Why should I encourage my Pastor? Some answers from Spurgeon
October is Pastor Appreciation Month, an opportunity for churches and individual church members to actively encourage and express gratitude to those who serve Christ Jesus faithfully in the local church. While there is always an inherent danger in designating a specific month for appreciating anything (mutual appreciation and care should be the daily pattern of our lives), there can be no doubt that October’s focus can help us to be vocal and visible in expressing Christian love to those who serve. Throughout this month, our editorial team have been sharing some ways in which churches can appreciate their pastor, during this month and every month of the year. This week we turn to the inimitable CH Spurgeon for some powerful and pointed teaching on why encouraging one’s pastor matters.
“Why,” say you, “should a minister need encouraging? We have plenty of troubles all the week long, with our losses here, and crosses there, we want encouragements, but surely ministers do not.” Ah! if you want to have a refutation of that idea you had better come into this pulpit, and occupy it a little time. If you would like to exchange, I would truly say that so far as the pleasure of my office is concerned, apart from the spiritual joy my Lord gives me, I would change places with a crossing-sweeper, or a man who breaks stones on the road.
Let a man carry out the office of a Christian minister aright, and he will never have any rest. “God help,” says Richard Baxter, “the man who thinks the minister’s an easy life.” Why, he works not only all day, but in his sleep you will find him weeping for his congregation, starting in his sleep with his eyes filled with tears, as if he had the weight of his congregation’s sins resting on his heart, and could not bear the load. I would not be that man in the ministry who does not feel himself so fearfully responsible, that if he could escape from the ministry by going with Jonah into the depths of the sea, he would cheerfully do it; for if a minister is what he should be, there is such a weight of solemn concern, such a sound of trembling in his ears, that he would choose any profession or any work, however arduous, sooner than the preacher’s post.
It is a work so solemn that if you do not encourage your minister, your minister will probably sink down in despair. Remember that the man himself needs encouragement, because he is weak. Who is sufficient for these things. To serve in any part of the spiritual army is dangerous, but to be a captain is to be doubly exposed. The most of the shots are aimed at the officers. If Satan can find a flaw in our character, then it will be, “Publish it, publish it, publish it!” If he can lead us to keep back a doctrine or go amiss in practice, or wander in experience, he is glad enough. How delighted is the devil to break the vessels of mercy.
Pray for the poor man, whom you expose to perish, if you do not preserve him by supplication. If there were a ship at sea stranded and broken on the rocks, and some one volunteered to carry a rope to the sinking crew, you, standing on the shore, could do no more, methinks you could not do less, than cry, “O God! help him to bear the rope to that wrecked ship.”
Pray for the minister and encourage him, for there are plenty to discourage him. There are always carping spirits abroad who will remind him of any fault; he will be afflicted by those dastards who will not dare to sign their names to a letter, but send it to him anonymously; and then there is the devil, who, the moment the man has got out of the pulpit, will say, “There is a poor sermon! You will never dare to preach again.” After he has been preaching for weeks there will come a suggestion, “You are not in your proper sphere of labour.”
There are all sorts of discouragements to be met with. Professing Christians will backslide. Those who do remain will often be inconsistent, and he will be sighing and crying in his closet, while you, perhaps, are thanking God that your souls have been fed under him.
Encourage your minister, I pray you, wherever you attend—encourage him for your own sake. A discouraged minister is a serious burden upon the congregation. When the fountain gets out of order, you cannot expect to find water at any of the taps; and if the minister be not right, it is something like a steam engine in a great manufactory – everybody’s loom is idle when the motive-power is out of order. See that he is resting upon God and receiving his divine power, and you will all know, each Sabbath day, the benefit of it. This is the least thing you can do. There are many other things which may cause you expense, effort, time, but to encourage the minister is so easy, so simple a matter, that I may well press upon you to do it.
Excerpted from C. H. Spurgeon, “Encourage Your Minister,” in The Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit Sermons, vol. 9 (London: Passmore & Alabaster, 1863), 609–10.
Grace Publications has a deep burden for local churches and pastors. Many of our resources are centred around cultivating church vitality and nourishing pastoral health. You can browse our full range of titles here, and church members concerned to encourage their pastor may be interested in considering our Pastor Appreciation Pack Scheme that will be running in 2027.
