Sharing the Load

Sharing the Load

Galatians 6:2

            Last week I quoted Pastor Mervin Oglethorpe’s self-introduction from the musical Smoke on the Mountain, by Connie Ray and Alan Bailey.  To refresh your memory, here is what he said:  “As Preacher, Choir Director, Chairman of Finance, Director of Education, and Youth Director, I’d like to welcome you to Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.”

            I used this introduction to convey the idea that each of us must contribute our spiritual gifts for the good of the whole.  Everyone has to help if the church is going to fulfill its mission in this world—bringing in the kingdom of God.

            My wife is always the first one to read what I write.  She checks for typos.  Also, if I’ve written something that doesn’t make sense to her I know I have to explain myself better.  This morning, while we were walking she said, “I expected you to use that quote to move in an entirely different direction.”  What she suggested was at least as good as my idea, so here goes!  This is the direction she thought I would go.

            A colleague of mine recently said in a presentation to other ministers that congregations either deify or demonize their pastors.  I expect that’s true—and if the pastor doesn’t meet the first criteria that condemns him/her to meet the second one. 

            Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), none of us qualify for the first, and only a dastardly few qualify for the second alternative.  None of us is perfect, pastors or otherwise.  We know this, but it’s easy to forget.  If any pastor I know tried to live up to Oglethorpe’s job description, he/she would soon be burnt to a cinder.  No one can do all that work and survive.  There are only so many hours in a day, and some of them must be given over to eating and sleeping—to say nothing of family life, study, and just plain down time.  Remember, even Jesus needed to get away for time alone with his heavenly Father.

            Through the Holy Spirit, God has given each of us spiritual gifts, and we must use them so the church can achieve its mission; but that’s not the only reason everyone should contribute his/her gifts.  Paul got it right when he told the Galatians that they should, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

            Throughout the three years of his active ministry, Jesus prepared his disciples for the time he would leave them.  He knew they would have to carry on the work he had begun.  I suspect he chose those specific people because he knew somehow the gifts they had to share with the world.  Some were preachers.  Some were teachers.  Others were administrators, or adept at visiting and providing healing for the sick.  Some possessed the kind of insight that allowed them to dream dreams and see visions.  All of these gifts were necessary if this new religion, scattered in little pockets throughout the Roman Empire, was to survive.

            Nor could they work alone.  Each person’s gift provided a piece of the puzzle—a puzzle that couldn’t be complete unless everyone contributed.  They all had to bring their gifts to the table, where each gift could be complemented by all other gifts.

            So it is with our churches today.  Each of us has gifts, and we must use those gifts to lighten each other’s load.  No one—not the pastor, or the church secretary, or the elders or deacons, or any other individual or group can do the work alone.  Especially we must help bear our pastors’ burdens, giving them time to study, to pray, to spend time with their families, to get away from it all and recharge their batteries.  If we want our pastors to be more effective, we must help bear their burdens—and so fulfill the law of Christ.