There Will Be One Thousand Compensations for Pastors

The other week I wrote a psalm about the cost of pastoral ministry. I wish those sober reflections came more from a theoretical place than a present experience. But, alas, here we are.

Listening to a recent interview with one of my pastoral heroes both validated these struggles and encouraged me to persevere. At the Coram Deo Pastor’s Conference, Justin Taylor interviewed John Piper (conference link to all sessions; YouTube link to interview).

I know well the heart of Piper’s ministry and key moments within it. I could share his calling from Romans 9 and talk about the God who demands not merely to be analyzed but proclaimed. I could tell you about the origins of what Piper calls Christian hedonism and how God is most glorified when we are most satisfied in him. I know how much Piper loves hyphenated phrases like Christ-exalting, prayer-soaked, and Spirit-wrought. And I remember the moment I first heard the Passion Conference sermon mentioning a retired couple from Punta Gorda, Florida, and how they spent their days collecting shells in the final chapter of their lives before they stood in the presence of God to give an account.

But some of the stories Piper shared in the interview were unfamiliar to me, such as the super rough patch at his church in the mid-90s after their worship leader confessed to a seven-year affair with the organist—only after weeks of confrontation. In the end, 230 people left the church, this at a time when the church was much smaller than when he retired.

At one point Justin Taylor asked Piper to read a letter his father wrote him. The letter aimed to dissuade his son from leaving teaching to become a pastor. And if not to dissuade, to encourage Piper to enter local church ministry with sobriety. Piper just read an excerpt of the letter, but I found the full letter in a blog post from Taylor. I’ll share the full letter below or you can watch Piper read the excerpt and respond to it here:

Now I want you to remember a few things about the pastorate. Being a pastor today involves more than merely teaching and preaching. You’ll be the comforter of the fatherless and the widow. You’ll counsel constantly with those whose homes and hearts are broken. You’ll have to handle divorce problems and a thousand marital situations. You’ll have to exhort and advise young people involved in sordid and illicit sex, with drugs and violence. You’ll have to visit the hospitals, the shut-ins, the elderly. A mountain of problems will be laid on your shoulders and at your doorstep.

And then there’s the heartache of ministering to a weak and carnal and worldly, apathetic group of professing Christians, very few of whom will be found trustworthy and dependable.

Then there a hundred administrative responsibilities as pastor. You’re the generator and sometimes the janitor. The church will look to you for guidance in building programs, church growth, youth activities, outreach, extra services, etc. You’ll be called upon to arbitrate all kinds of problems. At times you will feel the weight of the world on your shoulders. Many pastors have broken under the strain.

If the Lord has called you, these things will not deter nor dismay you. But I wanted you to know the whole picture. As in all of our Lord’s work there will be a thousand compensations. You’ll see that people trust Christ as Savior and Lord. You’ll see these grow in the knowledge of Christ and his Word. You’ll witness saints enabled by your preaching to face all manner of tests. You’ll see God at work in human lives, and there is no joy comparable to this. Just ask yourself, son, if you are prepared not only to preach and teach, but also to weep over men’s souls, to care for the sick and dying, and to bear the burdens carried today by the saints of God.

No matter what, I’ll back you all the way with my encouragement and prayers.

Several lines stand out to me in this letter, especially the parallel lines about the cost of ministry and the compensation from the Lord. Bill Piper, himself a traveling evangelist and very familiar with the hardships in local churches, told his son that pastors will “have to handle divorce problems and a thousand marital situations. . . . [But] As in all of our Lord’s work there will be a thousand compensations.”

I read that and I concur. The costs abound but so do the compensations.

Only a small percentage of readers are in full-time vocational pastoral ministry, but I believe the entire interview is worth considering for more than just pastors. To highlight another moment, as Piper shares his philosophy on preaching, he says, “It’s sin to be boring about non-boring things. It's okay to be boring about boring things, but it's a sin to be boring about the word of God” (around 42:27 minutes). Indeed, Piper, it is.

‍Thank you, Pastor Piper, for giving your life to being blood-earnest about the least boring story in the universe. I am a life that was changed.

