We don't hire ministers or priests to teach and care for us. This forces us to teach and care for each other - and in my view, this is the core of Christian living as Christ taught it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
We ministers have undoubtedly failed to connect and apply Christianity to the practical everyday problems of the average man. In this, we have failed to follow in Christ's footsteps. For the religion which He taught and revealed in His own life and ministry was an intensely practical and down-to-earth affair.
Ministers should impress upon the people the necessity of individual effort. No church can flourish unless its members are workers. The people must lift where the ministers lift.
Being a pastor is pressure because we have to counsel people.
The people of God want pastors, not clergy acting like bureaucrats or government officials.
I know that those of us who go into church work are to regard ourselves as servants, are to offer our lives as a gift.
When pastors don't have rich spiritual lives with Christ, they become victimized by other models of success - models conveyed to them by their training, by their experience in the church, or just by our culture.
I ask every man and woman occupying a place of responsibility whose duty it is to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to live it and keep the commandments of God, so that their example will teach it.
What I think we can do is help individuals understand the church teaching, but also maybe help the church understand the viewpoint of lay men and women about what they want in regard to priests, or how do they want the hierarchy to deal with them?
Missionary work essentially is a priesthood responsibility, and all of us who hold the priesthood are the Lord's authorized servants on the earth and are missionaries at all times and in all places - and we always will be.
As priests uphold their people in prayer, so their people are to uphold them with prayer and love, for he cannot work without his people.