes on to describe how the Christians whose hearts belong to these other pastors do so because they dictate what comes into their lives: If they don't like that they convicted by a sermon, they can turn off their ipod. Or if sins are revealed to them, and they see how vile they are, they can just shut the book. Furthermore, they can't actually sit down and discuss anything with these pastors, so if the pastor says something they don't agree, they can just have the argument in their head, and eventually convince themselves that they're opinion is right, and the pastor's is wrong.

But God's design is for Christians to sit under a real pastor: Someone who can know us by name. Someone who knows where we work. Someone who knows what we struggle with so they can ask us how we are doing in those areas. Someone who can rejoice with us when we our rejoicing, or mourn with us when we are sad.

Anyways, I greatly enjoy listening to pastors like Mark Driscoll, John Piper and Sinclair Ferguson. However, I don't think of them as "my" pastors rather than the pastors that are over me at Christ Church (Pastor Bowers and Pastor Legare). But what the Lord convicted me of is the fact that I do a horrible job of serving my pastors (praying for them, encouraging them, sharing with them how the Lord uses them to bless me, etc). So, if you would, please pray that the Lord would enable me to do a better job at that. And I'll be praying that the Lord will help those of you who struggle with either not serving your pastor, or viewing a "paper pastor" as "your" pastor instead of the pastor God has placed over you.