“He gives us comfort in all our troubles. Then we can comfort other people who have the same troubles. We give the same kind of comfort God gives us.” 1 Corinthians 1:4 

You slowly hang up the phone and close your eyes. “Lord, use me!” you pray. “Help me know how to ease her pain.” When death comes to a member of your church or to an unchurched acquaintance, your acts of Christian ministry can remind the bereaved of God’s love for them. 

Those days between a death and the memorial service can be difficult. What role can you play? As soon as you learn of the death, ask God to give you wisdom in how to minister to the family. Try some of these fresh ideas:

The Hand Holder. Your presence means a lot. Never overstay, of course, but when you’re there during crisis, it’s a reminder of God’s love. Share a prayer. A hug. A tear. A Scripture written on a note card.   

The Food Organizer. Five dishes of macaroni might be too much of a good thing. If you’re organizing food for their guests or a funeral meal, consider using one of the many free online schedulers, such as TakeThemAMeal.com. 

The Book Sharer. Find an encouraging pamphlet or book to share. Be sure it’s heavy on Scripture, the best words of comfort! I often give Joyce Rogers’ book, Grace for the Widow to recent widows. On the inside cover, write a note to tell something you loved about the deceased. 

The Gesturer. Carefully observe needs, and help meet them. Do they need a pet-sitter? A phone answerer? Babysitter during funeral? Help with airport pickup? Mow the lawn. Offer to pick up kids at school. Deliver flowers from your garden to brighten their home. Write your phone number on a card and offer specific help. 

The Rolodex King. When requested, a member of our church would help a grieving family to finish making personal notifications. After they’d called their closest friends, the volunteer sits in the kitchen with their list, and completes the calls. 

The Bag Lady. Early preparation enhances ministry. Stock up on sympathy cards. Keep a frozen casserole, soup or cookies for quick crisis ministry. Prepackage a grocery bag with paper towels, plates, cups, napkins, toilet paper and plastic utensils, and when you learn of a death, deliver it immediately to help with their guests. Plan ahead.

The Elephant. (No, I’m referring to memory, not size.) The moment you learn of the death, mark that date on your calendar each month for at least a year. This will remind you to pray, call, send a note or take him or her to coffee. Listen with love. Pray with them. 

When death comes to those around you, act quickly. Move gently. Love largely. When someone in your church or community dies, your timely touch in Jesus’ name shows that you and your God truly care.  

© Diana Davis www.dianadavis.org

 This column is adapted from her book, Deacon Wives (B&H Publishing) 

The special report in the October issue of the TEXAN is on pastoral ministry. In a land far away I was once a pastor. Actually that land faraway was Louisiana. All of my pastoral experience came in my home state. Watching the TV shows Duck Dynasty or Swamp People reminds me of relatives or church members. With that said, I really do love my home state.

After answering God’s call on my life to the preaching ministry, I began as a youth evangelist and served on staff as a youth director (now known as student pastor). I planted a church and served several churches as pastor. Later I became a Director of Missions for a local association. For the last 18 years, I have had the privilege to serve you through the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention, but being a pastor was the most challenging for me.

All of the churches I pastored would be considered small except for one. I pastored a 100-year-old church located 20 miles from town, and I served another church that was surrounded by cotton fields. The largest church I pastored was in a paper mill town. My last pastorate was in a metro area, but we didn’t see the kind of growth I thought we should have. Although many factors have changed, the realities of pastoral life haven’t. I have a Ph.D. in the school of hard knocks. God had me repeat a few courses. I’m still learning, but here are few lessons I learned as a pastor.

Every decision in the church is not a hill on which to die. The inerrancy of Scripture, exclusivity of salvation in Jesus Christ, and other basic Christian doctrines cannot be compromised. Even if you lose your church, you can’t abandon sound doctrine. There are too many street corners in America where you can preach instead of trading truth for a pulpit. Baptist doctrine is vital—the security of the believer, believer’s baptism and regenerate church membership are just a few that make us Baptists. However, tertiary doctrines are not places to sacrifice your ministry.

Let God change the hearts of people. Learn to be patient. God can do his work in people when we can’t. Timing is everything. Don’t force an issue that can wait. Individually, extend grace to those you serve because you need grace extended to you.

