How to Gain a Voice with Your Pastor

Thanks so much for your feedback after my last post!

The issue we’re dealing with is what you do when you want to engage your community in discipleship, but are too embarrassed to bring new disciples to church. Embarrassed because you know your church will ask ridiculous things of your friends if they are to join.

As your response proved, many of my readers feel held back by their church.

They want to be fruitful for Christ. They want more of God and His blessing, but because of traditions or structure, they feel restricted by their church. Not empowered.

This becomes even more confusing when they interact with other godly Christians who don’t do things the way their church does. They dress differently. They use a different style of music for worship. Some of these other Christians even give more life to them then their church does, and it makes them wonder why they should bother staying where they are.

In my last post, I shared how I used to think my church held me back from being a better Christian, but now I know it’s my focus. I said there are times we bump into irreconcilable differences and suggested we can’t ever avoid those. But what we can avoid is a wrong focus.

In this post, we’re going to look at how you can gain a voice with your pastor.

Too many times I thought my church was dead when it wasn’t. It’s just that my focus was on the wrong thing.

If we don’t live all of life focused on the Gospel, we lose sight of how God pursued us even while we were sinners. He didn’t wait until we got our act together to send His Son. He came and loved on us amid the mess we had created.

Likewise, He beautifies the church, His Bride, even when it is not perfect. Even when we are hung up over how we should do things, He moves toward us and loves us. So, if we’re going to sort through the tough questions of church and life, we need to focus on the Gospel, not on getting things right.

True community is made of people who see things differently than I do.

I need them. They need me. And we need to fellowship with each other so that the world sees us disagreeing in love.

Jesus said “They will know you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn. 13:35). As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another. But in the sharpening, our affection for each other is tested. That’s where love comes in.

There is no love if you only interact with those for whom you have affection. Even sinners do that, as Jesus also pointed out in Luke 6. But when you do good to those who do not do good to you, when you yield your opinion and will to those whose opinions and wills differ from yours, your reward will be great. You will be sons of the Most High God.

Our generation likes to talk about “community.” But if you listen closely, what we are actually talking about are those people we most enjoy. Our best friends. Those we feel built-up by.

If we neglect our church and only hang out with our best friends, we do not get any more empowered for fruitfulness.

In fact, we are even more held back because we are not sharpening each other nor demonstrating love to the world.

Community happens with a weird conglomeration of people; not my favorite besties. And we get this wrong when considering whether to stay or leave our local church.

“But Asher, you don’t know my church. No one really cares about being fruitful for Christ. Everyone’s too focused on external things, when relationships are wounded, people are hurting, and there’s a world out there who desperately needs Christ. Am I really supposed to stay in a church like this?”

You are right. I don’t know your church. And there are far too many church dynamics to pretend as if I can solve them all here. But I also know there are far too few people who are truly focused on the Gospel as they navigate their church struggles.

How do you know people don’t care about relationships and making disciples?

What if they just don’t feel safe around you because they get the clear sense you have an agenda? Maybe they get the sense that you don’t care about them?

What if each of us who feel “held back” would realign our focus on Jesus Christ, and pursue those in our church? Might we, say after a few months or so, discover people are more open to our desires and visions for church?

Several years ago, I found myself frustrated with my situation. I thought we should be doing certain things and that the church should be headed in a different direction. But neither my pastor nor anybody else felt the same way. And every time I tried sharing my thoughts and expressing what I believed, people kind of went mum. Sometimes it led to arguments and I always came away feeling misunderstood and resented.

I was telling a mentor of mine about this and he inquired as to how I went about asking my questions. What was my tone as I shared my vision? He said, from his experience, he doesn’t feel too excited to listen to anyone who speaks critically if they seem to only care about themselves. But he’ll listen to anyone who has proven to care about his vision and is sensitive to the responsibilities he carries.

To be honest, I spent a few days fuming about what he said.

“My tone! What does he know about my tone?! I’ve been humble and sacrificial through all of this. They’re the ones who don’t care about me!”

But as I pondered what he said, I realized he was true. I had been quite critical and coming at things from my own point of view. Maybe my pastor and the others in our church just don’t feel that I’m on their side?

So, I decided I would refrain from sharing my opinion and instead seek to understand my pastor’s vision and to listen to the others in our church. I didn’t know how long I would do this, I just knew what I was doing wasn’t being received very well.

I went six months before anyone even asked for my opinion on church matters. In a way, I felt sorry for myself. But I also learned that I had misunderstood others in very deep ways.

Stopping and hearing what others had to say not only helped me know them better, it made my vision of church healthier.

Within a year of deciding to hold back my opinion, my pastor started talking about moving things in a direction I had longed to see. He began asking me what I thought, and I discovered a voice with him I had never had before.

Not every story turns out this way. And sometimes the structure of church is too distorted from the Biblical model, it really is damaging to stick around. We’ll get into those kinds of stories more in the next post.

But one thing I know for sure is that we won’t get anywhere good unless we realign ourselves around Jesus Christ and engage those in church with love.

Don’t let your focus be what holds you back. Look on Jesus Christ and pursue those around you. Even those with whom you don’t agree.

Again, I’d like to hear from you. Have you ever felt like leaving your church? Why? Share in the comments below.

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