* Picture from YouTube screenshot ‍

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Writing Updates

Some of you might like to know, so I’ll say that…

I’ve been working on some guest posts for other websites. They will appear in the next few months. There’s one on church membership at Christianity Today, there’s one on adultery and the local church at Desiring God, and a reflection on a strange and wonderful verse in Revelation at Gospel-Centered Discipleship. When they publish, I’ll let you know. Also, I hope to do some podcast interviews and guest posts related to the release of my book: The Restoration of All Things. (If you happen to have a podcast or have a friend who needs guests, let me know!)

Speaking of my book, if you haven’t pre-ordered it, I’d love for you to do that. I’ll stop mentioning this after June, but I need to keep being the squeaky wheel. I’m not sure I fully understand it, but my impression is that pre-ordering sets in motion the arc of a book’s impact. Or, to think about it differently, it’s like pushing someone on a swing, and starting with one giant push. The Amazon algorithm juice tends to notice all that commotion, and it helps. A crowd draws a crowd. So they tell me. And, so, I ask you for help.

Oh, one more detail, Baker Books started the process on the audiobook. No, they didn’t ask me to read the book. But it sounds like they got a cool reader who is, I’m sure, a way better reader than me. I’m actually kind of dyslexic, so not reading the book takes away a lot of pressure.

Thanks for reading, friends!

- Benjamin

The Reason I’m Most Thankful to Have Timothy Keller as One of My Spiritual Fathers

I went through all my seminary education largely oblivious to whatever pastor or author was currently deemed the most popular in evangelicalism—or, conversely, which pastor had most recently done something silly or sinful and thus immediately needed to be talked about by everyone. It’s a great way to go through seminary, and maybe life. Sure, I had a few favorites even in the early years of my ministry training, but they were literally just a few. And none of them, back then, were Timothy Keller.

I only met Dr. Keller once in person. He came to my seminary as a visiting preacher and lecturer. I didn’t really know who he was, even though it was about the same year he was co-founding The Gospel Coalition and lots and lots of other people apparently knew him. That anecdote speaks of my blissful ignorance.

Yet now, some fifteen years later, when I think over his ministry and the blessing he was to me and so many others, I’m thankful that God extruded him to a place of prominence. I’m thankful for books like Counterfeit Gods that gave me the language to name and renounce my idolatry, the language of “a good thing becoming an ultimate thing.” I’m thankful for those in our congregation who became Christians as we led a study through The Prodigal God. And I’m thankful for the textbook Center Church, and the way it prepared our leaders to plant a church in our city. In short, I’m thankful for the publishing and church-planting empire the Lord built through him.

The one-year anniversary of his death was last month. Christianity Today published a reflection I had about his life and what I’m most thankful for. This may come as a surprise. It wasn’t his writing or preaching, despite the above picture being from the bookshelf in my office which prominently features most of his books.

If you’d like to read the post, you can do so here, “Would Tim Keller Care If We Weren’t Still Talking About Him? Probably Not.” Christianity Today used this line as the excerpt for sharing, which I think gets at the point of my article: “For all his greatness, we should most seek to imitate the late pastor’s humility and indifference to fame.” The article also talks about the little-noticed detail of a brown banana peel that sat next to Keller in a famous photograph of him.

I can’t republish the whole article here, but I will include the first three paragraphs below. I’d love for you to read and share the article.

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In spring of last year, many of us saw a photo of the late Timothy Keller sitting on a park bench. The photo was used on the cover of Collin Hansen’s biography of Keller, and it circulated around the internet in May when he passed away—on social media, blogs, and even Keller’s personal website.

What most of us didn’t see, however, was the banana peel lying on the bench only a couple feet from Keller. The peel has been cropped from most versions of the photo, and understandably so. Who wants to see an ugly brown bit of organic waste in an author’s photograph?

I confess that if I were a world-famous pastor and best-selling author having my picture taken by a professional photographer, I would most certainly have moved the banana peel before someone took my picture. Who wouldn’t? But Keller didn’t seem to care . . .

To continue reading on Christianity Today’s website, click here.