Work through key lay leaders to accomplish God’s work. There are decision makers in an established church that can assist you in carrying out God’s plan. Don’t try to be the point man on every issue. Let laypersons advocate for you.

Be a model for evangelism, missions and discipleship. If you never intentionally witness to people, neither will your congregation. If you want your families to deepen spiritually, you need to have a family worship time. Whatever you desire to see in your church members, you need to live it. Practical ministry is more caught than taught. 

Realize you will have your critics; never get bitter or retaliate. You will never win in the long run even if you win a battle with your critics. Your calling should be enough to keep you from quitting, but when discouragement comes, let God’s Word and God’s people be your strength. Reach out to a friend or contact the SBTC Pastor-Church Relations Ministry. They are a wonderful resource when you need encouragement.

Find a support system to help you through the tough times. I had pastor friends with whom I met on a regular basis. It is not enough to have internet fellowship. You need someone you can play golf with, fish with or go to a game with. Touch from our pastor brethren can get us through the difficult days. Local pastors’ fellowships are great. Your SBTC Annual Meeting is a wonderful time to hang out with others on the same journey.

I don’t think I ever became a good pastor. Maybe God will allow me one more time before he calls me home to pastor in an obscure or tough place. Even in those places you can experience God’s favor. My prayer is that he will say at the end of my journey and yours, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

FORT WORTH “Making disciples who make disciples” lies at the heart of every pastor’s mission in his congregation, two Texas pastors say.

“Discipleship means radically different things to different people,” says Rodney Brown, pastor of Metro Bible Church in Southlake. “Our theme verse is 1 Thessalonians 2:8. Real discipleship is simply imparting the Word and imparting our lives.”

Chris Osborne says the emphasis on making disciples permeates everything they do at Central Baptist Church in College Station.

“We are real serious about discipleship,” Osborne says. “We use our Sunday school classes. We have intergenerational small groups. I’m a book-by-book, verse-by-verse preacher, so we try to really lay out the Scripture on Sunday mornings. We try to disciple the children all the way from preschool through high school.”

Central Baptist’s adult discipleship program is built around a curriculum Osborne wrote himself.

“I noticed there was really good intensive curriculum and really good beginning curriculum, but there was almost nothing middle of the road, so I wrote my own,” Osborne says. “It covers basic doctrines, and I took a group of men through it for a year, then I took a group of women through it for a year. Then they were responsible for taking other people through.”

Osborne encourages those he has discipled to teach the curriculum to groups of four or five: “That helps keep the discussion going; you’ve got better ideas being offered. It’s easier for an introvert to lead it. Plus you get the material through more people that way.”

At Metro Bible Church, discipling integrates with the pastoral care role of the church’s elder/deacon ministry.

“We pastor our congregation through small groups, so each elder—and in our case we have highly qualified deacons—leads a small group,” Brown says. “Small group discipleship is not the end road I’m trying to get to, but that’s where it’s modeled well, in soul care.”

Brown’s congregation is largely composed of Millennials who are first-generation Christians and often feel they aren’t qualified or don’t know enough to “impart the Word” to others.

“We try to make them comfortable and say it’s OK to come back and get answers,” Brown says. “And it’s not the venue. If you like to take walks with someone, if you like to get a workout with them, if you like gardening, if you’re a stay-at-home mom—we have to get creative. Invite someone over in the afternoon when your kids are down for their nap and have them help you fold clothes. But go through the Word of God and challenge one another scripturally and do soul care.”

Brown disciples members over nine months or a year, then delegates them to find others to disciple. He offers to be their “walker”—to join that new group and coach them as they lead that process. “I will show up 20 minutes early, and we’ll go over how we are going to do it,” Brown says. “Then I will debrief with them later in the week. I’ll do this for several weeks, and then they’re on their own.”

Brown followed that process with Chris Mordecai, a Metro Bible member who teaches fifth-grade science in Trophy Club. 

“I observed the way Rod was with me and the way he set me free to find a guy and be that way with him,” Mordecai says. “He called me to a life of holiness, of discipline, of giving up my life to serve the Lord, so the next call was for me to call someone else to give up their life to serve the Lord.”

Mordecai was discouraged when several men he met with didn’t follow through, but then a man began attending the church who was “rough around the edges” but open to being discipled. 

