MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Pastor: An Owner's Manual
So, I don't know about you, and I hope that you don't judge me too much this whole sermon and you are. But that's okay, but for right now, I think one of the most amazing smells on the planet is the smell of a newborn baby. You know what I'm saying? And what's interesting, like my son, he's eight now, and he does not smell like a newborn baby. He like smells like boy now. And like, you know, I go and I snuggle and I wake him up in the morning and I'm like, oh, no, good, but as newborn baby, they always smell so good. I don't know what it is. It's just like, I mean, it should be like new car smell or something. You should somehow get this newborn baby smell and just, I cannot get enough of it. Well, thankfully, one of our staff members, Amanda Milholland and Scott Milholland had their first baby two weeks ago, little Felicity June, and she is the most precious little baby on the planet. And my wife is all weird about that too. So she like, like she holds Felicity more than Amanda gets to. And I was sitting next to Katie one night and I'm like, you smell like new baby. And I'm like, I just can't get enough. And in fact, last night I came back from a trip and on our way back, we stopped by Scott's and Amanda's just to pick up little Felicity and be like, oh, you're so cute. You know, like the first couple weeks, they're like little baby and then they grow a little bit and they gain half a pound, like, look, they're becoming so strong. And I'm looking at Amanda and Scott, I'm like, you guys are the perfect parents. I'm like, we are the perfect parents because look, we made this little baby which is so beautiful and smells so good and does nothing except eat and then sleep and then sometimes go, ugh, and then they change her and then they eat and sleep and that's it. And it's so beautiful and guys are building their confidence as parents going, we own this thing because we all know soon they will not be perfect parents. It'll be so soon when little Felicity goes, no. I'm not eating vegetables, no, whatever it is, I'm not doing that. They're going to try to potty train Felicity and it's going to be a disaster. They're going to be doing laundry all day, every day. You know, they're going to try to get Felicity to sleep through the night and she's going to be like, no, I want to eat the middle of the night and party in there because she's going to scream, they're going to like tear their hair out and so like in just a matter of a year, you know, Scott and Amanda are becoming a church like, oh, this is awful. I'm going to have to change this a little bit in second service but you know what I'm saying, right? But what happens is because I think with all things, God gives us these little gifts and they're so perfect and they're so beautiful but because we're humans, because we're broken in no time at all, we are outside of our skills that we're outside what we can do. And thankfully because of Amazon, you can come across books like this. This is a toddler book, an owner's manual. And because when you have little kids, I mean, thankfully it's starting to be a little bit farther for me but it is overwhelming when your kid goes, no. And they're like, well, I'll put you to timeout but then they get up from the chair. Like, no, a timeout means you sit in your chair and they don't get up and so you spank them and they cry and they look at you like, why are you just like, oh, I just spanked my kid. And it's like, all the stuff that you thought you would never have to do or deal with is like overwhelming. And so there's these books, there's thousands of Amazon is like, oh, the thousands of them because all these parents go, I don't need it. I'm an awesome parent. Look at my little baby. But in no time at all, it is death and destruction for everybody, you know? And so you've got to get the book, you've got to read the owners manual, you've got to figure out how in the world am I going to care for this little baby because they don't even smell nice anymore and what am I going to do? And so we go to Amazon, we do as well. I wish Amazon had a book like this, the pastor and owner's manual because in a very similar way, a church, you know, is all hopeful and excited, they call a pastor and the pastor's all excited. I'm going to this church and in our little pastor world, you know, we tell everybody they're like, oh, I got this call, I'm going to hire me and they're like, oh, it's so great. And you show up. And everyone's all excited. The church's like, we're going to have a pastor, the pastor's like, I'm going to have a congregation. And it's all beautiful. It's new baby smell. It's so good. But because we're humans, because we're broken in no time at all, sometimes death and destruction ensues. And even though I didn't find this book online, which I think that's pretty clever. So even though the deal is that this passage we're going to look at in First Timothy is really that. It's a pastor, owner's manual. It's an owner's manual for you, the church, and how to care for us is pastors. And as I was reading this passage, like this is really good stuff and I got all insecure and awkward because it's not right for the pastor of the church you're working at to tell the congregation how to care for them, right? I can go to any other church