How To Make Your Pastor Smile

October is Pastor Appreciation Month, and since I’m married to one of those, I thought I’d give you the inside scoop on how to really score in making your pastor feel good.

It’s always good to study the man a bit and find out who he is.

This husband of mine celebrated recently when a certain secretary bought him not one package but a whole handful of packages of oversized Smarties.

I haven’t told you all, but a few weeks ago our black lab of 12 years (named Tell Sackett after a Louis L’Amour character) breathed his last. I have added that day to the list of hardest marriage days ever. We went to church this last Saturday night, and one of the middle school girls said, I have something for you. She painted this:

Just a second. Kleenex.

Okay, so then there’s this friend at church who often sends Matt an encouraging text after he preaches. 160 characters of gold. (Do you know how exposed and vulnerable it feels to stand up in front of a room full of people and pour out your soul every week? You have no idea.)

And it means so much to my man when you come to church every week, like the happy feeling you get when everyone you invited to the party is able to show up.

But here’s the best way to make a pastor smile, and you don’t have to buy it or paint it or text it.

Paul says to the Corinthian believers, “…Do we need, like some people, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known, and read by everybody. You show that you are a letter from Christ, the result of our ministry, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.” (2 Corinthians 3:1-4 NIV)

When my preacher husband goes to work every day, you are the result. Your human heart is what he cares about.

Do you know we talk about your heart on the way home from church every week?

My man talks about how much joy it gave him when he saw several of you surrounding the new girl sitting far back, stage left.

He talks about how awesome it is that you seem to put your whole heart into playing your guitar for the Lord

He says how much it means to him that you volunteered to stay and clean up the stage, even though you were brand new to us.

You should have seen his face when he watched you write a check at the Compassion Child table.

You are the result of our ministry.  

When you obey the Lord and love the unlovely and work hard in service –that is a personal recommendation for my preacher husband. You show that you are a letter from Christ. 

What Christ writes on the tablet of your heart is what makes your pastor know it’s worth the effort to grab his coffee and head to work again today.

P.S. We appreciate you, too! Hope it shows.