MINISTRY OF PASTOR

By Odon Bulamba (3rd Nov 2000)

A pastor is someone chosen by God to shepherd the flock. God chose him and found it good for this person to serve Him. A pastor must be without blemish, a role model, he is someone who makes the name of Jesus Christ respected, a person who must be respected, he must make the devil respect Christians, he must be a leader of the church.

In 1 Timothy 3:2

A pastor is someone who is a leader and is blameless, which is something nearly impossible with our pastors today. People always find reason to blame pastors for something; they are not humble and people declare it about their pastors. Pastors don’t think they should repent of their mistakes because they think too highly of themselves, they think they are above others, and forget they must take care of little children. If among us some are called to be pastors, before people blame them they should blame themselves, and know their weaknesses to make an effort to change. They must accept their conscience showing them the light.

Let’s take Job: he was a servant of God and went through every tough time, to the point that Satan went through his wife, and Job who loved his wife so much heard her advising him to curse God. If Job cursed God could we talk about Job today? Job realised that if he did, it would be a bad thing. He first rebuked himself before acting and cursing God.

So pastors must be very alert in each situation. When a pastor hears some advice, he must stop and think it over before making a decision, and put himself in the other person’s shoes, and ask God: “Do I deserve it or not?”

He is extremely blessed if God calls him pastor but not if men call him pastor. He is blessed if God calls him pastor among a little group of 3-5 Christians with all holiness rather than being called pastor among a big crowd and have a dirty heart. A pastor must not wait for people to show him his faults: when he is wrong, he must not wait for people to discover that, the light in him will show him there is something wrong over there. The pastor will go to Oscar, “Brother, forgive me because I’ve done that.” And Oscar will be surprised, “I didn’t know that.” “Yes, that’s it so I’ve come to say sorry.”
It is not just about Oscar forgiving him but Oscar will be taught that way, he will think about it: a pastor can lower himself and ask me for forgiveness, to someone like me. He will be impressed and will spread this testimony all around:
- This man is a servant of God. He is humble and there is nothing you can reproach him.


But other pastors do wrong and fly away and put themselves above everybody else:
- Who can speak about me? Read this, it is written… and here this is written…
And all the Christians are afraid, they feel put down, intimidated. What kind of shepherd will intimidate his flock?

I know in some families, when the Dad comes back from work at night, each child would look for the fasted escape. They were 5 people in a room, and suddenly they hear Dad’s car coming, people stop playing on the spot: it’s like a cat entering a house, each mouse tries to find an escape to find a refuge in the neighbor’s house. Some pastors are like that: their presence make people uncomfortable, they feel shaken inside by him.
- If I tell him something…
Pastor comes to visit me, and I lose joy:
- Why is this pastor coming here again? If I knew I wouldn’t be there.
This is terrible because the Bible tells us that pastors must be friends with his sheep. Nowadays, we don’t see that.