Joyfully busy. Let me explain.
I don’t think I can remember a year in ministry like this year. I look back on my calendar and my reflection on it is pretty simple: it was packed! I think a lot of us can feel that too – it felt like a very packed and busy year.
But it wasn’t packed so much with those cliched ‘highs and lows’ as much as it was the necessity of switching hats so quickly and so often. One moment I was a counsellor, next moment a preacher, the moment after that I was something else. I’ve shared with a few people this dramatic example as a microcosm of that hat-switching act that encapsulated much of the year. It was a Wednesday morning that I received an emergency phone call at 3:30am that one of our long-term and beloved members of the church was at the hospital emergency ward, a few hours later I watched for the first time a man take his breath for the last time. That evening I sat through an important church-budget meeting which required my attention as I had to announce on it soon afterwards. The next day I met with a pre-marriage couple to chat through marital intimacy in the bedroom.
That is a dramatic example, and I’m glad the year wasn’t always like that – but it does demonstrate in small much of what the year felt like: a constant and fast-paced game of switching mental modes. Camps and conferences (seven in total through the year), weddings (six in the year, four of which I conducted, four of which were grouped in a cluster of five weeks), funerals (four for the year, three over the span of three months), lots of pastoral counselling, on top of the regular cycle of sermons and bible studies, and a partridge in a pear tree.
In that regard, 2024 was busy.
As the year has wound down I’m only now beginning to reflect on the joy of it all. I’ve been listening to a stunningly encouraging podcast from The Gospel Coalition titled ‘The Everyday Pastor’ and have listened to the first episode multiple times – ‘The Unique Joy of Ministry’. As I’ve heard this over and over, I’ve been reflecting on my own joys in ministry. Despite how busy the year was, I can say that the following moments marked the year clearly as well.
The joy of preaching and teaching God’s Word
I am still amazed at the privilege I have to be paid to open God’s Word and teach it. A weighty privilege, to be sure, but an immense one at that. Going into my 15th year of ministry, it’s still incredibly hard work. It was encouraging to hear Ligon Duncan in that above-mentioned podcast remind us that it is spiritual warfare to pump out a sermon! I was thankful for that reminder because at some moments this year, I did wonder if I was doing something wrong that this wasn’t getting ‘easier’.
Along with this has been the reminder that I’m learning with everyone as we go along. I’m not an expert in God’s Word. I’ve simply been afforded the time and space to dig deep for the benefit of others. My goal is not to be an exegetical magician, leaving people with a sense of ‘Wow, how did he pull that out of the passage!’ but to make observations, that are both deep and clear, in a way that encourages us all that we could see the same things too given enough time and prayerful thought. As the light bulbs go off in the congregation and in my small group bible study, I am joyfully encouraged.
The joy of being a non-anxious presence
Sometimes it takes unintentional conversations to help articulate what’s going on. I had been sharing about the quick succession of funerals and while I believe I am a very emotional person I often found myself in the middle of the grief calmly walking it through. I had begun to wonder what was happening in my heart, was I becoming calloused? No, there was and is deep care. So, what was happening? Then someone said, “You’re a non-anxious presence.” I really appreciated that insight.
Because yes, it has been a joy to be that non-anxious presence in the lives who need it most at that time. And I don’t mean to boast of this as some innate personality trait, but by His grace at work in me.
The joy of the elder’s chair
There’s a talk by Mark Dever at the 2016 Together for the Gospel conference, in which he speaks of the joy of the elder’s chair. In traditional churches – like our south hall at St Lucia – you can often find these big and ornate chairs near or around the ‘altar’. These are traditionally the ‘elders’ chairs from which elders of the congregation would sit and observe the congregation as the Word was preached and the Lord’s Supper observed. It was a way for the elders to observe people as they participated in church life together.
