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Hello, my name is Brandon Haller, and I am the chair of the pastoral major at Christ for the Nation's Institute. And this is three keys to longevity and ministry.
You know, there's a lot that happens in ministry that can be challenging and can be even disappointing at times. But I believe the good far outweighs the bad if you have the right perspective and if you have the right tools in place to facilitate certain things in your life.
And number one, the number one key that I think is by far the most important is that you need to carry Jesus's burden. You see, the Bible says that Jesus's burden is light. And if life gets to the point where it's too heavy, that means somewhere along the way you picked the burden up in your own strength, and you're trying to carry it rather than allowing Christ to help you on your journey.
I remember in our church, we we inherited the second campus, and I was trying to figure out how to work our service times. And and I get stuck in my head a lot, and and I get I fall into what many called the paralysis of analysis, just overthinking. And and I was walking around a store one day, and I just was I was could not get my mind unstuck about how to make these two churches work together. And a pastor friend of mine called me, and he said, "I just wanted to check on you and see how things were going with the new campus." And I just unloaded on him on the phone, and I'm just talking and just unloading and talking more and talking about, finally he interrupts me and he says, "Stop talking." He said, "Is the burden heavy?" I said, "Oh, it's real heavy." He said, "Then it's not in Jesus's burden, and you need to start taking some steps backwards until you get to the place where the burden is light. And then every step from there forward needs to be light, filled with peace and filled with joy." You see, Isaiah 55 says that peace would lead you and joy would accompany you on your journey. And if you're not experiencing peace and joy, you may be carrying the burden on your own. So I would say make sure that you're always carrying Jesus's burden.
The second thing that I believe is a vital key for longevity is you need to have a pastor in your life. You need to have a mentor. You need to have someone to speak into your life, someone that you can go to, someone that you can reach to, someone that understands what you're going through. You know, as a shepherd of sheep, it's hard to talk to the sheep about the problems of the Shepherd because they're just sheep. They don't understand what a shepherd goes through, and they don't understand the language of the shepherd. So you need a shepherd, you need a pastor that you can talk to, that you can reach out to in your time of trouble, that you can call on that will be there to support you. You know, today there's a very sad statistic that says that 1800 pastors a month quit and walk away from the ministry and never return—1800 a month. We think about that; that means that that every month there are 1800 churches that need a pastor. And the primary reason why this is happening is because they don't have an outlet, they don't have someone to reach to, someone to talk to. Believe it or not, pastors have challenges, they have struggles, they have things that they deal with, they have weaknesses, they have faults, and they need someone that they can reach to for support. And so I would say always make sure that you have a pastor in your life, even when you are a pastor, have someone that you can reach to.
The third thing, and I and I think I don't know that this one is any more important than the others, but I think it's equally as important, and it's something that my father told me when I first started pastoring. He said, "Brandon, always make sure that the door of your heart is a revolving door that allows people to come in and allows people to go out." If your door on your heart is just an open and closed door, well, there are people that are gonna march out that door, and they're gonna slam that door, and it's gonna hurt. But if you just build a revolving door in your heart, allowing people to come in and allowing people to go out, then you find yourself in a lot better place emotionally, and you don't hold the fences as long. You you it doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt; it does hurt. It does hurt when people want people to say things, and people leave church, and those things do hurt. But it's a lot easier to get over it if you will let this revolving door allow people in and allow people now and don't hold things against you. Don't don't burn bridges. Allow people to come and go. Isn't they don't they don't know what you're going through, and you don't know what they're going through. Always give people the benefit of the doubt and be gracious to people. And I have found that the ministers walk away from ministry oftentimes not because of a lack of vision, but it really came down to how much pain they could handle and their pain threshold. And without that revolving door, they they just couldn't contain the pain any longer; they couldn't contain the stress and the frustration any longer, and they've held on to offenses, and they got bitter, and it turned their heart against the church. And then the only reasonable conclusion at that point is to walk away. But I know that God doesn't want you to walk away; He wants you in this for the long haul. And so build a revolving door on your heart.
In closing, I want to finish with this story. During World War II, there was a German pastor named Martin Niemöller, and he pastored under the reign of Adolf Hitler. And Hitler was sending soldiers into the churches to make sure that the pastors and the preachers were not speaking out against what Hitler was doing. And Martin Niemöller complied for a while, but eventually he couldn't take it anymore, and he spoke out against the atrocities that were being committed against the Jewish people. And he was immediately arrested after church, beaten up, almost killed. He was beaten so badly, he was thrown into jail. The next Monday, the next day, the chaplain of the jail was making his rounds expecting to find a drunk or a troublemaker in the prison cell. He was shocked to find a pastor that he knew, Pastor Martin Niemöller. And he looked through the jail cell; he saw him laying in a pool of his own blood. And he said, "Pastor Niemöller, is that you?" Pastor Niemöller raised his head up from the floor, only able to see out of one eye. He said, "Yeah, it's me." The jail chaplain said, "What are you doing in here?" And Martin Niemöller started crawling across the floor on his elbows. He got a hold of the prison cell bars and he pulled himself up to look that chaplain in the face. And with blood streaming down his face and one eye swollen completely shut, he said, "The greater question is why are you not in here?"
You know, there's real challenges in pastoral ministry, and there are times where you feel like you've been beaten up, and there are others that aren't willing to make stands like they probably should. But I believe that with Jesus and His burden on your life and a pastor helping lead and guide you and you building that revolving door in your heart, that you'll be able to stand up for truth and for righteousness, unwavering, to stand bold and challenge challenge what needs to be challenged and inspire what needs to be inspired and lead the Church of Jesus Christ for a long time. Again, my name is Brandon Haller, and I am the chair of the pastoral major at Christ for the Nation's Institute. To find out more information, you can go to CFNI.org.