in America and be like, hey, church in America, this is how to care for your pastor. Write a book, make a million bucks. But come to my own church and say, hey, own church. Here's how you do it. It's awkward. And I know it's awkward because we seem like we have the perfect marriage. But we don't. Sometimes we've had little issues. And I came across this book and see you're going to judge me again. I came across this book as a Dr. Laura book and it's called the proper care and feeding of husbands and all the women are like, I hate that book. But seriously, if you are a guy, it's the best book on the planet. Yeah. You right? It is such a good book and all the women hate it. They hate it because all the men love it. And so what I did is I got to hold this book and I'm in bed and I'm underlining. I'm like, this book is so good. And I'm underlining and I'm underlining and I'm underlining and I'm underlining. And then I thought, I'm going to be a good husband. I'm going to help my wife understand why we're not working. And so I go, hey, take a look at this book and the underlining notes. And it didn't go well to say the least. And we worked through it for sure. So I'm fully aware that this sermon is just so much peril, potential. So I'm just going to trust that you please be gracious with me. I leave on sabbatical in a couple of weeks. You're like, I'm going to need a big break. And so yeah, so I trust, will you be gracious with me and I'll be gracious with you. And we'll approach God's word and see what he has for us. Is that all right? Okay. All right. So if you have a bye-bye, why don't you turn to 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 17. And we'll get after this. All right. 1 Timothy chapter 5 verse 17 says this, "The elders who direct the fairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. So the scriptures say, 'Do not muzzle an ox while this treading out the grain and the worker deserves their wages. Do not entertain the accusations against an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses. But those elders who are sinning, those elders who are sinning, you are to reprove before everyone so that the others may take a warning. May God add his blessing to his challenging word for us this morning. Amen. Amen." Good morning, I thought here is the title. It's a pastor and owner's manual and it's basically two ways to care for and correct your pastor. Me, us, Jeff, all right, Peter. So good. And he comes right out of the gate and says, "Give double honor. The elders who direct the affairs of the church are worthy of double honor. So good." And it's pretty awkward to come up here and say, "We deserve double honor." And especially I think there's this weird cultural thing that happens. I remember being a brand new youth director, 22, and going to some gathering at some church, someone's house, but there was like this old Baptist preacher, and it was at this person's house, and I was the young 22 youth director and some of the other youth directors were all there, and I remember walking in and it felt so weird because this old Baptist pastor kind of sat down in like the big comfy chair. It wasn't his house. It was like someone else's house. It's like the dad chair, but the pastor came in and sat down on the dad chair, you know, and kind of held court and everyone's like, "Pastor, pastor, pastor." And I'm like, "This is so weird," especially not growing up in the church. I didn't know that pastors received double honor and he was like, "I received double honor." And that was kind of their vibe, but it's not really part of my deal, but I know that in some churches, in some contexts, it's getting less and less, but there are still those churches. I have a friend of mine down in Kerman right outside of Fresno, and all of their emails are pastor Dan, pastor Theo, pastor, whatever. I'm like, "That'd be so cool, pastor Jeff at MCC.com." And so there is this kind of memory at least of the pastor used to be this esteemed person in culture and society. And truthfully, almost in every culture, in every society, the religious people, whether they were shamans or witch doctors or pastors or priests, were kind of this like special place, this special person in their culture. And my pastor when I was first started out was telling me stories like, "I remember when I was a kid in the New York Times would print the sermons of preachers in New York." And I'm like, "The New York Times printed ser--okay, whatever." It didn't make sense to me, but there was this time when pastors were, they were these esteemed people. And because of all sorts of stuff and oftentimes pastors own mistakes, they're like, "Well, we don't really deserve that kind of honor anymore." And what's interesting is Jesus and his ministry, right, the rabbi was someone who deserved honor. And he was treated with honor wherever he went. And James and John, right, one time came to Jesus and said, "I want to sit on your right and left. Like, you're going to be honored. We want to be honored with you." "Oh, my goodness, my kingdom is not about honor. It is not about people respecting and honoring you. It's about serving and caring for you." And what I think is so funny is within a generation at this church, right? You have these pastors who are trying to wrestle with, "How do we serve leaders to our people?" And the people