Chandemo Murry M. Div Purana Bazaar Due to its limitation in space, it wouldn’t be possible for me to articulate every detail. And this is not an academic write up but rather a general reflection of how a pastor’s life/Ministry is understood in our context. Firstly, Pastors are not being paid sufficiently. Our perspective is ‘Let God take care of him”. As many as any individual has needs and the responsibility of taking care of his/her family, it is likewise the same in any pastor’s life. I Timothy 5:17, 18: "The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those whose work is preaching and teaching. Now it must be made clear the Bible does not tell us to pay our pastor a double salary. Rather, it says he is "worthy" of it or what he deserves. People have a wrong notion that Pastor’s “should suffer for the Lord” but there is no spiritual truth there. It is obvious that there are struggles and difficulties but that doesn’t mean we intentionally would want ourselves or others to suffer. It is just a matter of wisdom in this issue. Also, with his insufficient salary, a pastor has to spend it on house visitations and other church expenses. It is usually better for a pastor to be paid full-time so he can fully dedicate himself to the Lord’s work of ministering to and shepherding the congregation God has entrusted to him. Secondly, the idea of dependency and expectation upon pastors or identifying the responsibilities: Some of the duties of a pastor or expectations of people are Teaching/preaching, Care giving, such as visitation, counseling, comforting, and taking care of the needs of people, Performing rites such as baptisms, weddings, and funerals, Administration, such as taking care of meetings, putting together a bulletin, and developing programs for the church and evangelism and etc. Well, people expect all these things from a pastor. And there are congregations that complain about their pastor’s who doesn’t do some of the things like especially visitation, Counseling and taking care of people’s needs. It is likely possible in small churches but what about a church consisting of more than 100 families? Is it practical enough? The problem is failing to understand the role of a pastor, elders and deacons. In Nagaland, there consist of just Pastor and Deacons. I have not witnessed any church consisting of elders in the church which is a biblical mandate in any church. In short, Deacon in Greek work is “Waiter or attendant”. It means to serve physically and administrative matters, Elders are overseers of the church who teaches, prays, leads and shepherds the church. Understanding one’s own responsibilities will enable the pastor to prepare for other spiritual activities rather than being dependent solely on the pastor. Pastors are expected 24/7 of service not realizing that he/she also has other responsibilities besides church. Therefore, these are couple of things to consider the challenges that a pastor face and also understand him/her closely rather than submitting to false beliefs and notions.
