Confessions of an Insignificant Pastor PREFACE: EXCERPT #1  In this book you will be able to take a look into the random thoughts, feelings, inconsistencies, and opinions of an insignificant pastor unplugged. I trust it will help you better understand your local pastor and how you can be a friend, encourager, prayer-partner, and blessing to the man of God in your city. If you are a fellow pastor reading this then I pray you find courage, renewal, freedom, and hope on these brutally honest and life-giving pages of candor.
I fight with feelings of insignificance in a vocation that expects faith, miracles, results, growth, success, and supernatural power. What’s a pastor to do when he doesn’t measure up to his life goals, Biblical expectations, parishioners’ expectations, Christian magazine cover boy heroes, denominational norms, or the example of your ministry peers? How do you live with your insignificant self? Is it even possible? PREFACE: EXCERPT #2 He was in the darkest and deepest depression of his life. He wanted to quit the ministry! I’ve been there too. I’ve walked in that deep dark fog of depression, disappointment, disillusionment, and hopelessness. Have you struggled with unmet dreams, failures, and insignificance? Have you ever wanted to quit? Noah preached a hundred and twenty years without a single convert. Are you kidding me? I could have never lasted that long. Most people in ministry think of themselves as insignificant or at least doubt whether or not they have what it takes. They are failures in their own eyes. The vast majority of pastors will never pastor a church larger than a hundred people. Life’s successes these days are usually measured quantitatively…numbers! Has God called me to do something He hasn’t given me the gifts to do? Am I destined to always be an average Joe? If so, then God must not be good! Am I the butt of God’s cruel joke? Can a person be a success in ministry and still pastor a small church? How does God define success? Do I want success more than the will of God? C.S. Lewis once said that, “God whispers to us in our joys, speaks to us in our difficulties, and shouts in our pain.” I have heard His shout loud and clear! PREFACE: EXCERPT #3 I have been broken. Proverbs 13:12 says that hope deferred makes the heart sick, but when the desire comes, it is a tree of life. The alternative to brokenness is to be crushed by life. Discouragement is designed to stop you cold in your tracks, overcome you, and cause you to take your eyes off of God. How you respond to failure and delayed dreams determines whether you rise up to succeed or give up and quit. Learn all you can while you can from your pain. When I’m better…then I’ll let God use me. Friend, you’ll never be completely whole until you step out in faith and allow God to use your failures and pain to help others. Come down off the shelf. It’s your imperfection that gives you the stage for ministry to others. People will be encouraged by your journey as a fellow struggler. Healing comes when we display our scars to others so that they can be encouraged and healed. We don’t minister out of our perfection but rather out of our confession of imperfection. God wants to use your scars as a magnet that draws other hurting people to Jesus Christ so they too can be healed. Don’t allow your pain to be wasted. | 
