"Spend enough time in the church and you will be hurt. And when you are nursing the wounds and feeling the sharp pain inflicted by one of the people you pastor, you will hear the voice of Jesus calling you to forgive." Kevin Harney

Being a Christian pastor is dangerous business. It means opening your heart, loving people, sacrificing, and risking great pain. But, there is no other way to be a leader. This is the way of Jesus. He loved the people he led – so much that he laid down his life. We too must lead with this kind of dangerous love.

Peter came to Jesus and asked, “Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?” Jesus answered, “I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times” (Matthew 18:21-22). Christian leaders are called to love God and those they lead. There is no better laboratory for learning to love than ministry. There is also no better place to learn the art of forgiveness than in the life of the local church.

The church is filled with people. People are broken and sinful. Spend enough time in the church and you will be hurt. And when you are nursing the wounds and feeling the sharp pain inflicted by one of the people you pastor, you will hear the voice of Jesus calling you to forgive.

When Jesus was reviled, he did not retaliate. When he was mocked, he prayed for forgiveness. When the Savior was denied three times by Peter, he willingly died on the cross for his sins. Then he rose from the dead, and called Peter back to himself and a place of fruitful ministry. As pastors, we will have plenty of opportunities to forgive people in our church, on our leadership team, and even our closest friends in the Church.

When we are attacked, burned, and hurt, we hit an emotional and spiritual crossroads. We have to decide, will I walk the way of forgiveness or will I allow my heart to grow cold and bitter?

Because pain and heartache are part of ministry, every pastor will be tempted to become angry, hurt, cynical, and insulated. If we don’t learn the wisdom and power of forgiveness, our heart will die and we will become a shell of the leader God wants us to be.

I learned this lesson early in my ministry.

One of my most painful leadership lessons came shortly after I graduated from seminary and began to work in a church as a full-time pastor and leader. I was asked to be on a committee that worked with incoming seminary students who were training for full-time ministry. One of our responsibilities was to determine if students had financial needs.

At my first meeting, this group looked over four requests for financial aid through what was called the “Zion Fund.” It turned out that years earlier a church had closed and had put all its assets in an account that was to be used to help train future pastors and leaders. Each request was handled quickly and succinctly. Everyone got support of $2,000. It was a joy to approve giving money to seminary students because my wife and I had struggled financially as we went through our years of seminary.

After we had made the approvals, I commented to the chair of the committee that I wished this fund had been around for the past three years because both my wife and I would have qualified for these grants and we would have had more than $10,000 less in student loans.

I assumed this fund had just come into existence. For the previous three years, I had asked my pastor if there were any sources of support or help for struggling seminary students. Each time I went and asked for help in finding support, I got a speech about how I should “learn to eat cold beans out of a can.” (I’m still not sure why my character would grow stronger if I kept the beans in the can and refused to heat them.) He had assured me, on many occasions, that there was no support available (from the church or the denomination) and that I needed to suck it up, toughen up, and eat lots of cold beans.

I was stunned when the chair of the committee said, “This fund has been here for over a decade.” I was dumbfounded. The place on the committee that I had filled had been occupied by none other than my pastor for the previous three years, and he had intentionally kept me from getting these resources.

I was saddened.

I was angry.

I felt sick to my stomach.

This moment opened a portal to my soul. I looked in and wondered if I had the ability to forgive this brother and partner in ministry who had hurt me deeply. It was a battle. I honestly considered making a conscious decision to not forgive. But, by God’s grace, and in the shadow of the cross, I chose to forgive.

We worked together for a number of years and experienced a fruitful time of ministry together. If I had not chosen to forgive him, I would have been filled with resentment and anger. Instead, I allowed myself to wonder why he felt the need to see me and my wife struggle. I made a choice to treat him as if he had never wronged me. I also identified the fact that this kind of unkindness was not characteristic of how he treated me. In general, he was very supportive and loving.

Over the past three decades of ministry, I have earned a doctorate in forgiveness. I don’t have this degree hanging on the wall, but it is in my heart. Like you, I have felt the deep pain of attacks from God’s people. I have been slandered and attacked, my motives have been questioned, and my wife has even been accosted. I was called to a church and promised things that were revoked once I had uprooted my family and traveled across the country. If we could sit together over a hot cup of coffee, I am sure we could spend the day telling war stories and show each other our scars.

In that moment, we might just feel the presence of Jesus there with us, sharing our pain and reminding us that he has scars too. I suspect Jesus would say something like, “Hang in there. Keep forgiving. Keep serving. I know the pain you feel. It will all be worth it when you hear me say, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant.’”

Adapted with permission from Leadership from the Inside Out (Zondervan, 2007).

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Posted Wed, Sep 23 2009 4:31 PM by MTBEditor