I recently realized I had some miles on me. Like most pastors, I started out as a youth guy. In 1986. Yikes!

I worked with youth exclusively, as a volunteer, for several years before I realized I was being called by God to minister vocationally. In 1991 I started my seminary experience, ministered to youth at a local church, and had an awesome time, all while managing to stretch out what the administration called my “seminary experience” to an amazing six years.

Despite my best efforts at making the most of my “seminary experience,” in 1997 I graduated and was appointed to my first church as an Associate Pastor. It was a rather large church given the Hill Country town’s population was 17,500.

I was ecstatic with my appointment. For a variety of reasons I elected to move to Texas, and was anxious to learn the geography, culture, climate, and people. I would live in my first parsonage, had my choice of Mexican food restaurants, have my little family fussed over and loved on, and would get paid to do something I loved to do.

Even before my official starting date I was moving boxes of books into my new office in anticipation of the fleeting notion we call organization. I hadn’t anticipated a flood of people waiting in the office to get a glimpse of the new guy, and I was moving heavy objects contained in dirty boxes in the heat of a Texas June. On my third trip into the office with a large box of seminary-fresh textbooks one of my future parishioners engaged me with some sort of directive. My reply was that I didn’t actually start work for a couple days still. I don’t remember the balance of the exchange, but I remember her shocking me by informing me I worked for her.

“No, Ma’am,” I replied. “I’m sorry, but that is not the case. I work for God.”

I don’t really know where my words came from, but I believe the Holy Spirit has kept them fresh in my mind lo these many years. Twenty-eight years, to be precise. I suspect the phrase, “I work for God” has remained seared into my brain. Perhaps the same words will help someone who is struggling a bit.

Consider this; pastoring a congregation is pretty much the only vocation I can think of that is absolutely impossible to do. Sure, we shepherd, we equip and empower disciples to make disciples that will make disciples. We are also hard-wired to please people, and there simply cannot be a congregation in the world that doesn’t have “that guy,” or a number of “those guys.”

And you know who I mean, and you work extra hard to try and salve their weary souls (or at least preemptively mitigate any potential confrontation) and no matter what you do, the voices you think are theirs accuse you. “That guy” might even sign your paycheck. “That guy” might be the oldest saint in the church, the one who remembers marching up Main Street as the congregation moved into its present building back in 1854 or whatever. No one changes the hymnal cover colors or the pew cushions or even the flowers on the altar without “that guy’s” blessing. But that fact doesn’t change a thing.

You don’t work for “That guy.” You work for God — full stop. And think about it — you wouldn’t have it any other way. Probably that thought alone is why this blog is in existence.