going, "Oh, our pastors are servants," and then kind of walking on them. And what's interesting in Paul, because he's Paul, he's so awesome, he writes, he's not a pastor of any particular church, he just goes and he's writing these letters. And he gets to say, "Listen, the pastor, the elders, the teaching elders, the ones who are doing the affairs of the church, they are worthy of double honor. They are worthy of honor. They are worthy of respect." And you know what, though? When I go, I come as a slave to you. I come as a servant to you, and he goes around and he doesn't take any of the church's money. He doesn't want to be a stumbling block in any way. He says, "I'm not going to do any of that," but he fights for the rights of the elders, the teaching elders, and the teachers, and those things. So he says to Timothy, so that Timothy can be bold, say, "These elders deserve double honor." And it's interesting, because I think the pastoral call is a really strange call. And I was trying to think, "What is it like?" And I don't know what it used to be like, but for me, what it feels like is being a pastor on staff at a church feels like being a parent of a 17-year-old a little bit. And I do not mean this in any patronizing way in the slightest. But if you can just hang with me a minute before you write your email, because in our culture and our context, we're the pastors of this church. In some sort of weird sense, we have spiritual authority and a spiritual place of leadership and authority in our congregation's life, in your life. But yet not really, right? It's like this relation like, "We have as much as you let us." And I think it's like a parent of a 17-year-old, because as a parent of a 17-year-old, I'm not a parent of a 17-year-old, but I've worked with 17-year-olds forever, is the 17-year-old is like, "Hey, Mom, will you pay for my phone bill? Hey, Mom, I need gas for the car. We pay for cars. We do this thing. I need help here. I crash and burn. What do I do?" So when there's this crisis, it's like, "Hey, Mom, I need you." But then the rest of the time, they're like, "I'm becoming an individual. I'm becoming an adult." And they're like out there doing their own thing. But the mom is like in bed going, "What is my son doing? What are they doing? They're all spending up there carrying this huge emotional spiritual weight for their kid." They're like, "What? I'm going to high school. Life's great." And then they say, "You have trouble, right?" Then they come to their parent. And a lot of times I feel like this pastoral call is this weird thing because every Tuesday as pastors, we gather, we go through the prayer quest, we pray. We get this totally special moment in people's lives and the death and destruction and the awful chaos. And in some of the joys, we get these little moments and we're all in. We're praying our guts out for you and for our people and our heart breaks. And then that crisis kind of moves on and we all kind of go on and do our thing. And it is a trip for sure. But I think what Paul says, and that's why it's awkward saying here, but the pastor, the pastoral position, even though culturally is awkward, right, when you go to on planes or it's like, "Your pastor, it ends badly, either they're going to talk to you for the whole two hours or they're going to be like, "And then it's awkward for two hours," right? So culturally we get, we get like we're not big ways, we're not the people. But for our congregation, I just want you to know that your pastors, we love you. We are all in it with you. We carry your backpacks in prayer to the Lord. We are called by God to be shepherds for you. And it says, "Give double honor," I mean, to give honor. It doesn't mean like you don't need to kiss our butts, you don't need to like, but it's just a simple matter of respecting the fact that the pastor has this unique special place. And we love the special privilege to be in that moment of weakness and awfulness with you. But we also want to be in life with you. We want to celebrate with you. We want to be a part of the hard decisions with you too, not just when they blow up. And so it's kind of an awkward little thing, but I just want you to know, at least for, I'm pretty sure I speak for all of us, that that's our heart, that we are just so in it with you. And so I think one of the things is double honor is the first one, is that we, I forgot that slide, the next one is, but yeah, that are just the very position that we honor and position. Now what's interesting is the way that we show honor and respect in culture now is actually through finances. I can't tell you the amount of youth pastors I know where their lead pastor comes around them and says, "Hey, will you take on more and more and more of this?" And they go, "Yes, I can actually do something more than just do junior high Sunday school." And they get all excited and they go, "We want you to be a part of the culture of leadership." You know, we want you to, you know, and what happens is like, because it's such a weird job this pastoral ministry, when someone sees you and affirms you and goes, "And we want you to be kind of a little bit more," we go, "Yes, this is awesome." But what happens, and then so my next question is like, "That's awesome, so are you going to get a raise too?" And then they're like, "Well, no, I'm not