{"id":868,"date":"2013-01-19T07:00:50","date_gmt":"2013-01-19T13:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thomrainer.wpengine.com?p=868"},"modified":"2020-02-07T15:33:23","modified_gmt":"2020-02-07T21:33:23","slug":"ten-things-pastors-desire-in-a-church-member","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/ten-things-pastors-desire-in-a-church-member\/","title":{"rendered":"Ten Things Pastors Desire in a Church Member"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was surprised at the stir created by my blogpost\u00a0earlier this week, \u201cTen Things Church Members Desire in a Pastor.<\/a>\u201d When I did the initial survey and wrote an article on it, I viewed it as just a fun exercise that would get minimal attention. I was wrong. The article hit a nerve.<\/p>\n

One of the many commenters suggested I conduct a similar exercise and find out what pastors desire in a church member. I took that as a friendly and helpful suggestion. As a result, I interviewed 23 pastors with a simple and open-ended question, \u201cWhat do you desire in church member?\u201d The pastors could respond with an unlimited number of desires, but most pastors mentioned fewer than four.<\/p>\n

Here are their responses in order of frequency. As in my previous article, I note the desire and follow it with a representative quote.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Vibrant prayer life<\/strong>. \u201cWhile I do want church members to pray for me specifically, I really want them to pray\u00a0faithfully in all matters.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Spirit of unity<\/strong>. \u201cI want our church members to be uncompromising on cardinal issues, but I also\u00a0want them to be willing to yield to others on minor issues and issues of preference.\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Respect of pastor\u2019s family<\/strong>. \u201cIt\u2019s okay if my family is not given preferential treatment by the church. We really want it that way. But I don\u2019t want church members to have unreasonable expectations on my wife and kids just because their husband and dad is the pastor.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. Members who are critical to my face<\/strong>. \u201cLike most people, I don\u2019t like criticism. But I know it goes with the territory. I would just ask that any critics speak to me directly instead of speaking about me behind my back.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Encouragers<\/strong>. \u201cI don\u2019t have to be applauded for everything I do, but I sure do appreciate those members who are the encouragers in my life. I don\u2019t know what I would do without them.\u201d<\/li>\n
  6. Faithful attendees<\/strong>. \u201cI\u2019m really not numbers obsessed, but when people faithfully attend worship services and small groups, I know the church is important to their lives.\u201d<\/li>\n
  7. Members who share their faith<\/strong>. \u201cI\u2019ve been in ministry 34 years. The most faithful church members who make a difference in my life and the church are those who are consistent in sharing their faith.\u201d<\/li>\n
  8. Members who lead their families spiritually<\/strong>. \u201cThe church can only do so much for families spiritually. But it\u2019s great when both the church and family leaders work together to grow disciples in their own families.\u201d<\/li>\n
  9. Members who confront other members for being negative and critical<\/strong>. \u201cIt really is a great feeling to know there are members in the church that have my back. Sometimes criticism of me is justified; but on other occasions the criticism comes from one of a small number of people.\u201d<\/li>\n
  10. Members who read the Bible regularly<\/strong>. \u201cI can\u2019t ever remember a member who reads the Bible daily who became a challenge in the church. It just seems like people in the Word don\u2019t act like people in the world.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Now we have heard two perspectives: those of church members and those of pastors. What do you think of this \u201ctop ten\u201d?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was surprised at the stir created by my blogpost\u00a0earlier this week, \u201cTen Things Church Members Desire in a Pastor.\u201d When I did the initial survey and wrote an article on it, I viewed it as just a fun exercise that would get minimal attention. I was wrong. The article hit a nerve. One of…","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":870,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1,186,177,194,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church-answers","category-health-and-metrics","category-lead","category-preaching","category-revitalize"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTen Things Pastors Desire in a Church Member | Church Answers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/churchanswers.com\/blog\/ten-things-pastors-desire-in-a-church-member\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Ten Things Pastors Desire in a Church Member | Church Answers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was surprised at the stir created by my blogpost\u00a0earlier this week, \u201cTen Things Church Members Desire in a Pastor.\u201d When I did the initial survey and wrote an article on it, I viewed it as just a fun exercise that would get minimal attention. 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