“Don’t get obsessed with one week of numbers. Budgets and attendance can have wild fluctuations. Don’t base your worth on nickels and noses. Use numbers in a godly strategic way, but don’t let them control you week by week.”
It can be the toughest day of the week for pastors.
They have preached with passion and conviction. They have prayed for lives to be impacted. They have worked 15 hours on Sunday.
Some have taken the barbs from critics. Others have self-doubt about their sermons.
Some are considering quitting.
I know. I “resigned” about 25 times in the last church I served as pastor.
May I offer some suggestions for dealing with the Monday blues? This counsel is actually the aggregation of conversations I’ve had with pastors much wiser than I.
Here are seven of those suggestions:
- Pray. Take an hour to have a conversation with God. Get away from the office and go to a quiet place. Focus on those areas where you can praise and thank God.
- Remember that you are involved in spiritual warfare. Some of the blues might come from the Enemy. Fight the adversary with the Word of God and with prayer.
- Don’t get obsessed with one week of numbers. Budgets and attendance can have wild fluctuations. Don’t base your worth on nickels and noses. Use numbers in a godly strategic way, but don’t let them control you week by week.
- Pray for those who have been negative to you. Christ did indeed tell us to love our enemies (Matthew 5:42-44). While it might be an overstatement to call a critical church member an enemy, we can still love and pray for those who have been negative to us.
