Your pastor is better than your podcast.

Do you listen to podcasts?  These days, you can pop in your ear buds and instantly listen to some of the best preachers out there.  But the massive availability of fantastic preaching presents a problem as well. It can tempt us to be discontent with our own pastors. But...God has placed your pastor in your church to care specifically for you. When your pastor is preparing his sermon, he’s preparing it for you, and God is specifically empowering him to prepare a sermon for you.  How personal and powerful is that??

Your pastor knows you (at least he should). He knows about your struggles with worry. . He knows about your battle with greed. He knows about your ongoing chronic illness. Both God and your pastor are shaping the sermon with you, as well as other members of the church, in mind. For your encouragement. For your conviction. For your refreshment. And God intends to use your pastor’s sermon to help sustain your faith.

Your pastor also is with you week in and week out. He’s the one who will be there when your dad finds out that his body is riddled with cancer. He’s the one who will pray for you when your marriage is held together by only a thread. He’s the one who sits next to you when you find out that your pregnancy is going to end in grief. He’s the one who carries you on his heart week after week.

A podcast preacher can’t do that. He carries his own congregation on his heart. Your pastor is better than your podcast.

Pastoral ministry is serious business. Your pastor is charged with caring for your church. He is charged by God to care for people bought with the blood of Christ. Is there any more serious job description?

Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers, to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.