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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For many years there was a little potted plant on our kitchen window sill, though I’ve long since forgotten the variety. Year after year that plant would put out a shoot and from the shoot would emerge a single flower. And I observed that no matter how I turned the pot, the flower would respond. If I turned the pot so the flower was facing the room, within a day or two it would have turned to face the light. And if I rotated it again, the flower would respond in the same way, turning itself toward the light streaming in from the window. I could not fool it. I could not discourage it or persuade it to give up.
You cannot read about the life and ministry of Jesus Christ without noticing his love for the natural world. Many of his most vivid illustrations are drawn from nature—the birds, the plants, the trees, the winds. You often observe him making use of the natural elements that were right before him to help his listeners understand his teaching—the fig tree that failed to bear fruit, the fields that were white for harvest, the birds that were unconcerned about their next meal.
And in that vein, I learned a lesson from that little flower—the lesson of the potted plant. No matter how I turned the plant, it dutifully responded by realigning itself to face the light. No matter how many times I turned it and no matter how completely I turned it, it responded in the same way.
From the plant, I learned that life’s circumstances often turn us into times of darkness, times when we are overcome by pain, sorrow, or other trials. For a time the world around us may look dark and foreboding, like the Valley of the Shadow of Death is closing in around us and threatening to swallow us up. Yet our duty in such times is to look for the light and to turn toward it.
God never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward.Share
And there always will be a source of light, for our God never deserts or abandons us. He never leaves us without some truth to believe in, some promise to cling to, some hope to long for, some light to turn toward. For God does not just have light or display light—he is light.
I’m certain that if I had taken my little potted plant to a dimly lit room in a hospital, it would still have turned toward whatever light came from the window, no matter how dim the source. I’m certain that if I took it to a prison cell with nothing but a single little window high above, it would lift its face toward that one shaft of light. It could not be stopped. It could not be discouraged. It could not be dissuaded.
And neither should we ever be dissuaded from turning toward the Lord in every circumstance. Our eyes may be weary and full of tears, the light may seem distant and dim, but the Lord is present, close to the broken-hearted and eager to save those who are crushed in spirit. It falls to us to simply turn and to look toward the light that streams from his presence and illumines us with his grace.

Blessings to you today, my friends.

Today’s Kindle deals include quite a lengthy list.
(Yesterday on the blog: God Doesn’t Need You To Do His PR)
Candlelight
“My wife and I were on the way to church for the annual Christmas Eve candlelight service. The traffic was dense in the night, a dissonance of glaring white headlights, fuming red taillights, and a looming, bristling pall of impatience.” This is the beginning to a compelling and poetic article.
Shattered
“Shattered. The word I heard describing the damage the bullet had done to my husband’s voice box. This onomatopoeia could be our theme word for the last year. Entering 2022, Tommy and I were overjoyed and expectant, facing our bright future together. We were fulfilled in our dream careers, part of a flourishing church family, looking to buy our first house, and planning to start a family. Then, one by one, these joys and expectations were taken away from us.”
Reclaiming Joy in Teaching
You may enjoy this interview with Tom Schreiner.
What Are You Calling a Church?
“The word I am referring to here is church. And when it comes to communication between missionaries and Christians back in their supporting churches, this word is used often, but almost never defined. What often results is a failure in communication that leaves both parties feeling good, but ultimately failing to serve one another well.”
Do Angels Carry Our Prayers to God?
John Piper answers a good question here. “Millions don’t believe that the infinite, blazing holiness of God is so great that no angel, nor the mother of God, Mary, could be a better protection for us than Christ. Let me say that again. That’s just so crucial. She didn’t believe, and millions don’t believe, that the infinite, blazing holiness of God is so great that no angel and no mother of God could be a better protection for us than Christ.”
Don’t Be A Fig Leaf
“As recipients of grace and forgiveness, Christians should be quick to be gracious and forgiving. But extending grace should include encouraging fellow believers to admit and confront sin so that they can experience the grace and forgiveness that only comes from Christ.” This is very true!
Flashback: Was It A Waking Dream?
I became aware that I was in my living room, not the cemetery. I became aware that it had been a dream, not reality. But I also became aware that my face was wet with tears and my heart rich with joy. For though it was only a waking dream, it was a dream grounded in the best of all promises, the surest of all hopes.

He has chosen not to heal me, but to hold me. The more intense the pain, the closer His embrace. —Joni Eareckson-Tada