In many other ways, I have a privileged front-row seat of the Holy Spirit’s work from my ‘chair’ in people’s lives and over the church. It is a unique vantage point to be able to see so many different things happening around church – and especially now as the senior pastor, I see and hear of far more things than I have ever before. I’ll be honest, some of it has irked me (many of these irksome things are thankfully out of my control and at arm’s length), but far, far more has been profoundly encouraging. A widow holding onto gospel hope in her grief; a woman wrestling deeply with complementarian convictions and seeking to articulate them and be as faithful to God and his Word as she can; a man move from self-awareness to growing insight as to what is happening in his heart and how his idols and fears interplay in his actions, with a deep desire and growing movement towards repentance and growth; various leaders in church faithfully preparing and serving week in and out; a team so impacted by the Reach Australia conference that they brought back so many ideas and began immediate implementation that has audibly lifted our congregational singing (I have the dB readings to prove it!); the genuine conversion and joyful baptism of someone I suspected might be a Chinese Communist spy (but it turns out he was just talkative and curious); the many wonderful lightbulb moments watching people grasp a concept or a biblical text properly; and countless other stories that I could regale you with for hours.
The joy of pastor friends
I’m a part of multiple networks of pastor friends. I have a local chat group with Asian pastors across Brisbane, a South-west Church’s group that meets quarterly for prayer and encouragement, a lively Whatsapp chat group with some Sydney pastor friends, a monthly catch-up with another local pastor and college friend, and the yearly FIEC Senior Pastor’s forum to catch up with pastor friends across Australia.
In each of these, I’ve found great joy, encouragement, and wise words of counsel at the right time throughout this year.
I should add for this, while the mutual encouragement has been timely this does not mean that our churches should leave encouragement and edification of our pastors to other pastors. Let us not create – implicitly or practically – a higher tier of Christians requiring more trained or elite encouragement. The primary source of encouragement for our pastors – and this pastor – should be the local congregation they shepherd. Remember, above everything else, a pastor is a needy sheep following our Great Shepherd, Jesus Christ.
In that regard, 2024 was abundantly joyful.
Why do I share all of this?
Not for your sympathy or a pat on the back (though encouragement is always welcome!). I’m sharing because I intuit a couple of things from my various conversations over the last few weeks.
First, a lot of us have come to the end of the year tired. When I’ve asked what encouragements or moments of grace they have experienced, it’s taken usually a bit of reflection to come up with something, and I’m thankful that there has been much grace at work and reflected on.
What will continue to encourage us and spur us on, through the weariness of long years, is a regular, disciplined, practice of articulated thanksgiving. From my recent sermon on the spiritual discipline of thanksgiving and praise that I gave on Christmas day:
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Joy needs to be verbalised – otherwise, it remains incomplete.
Our family had a moment like this last night. We had a big extended family Christmas dinner and gift-giving time. Jayden – and I have permission to share this – he received a soccer jersey of his favourite player: Son Heung-Min from the Tottenham Hotspurs. When he unwrapped the gift, he kept saying out loud, “Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!” Then he put it on, and the jersey is a bit big for him but that means he’ll be able to grow into it – and he says right then and there, “I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow this jersey…”
As we were packing up to head home for the evening he repeated, “I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow this jersey…”
And then in the car ride home – twice – he exclaimed, “I don’t think I’ll ever outgrow this jersey…”
Do you know what Jayden was doing? He was praising and giving thanks. And he needed to do it out loud otherwise his joy would not be complete.
Joy soars in our hearts when thanksgiving and praise leave our lips. When gratitude and exaltation flow from our mouths, joy rises with wings that lift us up.
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The discipline of thanksgiving has a goal: our joy. So the first reason I share this is because I’m trying to practice what I preach :P And I’d love to see more people do that as well. Not because I say so, but because it’s the path to cultivating joy.
Secondly, you’re not alone in your weariness and tiredness. I’m feeling it too, and I’m glad that others are – not because you are, but because when I find out that there are others on the path who are breathing hard, I am comforted in the knowledge that I’m not alone. My hope and prayer is that you won’t feel alone either.
I don’t know what 2025 will bring. There are already many things in the calendar which occupy space. My hope is that more space will also be made for ongoing reflection and thanksgiving – our joy is on the line if we don’t do it.
Here’s to 2025 – may you be as joyfully busy as your predecessor.
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