Pastor Weekly - 7/16/25

Hello ICC Family!

Laurel sent me the introduction to a devotional she was reading the other day…

An online survey listed all the qualities that people expect from their pastors:

• They preach for exactly twelve minutes

• They are 28 years of age, but have 30 years of pastoral experience

• They wake up before dawn to spend hours in prayer, are the first to arrive at church and the last to leave, but are always full of energy

• They frequently condemn sin, but never upset anyone or cause any fusses at the church

• They wear good clothes, read good books, drive a good car, all on a low salary

• They make a dozen daily calls to church families, visit every person in the hospital, spend all their time evangelizing the lost, and are always in the office when needed

• They should have a wonderful family that includes 2.5 children, but that never take away any focus from church ministry

• They should preach 50 times per year, but also take monthly turns in the nursery, youth group, and as parking attendant to model servant leadership

Some of those made me laugh out loud! Obviously, I haven’t experienced any of those expectations from any of you wonderful saints at ICC… :-) That would only happen in other churches!  This list did make me think, however, about how we often have incredibly unrealistic expectations of all the important people in our lives - our spouses, our parents, our children, and our good friends… When it comes down to it, we want all of the people in our lives to be fairly perfect, while letting us, ourselves, get by with just doing our best.

There are quite a few problems with that…

• The first, of course, is that Jesus is the only one that is perfect, so we shouldn’t expect perfection from anyone else, no matter how close we are to them.

• Then… Even though Jesus was and is perfect, He gave people so much grace! What He modeled, we should follow.

• Finally, this expectation is pretty much the opposite of Jesus’ words from Acts 20:35, which says You should remember the words of the Lord Jesus: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Our mind should be filled with thoughts on how to be a better spouse, parent, child, and friend instead of complaining about how other people should be better.

The apostle John wrote to believers saying “so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. And we are writing these things so that our joy may be complete” (1 John 1:3-4). According to John, friendship and fellowship with God + friendship and fellowship together = complete joy. So, the best relationships must include the Lord! I think one of the benefits of thinking about joy in this way is that it reminds us not to place our expectations too high on the other person involved. Let them be themselves and look to God for holiness and perfection. Then the two of you can hopefully grow closer to that image and standard together, giving each other a lot of grace as you continue your journey with Christ.

Blessings to you! And know that I am praying for you! See you tonight at discipleship!

Pastor Aaron