Oh My! I needed to be ministered today, as I have been doing so many funerals, seeing so many broken hearts, it has broken mine. I do not know if people realize how funerals can effect a pastor. I could write a book on what I have learned from God and people over the last two years, as I have done more funerals in that time period than the past 13 years. I have three funerals to officiate in the next few days. Pastor Darryl Dash really touched my heart when he wrote, “If you’re a pastor, you’re going to have to learn to pastor sometimes as a broken-hearted pastor.” For sure.
If you really listen to God and people, you can learn so much about God’s ways and the ways of all people. It makes you a better person. It is the best education you can get. I am so blessed to be in God’s school, and not the school of man.
From Pastor Darryl Dash in CHURCHLEADERS:
I thought I could pastor without it. No more. If you’re a pastor, you’re going to have to learn to pastor sometimes as a broken-hearted pastor.
I remember meeting a congregation member in the aisles of Costco. I spoke of the funeral service I had just led for a dear old saint in our church. I described how hard it was to bury her. “It never occurred to me that you would feel that way,” she said. It had never occurred to her that pastors who read Scriptures at gravesides are reminding themselves, as well as everyone else, of what is true when we need it most.
