October is so hard for me...

October is Pastor's Appreciation month. I don't know who declared this, but somehow it caught on and churches all over America (the world?) "honor" their pastors in October by buying them vacations, gift certificates for restaurants, and toys for their kids.

I never had a problem with pastor's appreciation month until I became a pastor, well, sort of a pastor. I've been a youth pastor for the past four years. I'm part-time (pay that is, not work,) non-ordained, and not educated at a Bible Institution. My first October as a youth pastor was ok, one Sunday I was presenting our pastor with his weekly gift (yeah, each Sunday in October the pastor and his family get gifts and such.) After I gave him his gift and said (and meant) a few nice things about him, some of the youth jumped up and presented me with a gift for being their youth pastor. This was unplanned by the "official" pastor's appreciation team; I guess they just forgot that I worked as a pastor too, but at least the youth remembered. The next year a similar thing happened, on a Sunday the youth unofficially gave me a gift and then gave me more gifts at our youth meeting. It was cool, totally unexpected since the church as a whole seemed to have a problem recognizing me as a pastor.

Then the hammer came down. Word got to me that the senior pastor, who I thought was a friend, didn't want me to be "honored" by the church as he was on Sunday mornings. It was also around this time that myself and my wife stopped getting invited to the Pastor/Elders dinners. Technically, we were only invited to one, but the pastor made it known to the lady putting on the dinners that I was not invited, I guess because I wasn't a real pastor. Anyway, needless to say, I was extremely upset when the pastor said he didn't want me honored. Well, as a concession, he sorta said that the youth could honor me on Wednesday nights, but not in front of the whole church.

What's up with this? I do the work of a pastor, in fact I do more work than a typical youth pastor. I also have the responsibilities of being the church custodian, unofficial secretary, web/tech guy, and forced to be a children's worker on Sunday mornings. But I can't be honored in front of the whole church? I don't care for cussing, but I just want to scream "F**K that!" I guess this all comes out of feeling dishonored and disposable by the very person who should believe in me and mentor me and want to see me succeed - my boss, my senior pastor.

Maybe I'm just jealous. Jealous that almost everyone wants to see him honored but not me. Jealous that the church pays him $72 thousand a year and all I'm worth is $16 thousand. Angry that the church (or is it just the pastor?) refuses to bring me on full time (again, pay, not work-load.) In fact, the pastor made it known that I would need to take on more responsibility to get brought on full time. I'm angry that nobody in the church seems to know how big the ego is of their pastor, how they think he's the greatest thing since 1927 and they're blind to his shortcomings.

Maybe October is hard because of me. Maybe it's all me and my jealousy and my anger. I'm told not all churches are like this. I hope that's true. In Seattle I hope to find one that is different.

If you attend church, which I do recommend, be informed about the politics of the pastor. Know how big his ego is and whether or not he will share the spotlight.

Church shouldn't be like this. Don't let it be like this.