Forgive me Lord for being the type of pastor in my heart
that I too often deride with my lips. Forgive me for the hypocrisy of my
attitude and the selfishness of my dreams.
Forgive me when I look out at a half-full sanctuary and
fantasize about having 50 more people in the pews instead of praying for the 20
specific people that I notice are missing.
Forgive me when I lie awake in bed, dreaming about how great
it would be to gain respect or notoriety from my peers for growing a big church
instead of longing for a “well done” from my God from shepherding a faithful
church.
Forgive me when I long to see more conversions and baptisms
in my church without thinking about, or even knowing sometimes, the people I’m
longing to see converted or baptized.
Forgive me when I dream of starting ministry programs that
reach out to a certain demographic rather than doing ministry to help specific
people.
Forgive me when I get swept up in the excitement and flash
of a new program or method or strategy that I’ve seen somewhere else and become
obsessed with applying it upon my context without asking if it comports to your
will for my church.
Forgive me when I’m more concerned with keeping the peace
than following faithfully, and forgive me when I’m more concerned with being
right then living in an authentic community of reconciliation and restoration.
Forgive me when I think more highly of myself than I ought
to, and forgive me when I doubt your sufficiency to make me better than I am.
Forgive me Lord when your children become a means to an end
instead of the treasure you died for. Forgive me when I commodify the church in
my heart and engage in the spiritual sin of big-picture ministry. Forgive me
when I believe that the ends justify the means and believe that there is an
acceptable level of collateral apostasy for building a “successful” church.
Forgive me Lord for all my best intentions and lofty plans,
for my noble goals and “Christian” dreams, the things that occupy too much of
my thinking and prayer – when they don’t align with the things you actually
desire. Forgive me for blindly worshipping the false god of the business of
church instead of the real and living Lord of the Church.
Help me God to escape from this self-imposed prison of
faulty expectations, from this distorted image of what a pastor should be and
how a church should function and instead to embrace my calling as a shepherd of
the flock – a hired hand who tends someone else’s sheep. Allow me to see the
church through your eyes and to lead this church into your will for her.
Help me follow you as they follow me.
In the name of the great shepherd of the sheep, Jesus
Christ,
Amen.
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