Short Stories

The Resilient Pastor

by Stephen Wong
01/25/19
Not For Sale
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Jimmy woke up to the sound of a motorcycle roaring down the street. It was another Sunday morning. He would be running three services today at Redeemer Church. Jimmy rubbed his eyes lazily and hobbled out of bed. His head was throbbing. Jimmy looked at the clock. The time was 6:50 am. He had missed his alarm again. He would need to be at the church by 7:15, in time for leading the 8 am service. If he dressed quickly and skipped breakfast he might still be able to make it in time. He couldn’t afford to be late. Two people were getting baptised this morning. Hopefully the road wasn’t going to be too busy. Dazed, he reached over for the half-finished sermon notes he had been preparing from last night. This morning he would be preaching on the end of Matthew 11. Holding the pages in his shaking hands, he quickly read over what he had written. He hadn’t yet decided on the application of the passage. He would just have to work it out on the way to church again. He quickly tiptoed over to the bathroom, careful not to trip over the empty vodka bottles on his way there.

As Jimmy washed his face, he reminisced over the days when serving God had been a joy. He had been raised in a loving Christian home and with the help of his family and youth pastor he had come to accept Jesus into his life as a young teenager. Soon after that Jimmy had started playing on the worship team and helping to run the power points during the services. He became passionate about serving God. When he grew older he became a youth group and Bible study leader and even began leading services on a regular basis. Many of the church members would constantly tell Jimmy how his ministry had impacted their lives and encourage him to keep using his gifts in the church. It wasn’t long before Jimmy decided he wanted to serve the Lord full time as a church minister and enrolled in Bible college. After graduating he became one of the youngest candidates to become ordained.

Jimmy still remembered the early days of his ministry. When he had started working as an assistant minister, it was a dream come true. He could see God working through his ministry in so many ways. The church Jimmy worked at experienced tremendous growth. Many people were turning to Christ and getting baptised, and Jimmy was constantly receiving positive feedback about how his sermon messages or Bible studies had encouraged or challenged others. Jimmy felt on fire for the Lord. Going to work everyday was a real blessing and with God’s help nothing felt impossible.

Then Jimmy became senior minister of a new church plant in a nearby neighbourhood. At first, Jimmy had been delighted by this opportunity. Redeemer Church was growing quickly. People were growing in their faith and others in the neighbourhood who had never heard about Jesus before were now coming to church. Although it was an exciting time, it also meant that Jimmy soon had more responsibilities than he could handle. As Jimmy became busier and busier, his social life deteriorated. He had less and less time to see people. He had lost contact with some of his close friends and was becoming distant to his family. He no longer had time for the things he enjoyed doing such as reading and going for walks.  Jimmy was also struggling to make devotional time each day for reading the Bible and praying, and even when he did have time, he often felt too tired to concentrate.

Ministry only became harder over time. Jimmy was constantly faced with difficult challenges in his church. People were struggling with illnesses, addictions or the death of a loved one. A few couples were struggling with their marriages and were close to divorce. Parents were concerned over their children’s decisions to leave the church. A few people were struggling with depression. Others were facing stressful work or school situations. Some people were facing serious doubts over their faith. Conflicts were arising between church leaders. There were complaints about how the services were run. Yet somehow, people always expected Jimmy to have all the answers. Whatever the struggle, Jimmy was the one who was always there to offer support, prayer, guidance and encouragement and point others back to God’s Word. So, Jimmy always made the time to see and minister to people, no matter how inconvenient or tired he felt.

Jimmy constantly felt emotionally and spiritually drained. It seemed like everybody was coming to him and asking for help for their problems, but nobody was listening to Jimmy. Nobody knew how much he was struggling inside. Nobody knew about the doubts he had about his own faith. Many times, Jimmy considered taking a break from it all and going on a long holiday somewhere faraway, but there were always so many responsibilities he had to take care of every week. Who was going to preach the sermons? Who was going to run the training sessions for the Bible study leaders? Who was going to run the wedding and funeral services? Who was going to be around to manage all the new ministries that were starting up? Who was going to travel to someone’s house in the middle of the night every time a pastoral emergency came up? He didn’t want to let the church down. He felt like people depended on his ministry.

Soon Jimmy turned to drinking, the one thing his dad always turned to during a hard time. At first it seemed like a harmless habit. Jimmy would just have an occasional small drink at the end of the day to help relax and forget about all his stresses, but very soon Jimmy could hardly last a day without a late night drink. As the stresses of work increased, so too would his drinking habit. Ministry had started as a joy for Jimmy, but now it seemed like one miserable endless cycle.

This Sunday morning was grey as Jimmy hopped into his car to drive to church. He quickly cranked up the heater after turning on the engine. It was always colder in the early hours of the morning. As Jimmy was driving he could still feel his head throbbing. He struggled to keep his eyes open. Usually a quick fix of caffeine was enough to wake him up in the mornings, but he hadn’t even had time to make a cup of coffee. The warmth from the heater was also making him feel drowsier. Jimmy kept pushing down on the accelerator. He was almost at the church now, he could still make it in time. Yet Jimmy could feel himself drifting further away with every passing second. His head was still aching. Jimmy closed his eyes. He just needed to rest for a moment.

Later that morning as Redeemer church members were driving on their way to the 8 am service, they would find that the familiar intersection located two minutes away from the church was now surrounded by emergency vehicles and crowds of people standing around to see what had happened. Witnesses would later recount having seen a black hatchback run through a red light and smash directly into the right side of a passing SUV carrying a mother and three young children. One of the drivers had already been pronounced dead. Everyone else involved in the crash had been rushed off to hospital in critical condition. Emergency personnel also recovered sheets of paper from the wreckage of the black hatchback. These would later be identified as the remaining notes of an unfinished sermon.