The Weights that Pastors Carry

In 1 Samuel, we read about a boy named, David who prepared to face a giant named, Goliath. He spoke with Saul, the King of Israel at the time about taking on Goliath. After King Saul realized that he couldn’t talk David out of, “the call” of taking on Goliath, he tried to get David to put on some battle armor. The battle armor was too big, too heavy, and not what God wanted David to use to take on Goliath. So, David went out to face Goliath, with a lighter weapon; a sling-shot and eventually five small, smooth stones.

The ministry of a pastor can many times seem like a weekly battle of taking on giants. This is a given in the call to ministry regardless of the context. The problem with many of us as pastors is, we are trying to put on the heavier armor of a king, than the lighter ministry tools of the sling-shot and stones. We do this by trying to do ministry in our own power instead of out of the overflow of intimacy with God, identity in Christ, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

If you think the church is yours, the people belong to you, and you’re doing the ministry, then you’re wearing the heavy armor of a king outside the favor of God. To believe that the church and the people belong to God, is to refuse the heavy armor and to pick up the sling-shot and stones. These lighter tools of ministry actually set us up to put on the new armor, which Paul talks about in Ephesians 6. Are you carrying too much weight?