Sometimes a preposition makes all the difference. We do not need to look far to find examples of Christians who fight with their pastor. If you speak to just about any one of them I expect he will be able to tell you of people who have fought him tooth and nail over some peeve, some cause, some perceived slight. But much rarer are those who fight for their pastor, those who honor him and his position by battling for his success, for his joy, for his encouragement.

A couple of weeks ago I shared a review of Michael Kruger’s Bully Pulpit, a book that addresses the problem of heavy-handed leadership or spiritual abuse. And while that issue has received a lot of attention of late, it is important to acknowledge that the great majority of pastors are leading in love and serving their churches well. Hence, I wanted to draw your attention to Peter Orr’s new book Fight for Your Pastor—a book that encourages you to do exactly what the title indicates.
While it has always been difficult to be a pastor, it seems that there are some unique challenges today. “Think of the difference between climate and weather,” says Orr. “The ‘climate’ for pastoral ministry is constant. The world, the flesh, and the devil are long-term climate factors that remain between Christ’s first and second coming. But it feels as if—in the West, at least—there’s been a change in the ‘weather.’ There is now a general weather front of apostasy, secularism, unbelief, and so on that is making the life of a pastor—particularly a conservative, complementarian, and evangelical one—more difficult. Whether on matters of sexual ethics, gender, or the uniqueness of Christ, a faithful pastor who proclaims and stands for the word of God faces rising hostility from the world.”
That kind of pressure comes from outside the church but there is also pressure from within—pressure related to a rising awareness of spiritual abuse, pressure related to having to lead through a time of pandemic, pressure related to being commonly and often unfavorably compared to pastors whose ministries are so easy to see through the internet. Hence, “this short book is written as a call to more actively love and support our pastors. If you are reading this book, I am sure you love your pastor, but I want to nudge you to love him more intentionally. I invite you to pause and think about how you can support him more. In short, I am calling you to fight for your pastor.”
Orr structures the book around seven imperatives:

Fight! for your pastor by praying for him, acknowledging that “the person who is under more satanic attack than anyone else you know is your pastor. The person whose faith Satan wants to derail the most is your pastor. The person whose marriage Satan would most like to wreck, whose kids he most wants to cause to rebel, whom he most wants to discourage is your pastor. You need to fight in prayer for your pastor.”
Encourage! your pastor by deliberately acknowledging the blessing he is and intentionally building him up. “Sometimes we think that people have to earn our respect and admiration. They have to prove themselves. God’s economy differs: the pastor he has placed over us is, from the beginning, worthy of a respect and esteem that needs to translate into how we speak about and to him. We need to intentionally encourage him.”
Listen! to your pastor as he teaches you from God’s Word.
Give! to the church to ensure that your pastor has his financial needs met and is able to dedicate himself to his ministry.
Forgive! your pastor for his sins and failures, for he will at times let you down. “As evangelicals, we take sins seriously, know that repentance is critical, and understand that Jesus had to die for our sins. But there is a place for overlooking and not confronting every sin. Every good marriage operates on that principle, as does any healthy friendship, including our relationship with our pastor.”
Submit! to your pastor. “Submission may be the most countercultural thing that we can do. But the Bible commands it, our church’s health requires it, and our identity in Christ must reflect it.”
Check! if accusations against your pastor are actually true rather than believing all that people may say about him.

These are good and necessary exhortations and, if we all obey them, our pastors will be better equipped to lead us in ways that are beneficial to our lives and faith. “In the end, this book sounds a call to abandon a passive, consumerist model of church. It calls us to abandon the notion that the pastor performs the ministry, which we evaluate according to how it benefits us. It is a call to reject the error that he is our once-a-week religious entertainment provider. It is a call to abandon the idea that he is our spiritual guru, who will drop everything any time we need him. It is a call for us all to be devoted to the work of the Lord. It is a call for us to love and support our pastor. It is a call to fight for him!” It is a call I hope many Christians will hear, accept, and obey.

