It’s over. Easter—the most anticipated and well-attended church event of each year—married your best efforts to your highest hopes. If your elders’ prayers were answered, the gathering was a well-attended, worship-rich, gospel-exalting, sharply-executed event in a warm, family-like environment that left people pondering the triumphant resurrection.
But that was Sunday.
Today feels different. For many, the Sunday high is swapped for a Monday low and Tuesday blues. What does a pastor or elder need to know to wisely navigate this week after Easter?
First, fatigue speaks in the language of frustration. Church leaders spend themselves freely in the Easter season. Long hours are logged. Service preparation triples in cost. Fatigue—physical, emotional, and spiritual—can be assumed. Yet fatigue has different faces. Exhaustion often betrays its presence through short tempers, irritability, and miscommunication. Small disagreements can quickly escalate in size. Frustration breaks the surface without discretion.
Wise leaders anticipate this collateral effect of Easter preparation and execution. Wisdom involves building staggered rhythms of rest into a pastor’s post-Easter schedule. Prudent elders also understand that unless the power went down or an emergency resulted in the fire department joining your celebration, evaluating the Easter service isn’t urgent. Time and rest will draw forth keener insights in an atmosphere of unity.
Second, keep criticism in perspective. Many congregants invite family and friends at Easter. So they’re invested in the service to a higher degree. If the loved one leaves unaffected or unimpressed, criticism may be passed along to you. Criticism, in fact, may be aimed at you.
In the face of critique, we elders should remind each other that we’re imperfect leaders organizing an imperfect service in imperfect ways. When we remember our chronic fallibility, we can marvel over all that went well. Criticism can then be accepted when it’s helpful and rejected when it’s unhelpful, or ungodly. When it reveals a legitimate pattern of poor performance, we can embrace the need for growth with mature humility and not perceive the criticism as a personal attack.
Third, remember what was preached. Yesterday, the resurrection was exalted. It’s an equally potent message for this upcoming week. Don’t lose sight of it. Christ’s resurrection means God is working right now to redeem this broken world. Pastors and elders should remind one another of this. God doesn’t look at us in disapproval because of our mistakes or limitations. He doesn’t love us more, nor is he disappointed, because of how our services went yesterday. Why? Because the resurrection has locked down the acceptance we receive through Christ’s sacrifice. God’s approval has been passed along finally and fully to God’s people. Because he is risen, both shepherds and sheep are being swept along to another grand gathering God has already planned and prepared. For that service of worship, our job will simply be to show up and “rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come” (Rev. 19:7).
This week, think about how the resurrection made a way for you to join the gathering to end all gatherings. Whether yesterday’s service was off-the-charts or off-the-mark, remember that it was just the trailer, not the main attraction.
This article was published as part of the Pastors Weekly for The Gospel Coalition.
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash
