"...We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: 'There is no one righteous, not even one; ... All have turned aside ... There is no one who does good, not even one" (Romans 3:9b-12); "'This is how you should pray: ... Forgive us our debts, ... And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.'" (Matthew 6:3-13)
In the first passage above Paul makes it extrememly clear that all men without exception are sinners. When our Lord taught the apostles to pray, about forty percent of the prayer that He gave them had to do with asking God to forgive us our sins and to deliver us from the evil one. We all have much forgiveness to ask of God. Our sins are manifold. That does not mean that God, through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, is not doing a work of grace in our hearts to make us holy. But that work will not be complete until we reach heaven. In the meantime, we must wrestle with the sin nature which we inherited from Adam. That applies to pastors as well as the rest of us.
Pastors are sinners. They have weaknesses and faults just like church members. This is not to say that they are not to live as an example to the flock (1 Peter 5:3) and are not to have met certain moral qualifications (1 Timothy 3:1-7; Titus 1:5-9). But we must be realistic about their sinful nature. They will continually do battle with the flesh which is still a part of their lives, and will do so as long as they live. Total victory over sin will not be won in this life. Sanctification will take place; victories will occur; bad habits and sins will be overcome - but there will be many battles to fight until the day of glory.
Churches sometimes idolize their pastors and forget that they are sinners just like everyone else. And so unrealistic expectations about their pastors are formed. When a pastor falls into a sin, members are shocked and often their spiritual worlds are turned upside down. They do not understand how that can occur. These men are their own spiritual leaders and they are not supposed to sin!
I don't want to be misunderstood at this point. I am not condoning or making light of pastoral sins, regardless of how insignificant they may be. But I do want to emphasize the "humanness" of pastors and why we should regularly pray for them. Satan is delighted when a spiritual leader falls. He knows how to attack him at his weakest points. Because of this it is vital that members regularly pray for their pastors. They must recognize that their pastors are not perfect and always need much prayer support.
There are other ways in which members can have unrealistic expectations of their pastors. Pastors have personal, family and emotional needs also. They need friendship, fellowship, rest, recreation and some time away from their work. Since they are on call 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, often their hours are long and erratic. There are times when family plans must be shelved because of sudden emergencies within the church body. Illnesses, operations, deaths, sudden marital problems, the loss of a job and other pressing needs regularly come up within the body and the pastor is often the first one who is contacted. This means that the pastor must suddenly cancel or rearrange his family's plans, or his personal time, or other pastoral duties to help shepherd the flock through some sudden crisis. These are not things that occur infrequently; they are part of the pastor's everyday life and can wear him down over a period of time.
Because the pastor is the one who is there to encourage the members in their times of stress, seldom do the members realize that the pastors, themselves, also have times of personal and family turmoil. Pastors don't usually get up on Sunday mornings and tell the congregation that they have had a hard week, or that their family had some difficult thing to go through, or that they are facing a gut-wrenching decision of some type. Members often see their pastors and his family as ones who "have it all together". But usually they are a normal family that faces many of the same problems which the averaage member family faces.
Being realistic about these matters will help the members recognize how they can pray for, help provide for and encourage their pastors. It can also help them to realize that sometimes the pastors cannot be "all things to all people." When a hospital visit is missed, or a sermon that week is not up to par, or when the pastor seems preoccupoied, or forgets an appointment he had with you, or exhibits some momentary anger, just realize that he is a sinner, has weaknesses, has family problems and needs, and that he is struggling just as you are to balance all of these areas properly.
Remember that your pastor and his family constantly live in a fishbowl for all the church to see - and sometimes the sight is not going to be particularly attractive. The are humans also!