getting a raise, I'm getting to do this more thing." And there's this weird thing and it says awful tension, it totally is, but in our culture and our context, the way that you show honor is through finances. For better or for worse, if someone says, "I want you to do this, this, and this because you're great." You're like, "Oh, okay." When someone says, "I want you to do this, this, and this," and I think you're going to do such a good job and you get paid well for it, you're like, "Whoa," like you actually see me, you actually respect me. And some of my friends who have gone on to be lead pastors, it's a trip because we so want to honor God, we so want to follow God's calling wherever he leads. And so the interview process is always such a trip, right? Because you're calling, you're talking to this church, and they're like, "We want, we think God's calling you." And you're like, "Yes, I think God's calling me," and you get all like hopped up spiritually, and then you're all in. You're all in, ready to follow God's calling. They're like, "And we're going to pay you $22,000 a year and you're going to cover your own benefits." And you're like, "So did I not hear God well?" And this whole, but what happens where I see my buddies do is because we're so messed up and it's so unclear about how finances work with pastoral ministry, they go, "I guess I'm going to go and trust God." And these guys go and they trust God, and within a year, they're eating dog food, and they're like, "What is up?" And they're bitter and their hearts get cold and hard towards the church. And this passage that Paul says, he says, he goes back to this passage in Deuteronomy, "Do not muzzle an ox when it's treading out grain." And Jesus actually says, "Workers deserve their wages." And there is this truth, and it's basically been worked out through Scripture and through the tradition of the church that the elders, the teaching elders, the people who are running the affairs of the church should be paid. And they should actually be paid well, they shouldn't be the slave of the church, they should be shown honor. And it says right here, "Double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching." And the deal is my kid is going to have braces pretty soon, so I'm like, "You got to get me in the rotation here," so I'm just kidding. And I tell you both of those things, and you have to know, Marin Covenant Church is an amazing and awesome church. And I am humbled and honored to be a pastor because Marin Covenant Church gets both of these things well, for the most part. And so in no way, I'm not even remotely implying that I need a raise or that I'm unhappy or that I'm like eating dog food. Like that is not the case at all. One of the things I think Marin Covenant Church does overwhelmingly is they get that pastors aren't slaves of the church, that there's not this correlation between following God's calling and then being poppers and having to go to everyone's meals, everyone's house every week to have meals because we're just, you know, we're dying. And I think our leadership team does a pretty good job being incredibly clear saying, "Hey, this is what you're paid to do and you're going to do it." In fact, when I first came and they said, "Hey, do you want to take on the children's ministry position?" I was like, "Well, that's great." And I got all kind of hopped up, like, "You want me to do more like you can see these gifts in me? I'll do it." And that was totally weirded out because they're like, "And you get a raise." And they're like, "What? That never happens. None of my peers experience like you get more responsibility and then you're also a firm finance like that doesn't happen anywhere." Or sometimes we pay people really poorly, like we've had interns and we've paid them really poorly. But we've made it clear, "Hey, we're going to pay you really poorly for one year and then we'll help you find a job." And they're like, "Great." And so there's always ways to improve, but I think our church, by and large, is a pretty good job of those two things and I am totally honored to be a part of our church. But when you go somewhere else and you become on their leadership team, don't jack them. Bless them. Don't let them make them feel like second class citizens, but honor them in word and deed and also in finances. Okay. The second one is that you want to offer them double honor. So that's the first way. That's how you care for your pastor through respect and through finances are two of the ways there. The second, though, is that we want to have double accountability. There's this weird thing, right? Because we're leaders, how in the world do you engage leaders? How do you, when we screw up, how do you discipline us? Because just like there's kind of a trip from our end to your end of, we're just kind of parents of 17-year-olds, we're kind of trying to get in a little bit more. When we, the flip side, too, also, when we screw up, how do you deal with us? We're the pastor. We know scripture way better than you, right? All we do is study scripture all day, every day, right, Jeff? That's it. All day. That's all we do is study scripture. We went to school for thousands of years. We know scripture better than you. So when you come to us with some problem, we're like, excuse me, and we take some rad scripture out of content, like