You are regularly invited to share some of the most intimate moments in other people’s lives, as they get married, welcome babies, teach their kids, worry about their kids, marry their kids off, welcome grandbabies, confront every imaginable challenge, celebrate amazing opportunities, cry for sick loved ones, cry for loved ones who have died, and, one day, face eternity themselves. And, if you stick with it long enough, you’ll even get to relate to multiple generations. 

I appreciated Jared Moore’s insightful article, “10 Reasons Why Ministry is Not For the Faint of Heart:  Pastoral Ministry Is a Calling, Not a Career,” agree with it, and have shared it with many friends and colleagues. However, I would like to suggest that it is also important to remember some of the positive aspects of ministry.  Here are ten:

10. You get to spend a chunk of every day praying, reading the Bible, studying, and meditating on the gospel of Jesus Christ. And you get paid to do it!

9. Your Ultimate Boss is really, really gracious and forgiving, and takes even your poorest, most imperfect efforts and uses them to do all kinds of really, really cool things.

8. You are regularly invited to share some of the most intimate moments in other people’s lives, as they get married, welcome babies, teach their kids, worry about their kids, marry their kids off, welcome grandbabies, confront every imaginable challenge, celebrate amazing opportunities, cry for sick loved ones, cry for loved ones who have died, and, one day, face eternity themselves. And, if you stick with it long enough, you’ll even get to relate to multiple generations.

7. You have a great excuse to go to bed early on Saturday nights.

6. Because of your job, you often transcend the regular pecking order in society, so you get to spend time with all kinds of people, from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich, and pretty much everyone in between – although, to be honest, you may notice that the richest of the rich don’t come around quite as often as the others.

5. You pretty much set your own hours, at least some days, and you can usually take a few minutes off to go to the dentist, the doctor, and the principal’s office.

4. They don’t always do it, but the people who pay you have been ordered by God to make sure you are well cared for.

3. You usually get the best seat in church.

2. When you have a really hard day, week, month or year, you can talk to your Ultimate Boss about it as much as you want to, and he never tires of listening to you, even if you start whining.

1. You don’t deserve it, and you won’t live up to it, but you will be known, at least to some, as a Man of God.

Bill Lovell serves happily and gratefully as Senior Pastor of Christ Church Carrollton (PCA) in Carrollton, Texas.