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It has long been the conviction of Christians that once we have truly come to Christ in repentance and faith, we can never fall away from that faith. Those who have been justified can never be unjustified; those who have been indwelled by the Spirit will never be abandoned by him. Yet Christians have also agreed that it is possible for us to deceive ourselves and to deceive other people into thinking we have trusted in Christ when we have not. Hence we are told to be diligent in confirming our “calling and election” (1 Peter 1:10).
Knowing that we can be self-deceived, we must examine our lives to ensure we are living as Christians are called to live—that we are putting sin to death, that we are coming alive to righteousness, and that we are finding ever-greater joy in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And always we must pray that God would graciously preserve us by his Spirit so we can live in a way that is pleasing to him, then finish our race well and go to be with him forever.
Today I am sharing a prayer that is also a poem written by John Ernest Bode. I read it often and as I do I make the prayer my own. I use it to give me words to plead with God that he would grant me grace to do what I have promised—to serve him faithfully to the end. Perhaps you would benefit by praying it as well and letting it express the longing of your heart.

O Jesus, I have promisedto serve Thee to the end;be Thou forever near me,my Master and my Friend;I shall not fear the battleif Thou art by my side,nor wander from the pathwayif Thou wilt be my Guide. 
O let me feel Thee near me,the world is ever near;I see the sights that dazzle,the tempting sounds I hear;my foes are ever near me,around me and within;but, Jesus, draw Thou nearer,and shield my soul from sin. 
O let me hear Thee speakingin accents clear and still,above the storms of passion,the murmurs of self-will;O speak to reassure me,to hasten or control!O speak, and make me listen,Thou Guardian of my soul!
O Jesus, Thou hast promisedto all who follow Theethat where Thou art in glorythere shall Thy servant be;and, Jesus, I have promisedto serve Thee to the end;O give me grace to follow,my Master and my Friend!

Observe: The poet begins by affirming that he has promised to serve Jesus to the end of his life. But he knows this will not be easy, for in the second stanza he provides a long list of the enemies and temptations that will challenge him for mastery of his life. This is why, in the third stanza, he pleads with God to give him what he needs to overcome those challenges. By the end he turns his heart away from what he has promised and toward what Jesus has promised—the ultimate affirmation that he will, indeed, remain faithful.
Apply: Do you ever struggle with doubts about your salvation? Where do you turn for comfort when this happens? Rather than taking it for granted, it is good to take time today to pray to the Lord that, by his grace, you will persevere to the end. In addition to the encouragement of Scripture, it can be helpful to hear from others who might note evidence of grace in your life. Are there people who can speak into your life to tell you whether you are showing the marks of the Christian?  If so, consider inviting their feedback today.
For more poetic prayers and devotional thoughts like this one, consider buying my book Pilgrim Prayers.

It has been a little while since I have provided anything like a family or personal update, so I thought I would do so today. Also, I have received quite a number of questions about the Canadian truckers and their Freedom Convoy, so wanted to offer a few observations on that.