obviously you're wrong, and then you go, that didn't feel right, you know? And so the deal is there's this balance, though, that we as leaders, even though as pastors, as spiritual leaders, as whatever of our church, as the church, if we're going to do this well, the way that you care for us is we have to have double accountability. And there's this weird thing that I noticed among my peers, but then I thought it was just a weird youth pastor thing. Whenever we ask youth pastors to get together, all we do is rail on our bosses. We're like, our bosses are such idiots. If they would just let us be in charge, then the church would really be well. And we do that. I love it. And it feels so good. But I thought it was this weird youth pastor thing, but what I realized is almost always, whenever gatherings of employees gather, they're always ticked at their boss. They're always upset with something that their boss did, and they all sit around, they all gripe about it. And there's this weird thing that we have to do when someone who's above us in leadership, above us in authority, how in the world do we approach them when we feel like they've really screwed up? Because just sitting around gossiping or slandering them or complaining about them doesn't do anything. How in the world are we to actually go and confront them? And Paul says, right here, he says, "But those elders who are sinning," you are, oh, before that, says, "do not entertain the accusations of an elder unless it is brought by two or three witnesses, but those elders who are sinning, you are to reprove before everyone so the others may take warning." And that alludes back to his passage in Deuteronomy 19, and then back again to Matthew 18 and Jesus says the same thing, right, that if someone is sinning, if there's a problem going on, you go to that person. What? No one does that. It seems so simple. Right? We don't like going to our boss and saying, "Hey, Art, if you let me be in charge, this is how it's all going to work out." No, I'd rather sit with my youth pastor, friends, just blah, blah, blah, blah, all day long. But the deal is if there's actually a real problem, we have to have the guts to actually go and talk to that person. But so weird, and the church just never happens. For whatever reason, I'm like, well, we can't go to the pastor, so I know we'll turn half the church against them. Yeah, that's a great idea. And it's not. I'm just kidding. It's not a great idea. We have to go to the pastor and say, "Man, you screwed up here. This is where you messed up." And we need to do it, and I love when Jesus, early on in the Mount, right, says, "We have to take the plank out of our own eye," because there is this weird, rebellious nature. We don't like people over us in authority getting our chili. We don't like that. And so we're ready to come after them. But we have to do the spiritual work. Take the plank out of our own eye, and man, if there's still a big plank in our pastor's eye and the person above us, we have to go to that person. And what's helpful, I'm just going to give you a little tip. If you take a prayer request card and blow us up, not helpful, especially if you don't add your name to it, right? All it does, it would be so great, like, "It's just a no name. We don't care." No, it wounds us. We all pretend it doesn't, but it wounds us greatly when you just blow us up on a card without your name. Or after the sermon, you go home and you just go straight to your email, and you go, "Ah!" and you go, "Boom!" And you just barf out everything that offended you on this email right away. Oh, it is so wounding, and our defense mechanism, because we're wounded, is just right you off. Who are you? You don't know, whatever. All I do is stay scripture, right? The deal is, but we do. We're humans, and we screw up, and we need to be corrected, and we need to be approved. And so what happens is when you get a conviction from God, when you get it, man, there's something that's wrong. I see something that's wrong. You have to come to us. You have to come and say, "This is what's going on." My pastor's wife told Katie this, and it's shaped her whole marriage. She said, "You know what? She knows this in women's ministry. No one has the guts to go to the pastor's wife and go, "Oh, yeah, blah, blah, blah." No one does, because you're the pastor's wife, and it's kind of been this overwhelming thing that's kind of shaped her and her ministry and me and my ministry, because it's true. They have the guts to come after us and come guns blazing, but no one really has the guts to say, "Here's this thing I see in you, and you need to correct it." And so you please come, and what's so amazing is every now and then, people do come. And I'm honored to be a part of a church, especially art, because he screws up a lot. And so occasionally they have guts to say, "Art, you screwed up." And it is amazing to be in a staff meeting where art's like, "Oh my goodness, I screwed up." And like lay prostrate on the floor. Like, I wouldn't do that. He lays prostrate on the floor, asking for forgiveness, and we have the pastoral staff pray for him and figure out a way to find reconciliation. In fact, he was home one day between some trips, and he went and made sure he had a couple meetings because he wanted to make things right. That's our church. That's our staff. We're