"The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching." - 1 Timothy 5:1

In honor of Pastor Appreciation Month, I need to take a minute to share the incredible work that pastors do, not just in the church, but also in the community. My pastor has said that people he meets sometimes tell him that being a pastor must be easy because he only has to work on Sunday's. I have seen firsthand that that is completely untrue. I have been to staff meetings where they are going through the church calendar and there are so many things on it that I'm not even sure where it all fits in. Not to mention any last minute things that may come up with family or other members of the church. Pastors are essentially on-call 24/7. Both pastors at my church actually struggle to find time to spend with their family. They are at church almost every day working on projects or writing a sermon or just making sure something was delivered. There is nothing about this job that says "only work on Sundays."

Now that you have a glimpse of what pastors do behind the scenes, here is the impact that all of the hard work they put in does every day. My pastor uprooted his family from Texas to come launch a church in Boston. Do you know what has come of that? When Discover Church Started, we had about 12 people and we met in my living room. Seven years later we have our own building that has recently been expanded and over 200 people in attendance every week. Countless lives changed because they are now headed in the direction of heaven. Hearts healed. Marriages restored. Missionaries sent out. Words cannot express the awe that I have for the work God has done through our pastors and every pastor in every church.

I may be a little biased since I am a youth leader, but I have to give a pretty big shout out to youth pastors everywhere. The investment that I see our youth pastor make in the lives of those teenagers is incredible. He not only speaks into their lives every week during youth group with his teaching, he and his wife also go to sporting events and other school functions He invite them into his families home for movie nights, his wife will take out the girls to get their nails done while he takes one of the teen guys out to lunch just to check in. Not to mention that at our church, youth pastor is currently a volunteer position. So he does everything he does with your church and our teens while still having two other jobs and making time for his family. The heart that these pastors have for service that they would actually dedicate their lives to it and some of them not even get paid is just astounding.

I have never met people with such compassion or hearts for service more than pastors. They are passionate about leading people to Jesus seeing the Kingdom of God expanded. There are few people I respect more than pastors for these reasons. Next time you happen to meet someone who is a pastor, don't be so quick to judge because you think their job is too easy or you think they are doing it because they think they are better than everyone else. Think about the work that actually goes into the job behind the scenes. Think about the number of lives impacted because of their sacrifice and service. These men inspire me more than anyone else in my life to reach those who are far from Christ. I can only dream of one day reaching the number of lives that they have and continue to do every day.