I am under some very heavy writing deadlines just now. I’m also in the season of pastoral ministry when I arrange personal visits with a good many members of the church so I can learn how they are doing, how the pastors can better serve them, and so on. It has been busy but blessed days!
I wrote a lot of blog articles over the past month or so and got those all queued up so I could then spend a couple of weeks focused entirely on books—one that is in the final stages of editing, one that needs to be completed in the next few weeks, and one that has suffered various delays but is now finally getting underway. The first of them will be released in September of this year with the others coming in 2023. This has kept me from being able to dedicate the time necessary to organize my thoughts and find something helpful to say about the truckers and their Freedom Convoy. So today I’ll offer just a few brief observations and then direct you to some articles that you may find interesting.
It’s my assessment that most Canadians, and especially Christian Canadians, are at least somewhat sympathetic to the core concern of the truckers—the mandate that keeps unvaccinated truckers from entering Canada without a mandatory two-week quarantine. Not only that, but it seems that a growing number of Canadians—generally a very cautious and compliant people—are ready to be released from nearly all the pandemic mandates and restrictions. The various provinces are steadily ditching the provincial measures and this makes the federal ones appear more out-of-step by contrast. (Note: the United States has recently begun to forbid unvaccinated Canadians from entering at all, so even if the Canadian government cedes to the demands, I don’t think it will fully resolve the situation.)
All that said, there are still many Canadians who are extremely concerned about COVID-19 and many others who fear anything that smacks of protest or rebellion, and for that reason this has become a very polarizing issue in families, churches, and broader society. That’s especially the case as the protests have stretched into weeks and have extended to actions that have much lower levels of popular support, such as blockading border crossings. Some people see tyranny in the government, some see anarchy in the protestors, and some see a combination of the two. If you know Canadians who are not speaking loudly and publicly about their convictions, it may be that they are being discreet lest they alienate family members, offend friends, hinder witnessing opportunities, and so on. It would be unwise to take silence as either support or condemnation.
Whatever else this situation has done, it has almost universally convinced people of the weakness of our government, especially on the federal level. The various minority political parties are united in their condemnation of the way Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Liberal Party of Canada have handled it. The fact that a relatively small number of people has been able to essentially take over the core of our nation’s capital—and that no one has been able to do anything about it—is making our leaders a laughing stock. The Prime Minister’s insulting statements about these people and his unwillingness to show any compassion toward their plight has only increased their tenacity. It is probably accurate to see the truckers as especially representing the working class in a kind of non-violent uprising against the elite political class, for while the politicians (and the civil servants they oversee) quickly pivoted to working from home and saw their pay cheques unaffected throughout the pandemic (and, indeed, often saw substantial increases), much of the working class was laid off, had their hours reduced, and so on. This explains the symbolic significance of transport trucks dominating streets that are usually trod by only the political elite.
This situation has already cost a police chief his job and the head of the opposition party his leadership. There is much conjecture that it may also cost the Prime Minister his position. His recent decision to invoke the Emergencies Act, a move few people deem wise, necessary, or legitimate under the circumstances, is being widely perceived as a sign of weakness rather than strength—possibly the action of a man who is in his political death throes. Then again, he has survived plenty of scandals in the past and it’s not implausible that he will survive this one.
If you are concerned for Canada, please do pray for peace and justice within the nation. You might pray also for peace and unity within the church. If Canadians have all their freedoms restored or even increased while the church crumbles, there will have been no great victory. If people who lean toward one side or the other have their view vindicated, but along the way become alienated from their fellow Christians, the cause of Christ will still have suffered. If you’d like to pray for more than that, perhaps pray for the truckers and residents of Ottawa who are Christians and for the various groups and individuals who are deliberately going wherever the crowds are gathered to preach the gospel. And why not pray that the first response of Canadian Christians, no matter the situation, would be to get on our knees and plead for wisdom, love, and divine help.
For some helpful reading consider:

Tristan Hopper’s primer on Canadian politics which helps explain some of the ways in which our political system is different from that of the United States. For example, “we have a regularly scheduled event known as Question Period where the prime minister takes his usual seat in the House of Commons and is assailed with abuse by members of the opposition.”
Raymond J. de Souza on Justin Trudeau invoking the Emergencies Act.
Jonathon Van Maren on “Let Freedom Honk.”
Clint Humfrey & Yanick Ethier on the Freedom Convoy as a form of lament.

Phew! There’s so much more I want to say, but I hear my book projects calling me again. So just briefly, let me turn to family news.
Abby’s wedding is coming up in just three months and much of her attention, as well as Aileen’s, is focused on that occasion. It’s my understanding that the planning is going well, but also my understanding that it’s best if I don’t get too involved! Abby and Nathan will both have school to finish up, so intend to remain settled in the Louisville area for at least another couple of years before re-evaluating. I expect this means I will continue to have good reason to shuttle back and forth on a regular basis. Abby asked Michaela to be her maid of honor, so she is getting ready to fulfill all of the duties that come with it. Meanwhile, she’s pressing on in high school while anticipating the day she can follow in the footsteps of her siblings and attend Boyce College. Nick’s fiancée Ryn remains part of our family, of course. She will graduate from Boyce in May and, the very next day, be one of Abby’s bridesmaids. What a day that will be!
Thanks for reading the blog, and thanks for reading to the end of this rather long article!