humans. You're going to come after us. We're going to get freaky and defensive, but our heart is we want to make things right. So when you come to us, come to us. Don't take the whole church. Don't divide the church over. Come to us. Right? If one of us doesn't get it, get a couple people right after we come to us. And then if we're still not coming to see an eye to eye, then you bring it before the church, the whole church. And I love it, says, "But the elders who are sinning are to reprove before everyone so that others may take warning." And I have some friends who have been to these awful churches who just have not taken this verse very well, and so they're like, "Oh, you're sinning, and it's this embarrassing sin." And okay, we've got that taken care between one-on-one. And you know what? Obviously, if we're going to make this right, you need to stand in front of the whole church and share your secret garbage to the whole church, because then you're following scripture. And it just decimates them. It decimates their ministry, and it's so hard for churches to move on. John Stott, this great theologian, says this, "Such a public rebuke, though, though an effective deterrent, which it is, all my friends who have been blown up like that, I'm like, okay, I will never do that." So it is. It's an effective deterrent, but it must be the last resort, however, is to save the rule that private sin should be dealt with privately, and only public sins publicly. It is neither right nor necessary to make what is private public until all possibilities have been exhausted. And because there are, I have colleagues, and I pray every day that my friends and fellow pastors here, this church, it's not us, but we are humans, and we are capable of awful mistakes. It is true. We are capable of awful mistakes, and we have all had friends and known people who have made awful, awful mistakes, and it is a ministry, it's a career-ender. And how the church deals with that totally impacts that person's life and ministry forever. And so if we're caught in sin and we have this thing, right, we get dealt with it individually, if we're falling, if we need more people brought in, we get more people brought in. And our church is part of such an amazing denomination because there's this process that happens if we get caught in sin, or if we're wrestling with sin, or if we're not seeing eye to eye. So let's say you come to me and you're like, "Ben, you're Bob, this is your problem." And I'm like, "That's not my problem." And then you get a couple more people. And you go, "No, this is your problem." I'm like, "No." Well, the way it works is you go to the leadership team and say, "Man, this is the problem." The leadership team goes, "Actually, Ben's right because you don't know, Bob, Bob, because this is what you haven't seen." Or they go, "Oh, my goodness, you are right." And then the leadership gets involved. Leadership team gets involved. But then let's say the leadership team and the pastors still aren't seeing eye to eye. Well, in our denomination, we have this thing called the Board of Orded Ministry, and it's this group of pastors who their entire job is to deal with church discipline issues. And then that pastor then goes, because we're ordained pastors, part of this ministerium, we're accountable to this board in our behavior. And so then they sit us down and they go, "No, seriously, this is what's wrong." Well, when I was up in Washington, I was there for one whole year. And the reason I was there for one whole year is because the pastor, who is my boss, got involved in some messed up stuff. And on the surface, it wasn't messed up. There was no clear moral failure. That's why it was so messy. If he would have slept with the secretary, "Sweet, it's over. You're gone. You're fired." But it wasn't that. It was this subtle, weird, abusive leadership and power thing that was really subtle. And so a person would go and confront him, and he'd blow them up and they'd go and wander away. And someone else would come and confront him, and they'd blow him up and they'd wander away. Finally, some people said, "Hey, let's take this to the leadership team." And the leadership team confronts him, and the board of order of ministry came in. And what's so great about our denomination, about the leadership team, about the board of order of ministry, is that the end is always reconciliation. The end is always healing. The end is always church unity. And a lot of times when we come after our pastors, when we come after people in leadership, we just want them gone. We want to get them out of the deal. But the way the Department of Order of Ministry works is they want to bring reconciliation. They want to bring peace. And what's amazing is my pastor at the time, he goes and he sits before this board and they said, "Man, you are a mess. The way that you lead is so abusive and you crush people and especially women, the way you come off towards women is really messed up and you need some serious help." And what's amazing is if my pastor would have been like, "Oh my goodness, I had no idea that the way that I came off, that my cheap cologne was that offensive, then I had no idea. I'm ready to figure it out. I will take the counseling and the direction and leadership of the board." If he would have just humbled himself and said, "Let me