What any faithful pastor must appreciate in distressing moments as ours is that same victor we preached yesterday, is the same victor we preach today, and tomorrow. “He himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5).” Jesus’ call never changes, “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world (Jn. 16:33).”

This has been one of the most difficult seasons I can recall in my twenty years of pastoral ministry. How quickly things can fall apart. I groaned after hearing of the shooting of little ones at the Catholic school, only to watch, on video, two people bleed out before me. The last put me over the top. To see Charlie Kirk’s life taken, a sheep, doing no harm, and who was devoted to help young adults answer the tough questions of life against the wicked ideologies of the godless that are ruinous to the health of our nation—it crushed me.

Pastors take in moments like this in ways most don’t appreciate. We preach the powerful kingdom of God. We herald a gospel that delivers from darkness to light. We believe sin’s dominion can be broken. We believe the world is overcome. Then, events like this seem to undo everything. The longing for righteousness and its seeming absence punches us in the face. How are our people, “our joy and crown,” handling this? How are we to help them now? What can we say to make it better? The weight of bringing the right words makes for many a sleepless night. The sheep look to us for answers. We gather ourselves, go to the Lord in prayer, and seek to provide words that will help them.

The pressure is immense. Then, we open social media and see absolutely no uniformity of agreement on how this should be done. There is pastoral disarray, it seems. Some of the most popular social media pastors are calling us to war, yes, war. “If your pastor has not declared open war on the left by now, it’s time to find a new church,” one pastor says. If your pastor is not taking the moment to tell people to ‘be a Charlie Kirk,’ he is weak and compromised” says another. “If your pastor is not teaching the people to hate their enemies and rise-up, he was probably a mask wearing, church-closing coward during COVID,” says a leading podcast pundit. What is this really all about? Control? Power? Or helping people?

Pastors certainly want to recognize the death of faithful saints and expose heinous evil against them, giving people perspective, helping through confusion, and comforting the weary. Yet, calls now abound that summon our people to leave our church—the people we have loved, prayed over, cried with at death beds, and preached our hearts out to—if we are not taking up arms as they do. “We are at the beach of Normandy,” we are told. “Now is the watershed moment, the entire West is at stake, the battle lines are drawn, America will be lost, do something!” 

That the best work of pastors will be seen in the children of grandchildren is the long view that most refuse to take.

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