The Pastor’s Joy Challenge – Part Five: Climbing Onward Toward Joy

I’m writing a series of posts about the pastor’s joy challenge; the fact that joy is anything but automatic for pastors: it is something to be sought after, cultivated and “mastered” (sort of) over time.

The last thing I want to imply is that the pastor’s joy challenge is a result of his own neglect, sin, or ineptness. 

Like the preacher I once heard who declared flatly that:

“It’s a sin to be discouraged.”

That was one of the most discouraging sermons I ever heard.

In reality, I believe that there’s a profoundly spiritual reason for our sorrow: godly empathy. I mentioned this in my July 2, 2026 post, but it bears repeating.

Isaiah 53:3 said that the suffering servant, Jesus Christ – our example, as well as our Savior – would be a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief (or “familiar with suffering”). Jesus, growing up among an oppressed people in a dirt-poor town, had suffering, loss-afflicted, grieving people all around him, all the time.

With his infinite empathy, Jesus suffered with them. He wasn’t the life of the party. We hear about him being deeply troubled and weeping openly at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:33-38), we see him saying some pretty witty things, but we never read about him laughing.

So pastor, first and foremost, don’t let anybody tell you that you “should” be happy all the time.

Many older pastors wear their years of suffering, sorrow, funerals and counseling in their faces as emotionally-inflicted scars. I’m not the guy who’s going to say that they sinned or failed by getting worn down by their troubles.

In fact, clearly and cheerfully teaching about the joy challenge faced by pastors and other committed believers, is a great gift that you can give to your people, for they – in truth – have some of the same challenges with joy that you have.

Here’s what I’ve shared so far: Five reasons why the pastor’s joy is so important, fourteen reasons why it’s so challenging and four suggestions for achieving “pastoral joy.”

1. Work at getting good at rejoicing in the Lord.
2. Take responsibility for your own joy.
3. Dig deep into your position in Christ.
4. Seek to get Jesus Christ, obviously present and actively in charge of your church.

Let’s move on to a few more.  As I said earlier, some of these are deeply spiritual while others are simple, down-to-earth suggestions.  Skip over the ones you’ve mastered and be blessed by those you need to work on.

5. Pursue the joy that comes from fruit-bearing.

“This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples…I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”  John 15:8 and 11

 This is not the place for a thorough exposition of Jesus’ wonderful words about fruit-bearing, but you might find the following thoughts helpful:

• “Fruit” seems to be referring to anything God does in or through us through the presence and power of the living Christ. This includes, as many before me have taught, supernaturally-produced character, supernaturally-produced conduct and supernaturally-produced converts: persons who are brought to faith in Christ or helped to grow by way of a believer’s Spirit-empowered ministry.
• Fruit-bearing seems to be the greatest privilege of the Christian life. It brings glory to God and the highest Christian joy attainable to those who, abiding in Christ, become, do and say impossible things they could never be, do or say on their own.
• Since fruit-bearing includes disciple-making, it does, usually, result in the growth of churches, but
• Every other kind of fruit-bearing: manifesting Christ’s character, reproducing Christ’s conduct and blessing Christ’s followers, is also supernatural, heaven-sent fruit-bearing, so
• The Christian can get out of bed excited about another day of fruit-bearing, whatever the next 24 hours of abiding in Christ is going to look like.
• Taking the time to look in the mirror and see the fruit that God is bearing in our lives is a source of great joy. As the song by a friend of mine says, “It’s a wonder that He uses us at all!”

6. Keep one foot on solid ground as you descend into the “hole” of another’s sorrow.

This is easier said than done, but just keeping the concept in mind can be helpful.

A veteran Christian counselor taught me that when descending, in godly empathy, into an emotional “hole” with a counselee or grieving church member, your challenge is to get one foot down in the hole with the hurting individual while keeping another foot outside the hole, firmly planted on solid ground.

In other words, empathize enough to help, but not so much that you become unable to help. If we descend too deeply into another’s sorrow – or the sorrow of a long list of clients or church members – we can easily become emotionally unable to lend a “hand up.”

The same teacher also used the figure of windows, as in, the windows on your computer. When you are with the hurting individual, open up your counseling, empathizing window, while also keeping your “joy in Christ” window running in the background, ready to be re-opened as soon as possible.

You may already be thinking about Romans 12:15:

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, mourn with those who mourn.”

 Most pastors – and many other caring Christians – have this challenge every single Sunday.

 Within seconds you must pivot from rejoicing over one couple’s new baby to mourning with another couple over the death of their baby. If you’re not careful with your timing and cognizant of who you are standing near, you can offend sincere, hurting persons who are – understandably – focused on their own joys or sorrows.

A challenge?  Oh my, is it a challenge!  God’s Spirit will help you, but even with his help the pivoting is emotionally exhausting, so let’s go right into my next suggestion:

7. You’re gracious to everybody else; maybe it’s time to be gracious to yourself.

Many of the suggestions which I’ll share over the next two or so posts will take us back to this theme of showing yourself some grace, but let’s get the topic opened up with some (almost) random thoughts:

• You are a branch connected to the True Vine, Jesus Christ, but you’re still a branch.
• You are indwelt by the Spirit of God, but you’re still a human vessel, profoundly empty if left on your own.
• You are completely accepted and profoundly loved by your Heavenly Father, who remembers that you are dust (Psalm 103:8-14).
• It is good that you want to do your work with excellence, for God is worthy of our best, but you will never do anything perfectly. Settle for “done” because “Done is better than perfect.” Perfectionism will never enable you to achieve perfection, but it might kill you.
• You may have a great deal of wisdom (and a few foolish people will tell you so), but you will never have all wisdom.
• You have always made mistakes, and you will continue to do so. In my seventies, I make far fewer mistakes than I used to make, but I still make some. (Drinking strong coffee will help you to make almost as many mistakes as you made when you were young, if that’s what you want to do.)
• You will continue to sin also, and God will continue to forgive you because you are his dearly loved, adopted child.
• You will make more mistakes and commit more sins when you are tired or ill or over-worked or proud or angry or willful, so beware of all six of these conditions.
• I can’t prove this, but I believe that the difference between the profoundly successful pastorate and the not-so-successful pastorate is usually the Sovereign Providence of God rather than our skill, wisdom or intelligence (see I Corinthians 3, where it says that only God can make things grow). I have worked hard at creating a decent lawn around our house, but I’ve concluded that the beauty of my lawn has very little to do with my own efforts. I continue those efforts anyway, but with a sense of humor about what they actually
• At the judgment seat of Christ – a place of reward or, at the worst, a lack of reward – the motives and secrets of our hearts will be part of the formula by which we are rewarded, but the size of our ministries will not be part of that formula (I Corinthians 3:10-4:5).
• Learning to laugh at yourself is a wonderful source of free humor.

 Pastor/church leader – If you’d like somebody to talk to or pray with regarding any of this, send me an email at churchwhisperer@gmail.com.  I don’t have all the answers, but I can listen and pray.

 Next Week: A few more suggestions for attaining PASTORAL JOY.