“I don’t know what the difference was, other than this was just the Lord’s orchestration, but he embraced the idea and ran with it,” Mordecai says. “Now he is an example of what it’s like to give your all, serve the church, be constantly focused on others, and love the Lord. It was a blessing to be part of his growth.”

Managing expectations is crucial, Brown points out.

“If you disciple 10 guys, you probably ought to count on two of them lasting long term,” Brown says. “You cannot take it personally when someone walks away. That’s why it’s so important on the front end that you’re really choosing, as best you can tell, the right people. You may spend three years pouring into six guys, and five of them walk away. But look what that one guy is doing. He’s multiplied himself five times over!”  

Mark Kelly is a career Southern Baptist journalist and hosts a podcast at godsrevolution.net.

Jimmy Draper’s Don’t Quit Until You Finish is a rich resource on pastoral ministry. The book’s theme seems to be that we should love the people God has entrusted to us. Jimmy Draper has modeled that priority through his years as pastor and Baptist statesman. You can see that genuine love in a pastor who has it, and you miss it in a pastor who doesn’t. It is the bottom line in pastoral ministry. People forgive someone who is diligent but not naturally gifted in preaching, as long as he loves his flock. The two or three men in my life I consider to be my “pastors,” though they live in various states, are not so because they are excellent preachers but because they listen, they love, they expend themselves for others, they keep confidences—they are pastoral. 

The word “pastor” is a term related to the work of a shepherd. A “pastoral” scene is a rural one, perhaps a pasture. We have three churches in Texas called Iglesia Bautista El Buen Pastor (“Good Shepherd Baptist Church”), or some version of that. When Jesus restored Peter in John 21, he told Peter to feed his lambs, in response to the love Peter professed for the Good Shepherd. So I’m not particularly taken with the scholarly pastor who only, or prefers to only, fill the pulpit and study the deep things of God. It’s hard to be a good preacher or a pastoral leader if you don’t actually love the sheep enough to embroil yourself in messy lives that take away the time you’d otherwise spend on “more important” or “strategic” matters.

It is true that “pastor” is only one word used to describe the role of a church’s undershepherd. He is also the overseer (bishop) of the church, and sometimes called an “elder.” I recognize that there is significant overlap in these three titles; that’s one reason I believe they all three describe one who is simply the pastor. The role of the shepherd is indispensable, and perhaps the most difficult role for most of us to do well. 

There is a servant aspect—meekness and humility—that, while necessary in the life of a faithful bishop and effective elder, shines paramount in the shepherd as he visits and counsels and comforts and disciples and teaches the flock entrusted to him. Some roles of the pastor can be done pretty well without that servant spirit, shepherding will not be done at all without it. 

We know examples of men in large churches and small churches who are exemplars of pastoral ministry. You can tell what kind of pastor a man is by only a little association with him. Some pastors you’ve never heard of do a great job at pastoring their flocks in out of the way places. Although the CEO pastor seems to work best in the suburbs, the true pastor is at home in all places—anyplace where there are people of God really.    

W.A. Criswell, in his Guidebook for Pastors, explains that the other things a pastor does are enabled by his daily service to his people, his relationships with them. He says, “When the pastor has established personal religious relations with his hearers, to them, even the simplest sermons are clothed with sacred power.” 

The significance of this ministry seems a pretty good argument for pastoral internships. Forming “religious relations” with people is not so simple as being nice or having a gift of gab. Experienced pastors emphasize that pastoral contacts (including I suppose, email and phone calls) should have a spiritual focus. I remember being an associate pastor right out of seminary. My pastor told me where my office was located and that I shouldn’t do anything troublesome to the church. That was it. My first year of hospital visitation was a mess. I had no seminary preparation and no training in hospital visitation, so I learned it by trial and error. I visited rooms and homes with no clear idea of what I would say, or not say, except that I would pray with the people. Some of those visits were a waste. Later, I understood that I wasn’t anyone’s buddy showing up before or after a surgery, or in a bereaved home, or in the home of a discouraged church member. It was obvious to everyone else why I was there, so it was important that I was ready to be pastoral. Training and coaching could have been a head start on experience in my pastoral ministry. 

The bottom line is that we must do it. If we love people, we must do more than offer platitudes when we happen to see them in the hall. Pastoral ministry goes to find the lost or injured sheep entrusted to us by the Good Shepherd. That trust makes it a high priority indeed.