The Pastor and His Community

Simply stated, a community is a place of belonging where people unify for one reason or another. The pastor’s community often consists of the sheep he is called to shepherd. This shepherding consists of feeding, praying, caring for, counseling, evangelizing, and even disciplining. For a pastor to accomplish all these tasks, he must know his sheep well. Most pastors understand the high calling of knowing their sheep. This is why they spend so much time preparing, preaching, praying, and providing for the spiritual needs of their congregation.

Pastoral Community and Accountability

While knowing his community is vital to the pastor, it is just as vital to allow the community to know him. He must not only feed his flock, but his flock must feed him. He must not only pray for his flock, but he must let his flock pray for him. He must not only care for his flock, but he must let it care for him. He must not only counsel his flock, but he must allow it to counsel him. He must not only remind his flock of the Gospel, but he must listen for Gospel reminders from the flock. In some cases, he not only disciplines, but allows the flock to discipline him. Pastors need community and accountability, too.

Don’t skip over this vital task too fast. Spending time and energy getting to know the flock is hard, exhausting, frustrating, and at the same time, very rewarding. There’s a personal gain at the end of those actions. Conversely, giving someone permission to enter the most intimate parts of a pastor’s life (heart, mind, will, and desires) by being open, honest, and vulnerable can be scary at best and horrifying at worst. It’s scary because information of an intimate nature can be used against someone in a punitive way. It can be horrifying because exposure could mean the loss of income as well as community. Punishment, loss of livelihood, and loss of community are three massive factors. These can lead many pastors to keep everyone at arm’s length relationally.

Being Known for the Good of the Flock

Pastors were never meant to pastor in seclusion. Seclusion allows for self-deception and secret habitual sin oftentimes resulting in destruction. This destruction might be in the pastor’s family, his church, or his own life. If a pastor is going to care for the sheep well, he must allow his flock to know him. 

A pastor who is unwilling to allow his flock to know him sets the proverbial stage for his flock to receive devastating blows. An unknown pastor can upset the faith of some (2 Timothy 2:18), lead others astray (2 Timothy 3:6), and shipwreck his own faith (1 Timothy 1:19). Perhaps the greatest horror of the unknown pastor is that one day as he stands before Jesus, he will hear, “I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness” (Matthew 7:23). Pastoral community and accountability is vital.

How to be known

Be Wise and Selective

Wisdom in choosing your closest community is of paramount importance. Find two or three mature members who know both Scripture and your heart. These should be sufficient to hold you accountable in ways that will be helpful and hopeful. Using wisdom must never keep you from finding those people who know your desires, where you are prone to be tempted, where you have  fallen into temptation in the past, what your mind is prone to think about when it’s not forced to think about anything, and so on and so forth. You must have a community in your life that knows you so that they can care for you.

Use Emotions

Emotions are simply pleasant and unpleasant indicators highlighting how the spiritual heart is functioning. Like lights on the dashboard of a car, emotions are tangible indicators in your life signaling spiritual inner man activity. Using these indicators, you can allow others to know you. Tell them how you feel about your relationship with the Lord, your wife, your kids, and your congregation. Sharing your emotions will allow your community to ask mature questions to draw out the purposes of your heart (Proverbs 20:5). One strong emotional indicator is fear. For you to be better known, someone from your community might ask, “What is something that you fear the church will find out about you?” or “Which emotion do you feel the strongest when you think about your marriage?”

Develop Specific Questions

General close-ended questions can deceive you into thinking that there are those who know you, when they do not. For instance, if you were to be asked the question, “Did you struggle with sexual sin this week?” you would probably answer no. Both you and the one(s) asking the question could leave that discussion feeling as though “being known” had taken place. This bit of data accomplishes very little when it comes to pastoral community and accountability.

In contrast, if they ask you a specific open-ended question, there is a much greater opportunity for you to be known. A specific open-ended question might sound like, “Last week when your family was away for two days and you were alone, how did you spend your time?” Or, “If you could have that time to do over again, what would you do differently and why?” Specific open-ended questions help prevent self-deceit. They offer a chance for your community to know you better.

Build Trust

Trust is built as promises are both made and kept. As those in your community take time to know you, and as you honestly allow your community to get to know you, you begin building trust. Building trust can be compared to building a bridge. The lighter the materials (wood) used to build the bridge, the less cargo can be carried across the bridge. Conversely, the heavier the material (iron, steel, concrete), the more cargo can be carried across the bridge.

Using this analogy, if your community rarely takes time to get to know you and/or you rarely allow your community to know you, the only “cargo” that will be carried in that relationship will be fluffy, unimportant, surface-level cargo. The harder things of life (suffering, fears, worries, temptations, failures) will never cross the relational bridge between you and your community. Out of fear, the bridge will fail. You will remain unknown to your detriment as well as to the detriment of those whom you have been called to shepherd.

Be known. Select two or three people who aim to build trust with you. Let your community love you. Without this kind of community interaction, both you and your congregation are at great risk. One does not have to dig too far into the annuls of the internet to find churches that have been destroyed because of a lack of pastoral community and accountability. For the glory of God and care for the church, it is time for pastors to take a step out in faith and become known.

©2023 Ben Marshall. Used with permission.