Pastoral Letter of Encouragement

Recently, I sent a letter of encouragement to my local pastor. Now you get to enjoy it too.
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Dear Mike,

Just wanted to send you a quick note of encouragement and thanks. My wife and I have been attending your church now for about 8 months, and we are very pleased to enjoy the teaching of both yourself and the assistant pastor. The consistent quality of your preaching clearly demonstrates your commitment to clarity, practicality, and balance. I especially appreciate the fact that you consistently and gently challenge us to make practical and real changes in our walk with God, and you are not afraid to ask us to honestly evaluate our priorities in light of the challenging value system presented in the Bible.

As an encouragement, I want to ask you to please continue your current level of teaching, and persist like a patient farmer. Solid, consistent biblical teaching will provide the rich soil in which all of the other ministries of the church can take root.

At first, it will result in people being willing, even proud to bring friends and neighbors to church because the pulpit lacks some of the obvious faults of many churches, namely egoism, hype, unbalanced and incomplete teaching, guilt and fear-manipulation, lack of practical application, and fanaticism. Next, members will begin to mature, and start to seek positions in existing ministries. Lastly, mature members will create and lead ministries and make your job change into one of developing leaders! I am sure you have seen this process going on for some time already here at Southwinds.

With this last point in mind, I myself am seeking for ways to become equipped as a lay leader, and perhaps one day enjoy the work of full time biblical teaching / worship ministry, whether as a pastor/teacher, or as the leader of a para-church ministry. This points up the issue that we may need structures to train our future leaders – that should not be left to seminaries alone, but to local churches (in my humble opinion ;).

Again, let me encourage you to continue to prepare your messages with intellectual rigor, with repeated practice so that you can preach with power from your heart rather than having to refer too often to notes, with prayer so that you preach with faith and anointing, and with fearlessness proclaiming the gospel, for in it the power of God is revealed. I believe that you already show evidence of doing all of these things.

On a personal note, I am a reader and a thinker, and somewhat demanding when it comes to listening to teachers. However, I was impressed by your recent mention of Henri Nouwen, since many Christians are not familiar with his wonderful perspectives. Many preachers I have encountered are intellectual slouches, and haven't really displayed much theological depth or breadth in their teaching or conversation. And if they *have* read, often they have not ventured beyond their denomination's narrow reading list, let alone outside of theology into other useful disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, sociology, and the physical sciences. While I understand that we all have limited time and must focus on our priorities, I appreciate and trust a man who has read outside of the often narrow rubric of contemporary denominational and parochial Christianity, and who, motivated by his own questions and personal interests, has become well read.

Thank you again for your hard work, and may God give you faith to continue to excel and enjoy the fruits of your labors.