Originally published in Relevant Magazine.

Those not entrenched in Christian culture don’t know that the month of October is Pastor Appreciation Month. It’s during this time that churches around the country often lavish praise, thanksgiving, and honor on their pastors for being faithful preachers, patient listeners, and gentle counselors. Pastors have one of the hardest, most thankless jobs on the planet. Pastors are often expected to be theologians, small business gurus, advertising executives, social justice advocates, and brilliant communicators. In fact, a large percentage of pastors are discouraged and depressed because of this mounting pressure. So my heart is warmed when I hear of churches and members showing special appreciation to their pastors and reminding them of their value and important role in their lives. This is a kind and generous practice. In contrast, my heart is grieved when I see pastors treated as hirelings whose continued employment is solely predicated on church growth or keeping the powerbase happy. Pastors swim in precarious waters and rarely do we hear the words Pastor and Appreciation in the same sentence. In short, Pastor Appreciation Month serves a purpose and appears to be here to stay.

That being said, I think it should stop!

Wait, what?

Jon, I thought you just said pastors should be appreciated and loved and valued!?  I did just say that. And I mean it. Many pastors wake up on Monday mornings thinking about why seminary was a bad educational decision. Many pastors I know personally are scheming of an exit strategy from ministry. Terminally discouraged is a phrase I would use to describe a large portion of pastors. And while I myself am a pastor (and do get discouraged and lonely and angry sometimes), I still believe Pastor Appreciation Month must die.  Here are a few reasons why:

Church cultures must change. If you want to best serve and appreciate your pastor, don’t host a church fellowship meal in his honor. A dinner of fried chicken and homemade potato salad is not what he needs. Let me be the lone pastor who tells you the truth: Your pastor doesn’t want a potluck! That doesn’t make him feel appreciated. It only makes you feel validated. If you want to appreciate your pastor, change the church culture. Give him ample vacation time with his family. Make sure your church gives him a living wage. Create opportunity for healthy peer relationships. Don’t “over-meeting” him. Give him a book budget. Get him help. Send him to conferences. These are just a few cultural shifts that will communicate to your pastor that he is valued. Gift cards and one month atta-boys are fine, but what will truly serve him is not a month of honor, but a culture of honor. I can speak to this as one with some authority because I happen to serve in a church that does all-of-the-above fairly well.

A month of encouragement is not what pastors need. Sure, send your pastor on a cruise or give him a few gift cards in October. Take him to lunch and babysit his kids. All of the above would make him/her feel loved and certainly appreciated. This article isn’t about withholding praise and honor from those who shepherd you—just the opposite! This is a challenge to not limit your appreciation to a single month. The Apostle Paul puts it this way, “We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work” (1 Thessalonians 5:12-13). In other words, love them well all year round. Pastors have a unique and painful opportunity to be invited into the disasters of people’s lives—funerals, hospice bedsides, broken marriages, and relapsing addictions. No complaining here!  Most pastors are honored to be included in the most sacred and painful moments of people’s lives. But it takes its toll. So ditch October and make appreciation a year round exercise.

Lastly, I just think it’s dumb. That’s right. I said it. Pastor Appreciation Month is dumb! This is only a personal preference—don’t judge me or send me mean emails. For clarity, I like being appreciated. I like gift cards and movie tickets and whatever people have given me to say, “Thank you.” I smile and give them a big hug. Who doesn’t want to be loved? But when pastors become pastors they know what they are signing up for. We embrace a gospel role in which we model what it means not to live for the praise of others; what it looks like to lay down our own agenda and rights; what it means to bear in our bodies the marks of Christ. The real reason I think Pastor Appreciation Month is dumb is because our role and gifting as pastors is a definitively public one. And with that role comes with it a fair amount of criticism—but also a fair amount of praise. I don’t know many professions that receive more praise than pastors. And yet pastors still complain when the entire church doesn’t interrupt the hour a week we have dedicated to lift up the resurrected God-man to notice us! How dare our church not see how awesome we are [cue sarcastic laugh]! What about those who serve in the background and never receive a month of appreciation? This doesn’t seem entirely fair.  “ . . . and to those [parts] of the body, which we think to be less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely [parts] have more abundant comeliness” (1 Corinthians 12:23).

Let’s kill Pastor Appreciation Month and rename it Single Mom Month or Nursery Worker Month. That seems a better fit, don’t you think?