figure that out," the board would have given him a plan of restoration. The church, even the ones who have been crushed by this guy, would have found a way for restoration because Christians, right, forgiveness and healing and reconciliation is our DNA. It is in our blood. And so, all he had to do was go, "I had no idea." But it stays like whatever, you guys are idiots and so, right, that's our, so then church discipline happened, he gets booted and this whole awfulness happened. But God was gracious, plucked me out. That board came in, cared for the church, bought another pastor in and actually, there's some great healing and it is an amazing church up in Washington still. And so this idea of double accountability, we, us pastors are not above the law, we are not above you. We have this weird role and we need to be held accountable and you need to come to us when we offend you, when we have wronged you. If we don't see the eye to eye, there is a plan. It is to you. It is to you. It's the leadership team. It's the department of ordered ministry and then it's to the whole church. At that point, the whole church gets to go, "Okay, this is the problem." It does not start with you and your buddies to the whole church blowing us up. And I think if we can get those two things right, which I'm so honored to be a part of church that gets those two things right, how cool is that? With that, if we can honor and respect the pastor and pay them well and give them the honor that they deserve of carrying the weight, of just carrying the backpacks of our whole church and yet also holding our feet to the fire that when we screw up, you hold us accountable. We go through the process of discipline. If we can do those two things right, then the pastor actually gets to thrive in their context, right? Because if we're not honored and respected well, then we get bitter and we spiral out. If we're not held accountable well, we get power hungry and we make poor choices too. But when both those things happen, then I think the pastor and the church can work amazingly well together so that we can move forward. So that's when Timothy, and when Paul writes to Timothy, that's one of the issues that's going on in their church and they kind of wrestle with that. But that's some things that are applicable for us, but I think for all of us, no matter what context we find ourselves in, we need to find ways whether we have a boss, we need to honor and respect our boss as our boss. We need to care for them, we need to not belittle them. We need to, yeah, they are the boss and we work at their pleasure and we need to do well by them. And when they screw up, they're not above the law, but we might need to deal with some stuff, but we have to have the guts to go one on one and bring it to them. We cannot use gossip, we cannot use slander, we need to take the plank out of our own eyes so that we can deal with those things appropriately. And for those of us who have positions of leadership and positions of authority, wherever it may be, we cannot get so hung up on our positional status that we end up crushing people. We have to be so aware, it is so intimidating for people to come to me with a problem. For students, they love coming to me with my problems, where I'm screwing up. But there's this weird thing that when people with authority, it's scary to go to them and if we hold those positions of authority, we have to make ourselves available and open those doors so that people feel like they are welcome to hold us accountable, to show us where we're wrong, because we are so human and we need to fix the things that we've screwed up. So whether you're an employee, whether you're an employer, whether you have a place of authority or not, I think that the truth to this, we need to hold in all areas of our life. We need to give honor to the people who deserve honor and the people who are screwing up, we need to care for that in a way that always moves towards reconciliation. So let me pray for us and then just going to come up and we'll wrap this thing up. Heavenly Father, I'm so thankful on one hand to be part of a church that gets it, that cares for their pastors well, but it is such a perilous dance of how do we balance honor and respect and accountability? How do we deal with power players and our rebellious nature towards authority and our spiritual trips that we put ourselves on, all the stuff that garbage that we bring to the table, especially around a passage like this, God, I pray that your Holy Spirit would speak to us, that you reveal the areas in us that need to be healed and forgiven, that we would be so open to the body of Christ for their encouragement but also for their discipline. And God, as we who might need to discipline others, God, I pray that we would do it with gentleness and respect, always seeking reconciliation, always seeking unity, always seeking your honor and your glory. There's a lot of stuff in this passage, God, and we all are approaching it from different seats around the table with different issues, but I pray, God, as we spend some moment in silence that your Holy Spirit would simply bubble up one or two things, God that we wouldn't just be hearers of the Word, God, but that we would be doers of the Word, so percolate something God and let us be faithful to whatever that is that you call us to do.