Six Lessons I Learned When I Could Not Pastor

I trust we all dream of having long, faithful, and fruitful pastoral tenures.

At the last T4G, tears came to my eyes when Mark Dever asked pastors who had served for decades to stand. I wanted to be one of those pastors and to do nothing more than pastor the church we planted in 2009. The church was in the neighborhood I had grown up in, three blocks from my high school.

But God had other plans.

2020 was difficult everywhere, but, watching our Minneapolis neighborhood burn, the year felt particularly challenging for my congregation. It became a year of crisis counseling. Deaths in our family added to the strain, and by the end of the year, my health broke down. I was bedridden, and my doctor had no answers.

For over a year I did not recover and was unable to work. My health did not return, and I had to resign.

I was surprised by this fiery trial. I didn’t know if I would get better; I didn’t know how to get better. How would I provide for my family?

By his grace, God restored my health, but only after I was no longer a pastor. So, I began a new season of listening to other men preach.

Here are six lessons that may strengthen you when your fiery trial comes.

1. More Child Than Pastor

Almost every conversation I have with pastors moves quickly to any suffering they are experiencing. Scripture tells us not to be surprised by the fiery trials, yet I was.

It’s an odd reality to no longer be a pastor—to not be Pastor John and not preach God’s Word week after week but instead listen to others. Yet this transition comes for each of us. When it does, we wrestle with who we are. Pastoral ministry significantly defines how we see ourselves.

For me, it was a journey of growing deeper and deeper in the knowledge that before I was a pastor for God, I was his child. Our great God is with us. He leads his dear children along. When I could do little else, I sought to learn new hymns. One that became so precious is “God Leads Us Along.”

In shady, green pastures, so rich and so sweet,
God leads his dear children along;

Though sorrows befall us and Satan opposes,
God leads his dear children along;
Through grace, we can conquer, defeat all our foes,
God leads his dear children along.

Some through the waters, some through the flood,
Some through the fire, but all through the blood;
Some through great sorrow, but God gives a song,
In the night season and all the day long.

These words seem so simple. Amid many tears, they were a balm. I had to wrestle with this transition. Pastoral ministry is not who we are. It is a wonderful role, but whether or not we are pastors, we are his children, and he is our kind Father.

2. There’s Joy to Be Had in Steadfastness

In suffering, familiar verses become freshly challenging. “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds” (Jas. 1:2). Not being able to pastor, not being able to provide, and not knowing how to get better—or if I ever would—were things I found hard to count as joy. Yet meeting with our good Father morning by morning, he was gently teaching me the next verse: “For you know that the testing of your faith produces . . .” What was God producing? Steadfastness.

What is steadfastness? It’s a military term that means to stand fast, not to turn to the right or left, not to quit or surrender, lay down, or run away. As I thought about my life’s ambition, I knew one of my deepest desires was to be able to say with Paul in my last days, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim. 4:7). God desired my steadfastness to grow through this trial.

Amidst extended sickness, I found myself standing next to my 6’8″ son in a lake as he was about to be baptized. The first line of his testimony nearly wrecked me: “As I have watched my dad walk through this season of suffering, it has clarified for me the importance of faith in Christ.” At that moment, I knew that health was not my greatest need.

3. Preaching Blesses the Humble Hearer

It’s a great honor to preach Christ. We have the words of life. What a stewardship it is to be heralds of such words. Go on preaching Christ. When saints in tears come to say thank you for preaching Christ, it is an unspeakable honor. When you can no longer do so, that stewardship becomes more evident.

We have this ministry by the mercy of God. Our great God doesn’t need any of us, yet in his kindness, he has invited us to participate in the most significant victory in history. It is a great joy when your church continues in health and joy, and it is humbling that your church continues without you. Our ministries are not unimportant, but Jesus builds his church with or without us.

It’s humbling not to be the preacher. And yet, as we sit week after week under other men, we are hearing the Word of God. I had to learn to turn down the volume of critique and instead listen as one addressed by God in his Word. The path of humility is the path where God gives grace.

4. Whate’er My God Ordains Is Right

In the fiery trial, in our unanswered prayer, when biting criticism comes, we rest in the powerful old truth: whatever my God ordains is right.

There are moments we simply don’t understand. Yet we know God, and we know that he does. We don’t need every question answered; instead, we need confidence that our Father is good, that he is ruling and reigning, and that he is with us for good.

In 1675, Samuel Rodigast penned these words,

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
his holy will abideth;
I will be still, whate’er he doth,
and follow where he guideth.
He is my God; though dark my road,
he holds me that I shall not fall:
wherefore to him I leave it all.

Whate’er my God ordains is right:
though now this cup, in drinking,
may bitter seem to my faint heart,
I take it, all unshrinking.
My God is true; each morn anew
sweet comfort yet shall fill my heart,
and pain and sorrow shall depart.

May our Father strengthen us to rest in these vital truths.

5. Communion Is Worth Fighting For

Pastoring is very public work. Many listen to you week after week. They talk to you. They know you. When that stops, it is strange. Now you are a hearer. You are listening and not speaking. Yet in this private place, the repeated echo of Matthew 6 can be heard, “your Father who sees in secret.”

I am learning more about a life lived with my Father in secret—not sinful isolation, but a life of coram deo before the face of God. Don’t wait until after pastoral ministry. Press in now. Our Father invites us to commune deeply with him.

We must fight for this communion. Howard Hendricks did research years ago on pastors who fell into moral failure. The one practice he found they all had in common was that they had stopped personal devotional time in the Word of God. They were going to the Bible only to prepare. Hudson Taylor says, “Communion with Christ requires our coming to him. Meditating upon his person and his work requires the diligent use of the means of grace, and specially the prayerful reading of his Word. Many fail to abide because they habitually fast instead of feed.”

Brothers, this seems obvious, yet your enemy will never stop seeking to distract you with many other things. My prayer is for a Psalm 105:4 heart, “Seek the Lord and his strength, seek his presence continually.”

6. Better Written in Heaven Than Used on Earth

Brothers, what a great thing to be a pastor. What a joy it is to be used mightily by God. Yet there is something more significant. We can learn from Martin Lloyd-Jones and Tim Keller. In his last email to John Piper, Keller recalled that the last text Lloyd-Jones reveled in was Luke 10:20, “Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Brothers, ministry success is a gift, but even better, our names are written in heaven. Suffering focuses our vision on the glory to come, oh what glory! Rejoice with the Doctor, Keller, and King Jesus that in the midst of all that you are going through, our names are written in heaven.