Do You Really Need a Pastor

Being pastored, in plain terms, means that someone who actually knows you has standing to correct you, and that you give something back to that person and to the church around them. Consuming church means taking in sermons, music and community on your own terms while no one has permission to tell you that your form is off. This guide is built to move you one concrete step from the first posture toward the second within a single week.

The guide works in stages. You begin with an honest inventory of who is currently allowed to correct you. Next you read closely the Scripture that describes being watched over. Then you carry out one practice before the week ends, and you return to the inventory to see whether anything moved. You can work through it alone with a notebook. You can also use it with a group that meets twice: once to take the inventory and read, and again a week later to report on the practice. The material comes from a Jude 3 Project conversation between Lisa Fields and Dr. K. Edward Copeland, pastor of New Zion Baptist Church in Rockford, Illinois.

Start with an inventory, not a verdict

Take a sheet of paper and draw four columns. Label them this way:

• Voices I listen to. Preachers, teachers and podcasters you follow, online or from a distance, who do not know you personally.
• People I chose. Friends, a small group, a mentor you picked because you get along and see things alike.
• People I did not choose. Believers in your congregation you would never have picked, but whom you see regularly.
• People with standing. A pastor, elder or other leader who knows your name, your situation and something of your history.

Write names in each column. Beside each name, answer one question with a plain yes or no: has this person ever corrected me, and did I let it land? Do not explain or defend your answers. If a column is empty, the blank is information, not a failure.

Many people find the first column crowded and the last one thin. Lisa Fields names the difference that pattern reveals: “it’s a difference between being known of and being known”. The people in your first column are known of. You know their voices and their best material, and they know nothing about you. She adds the risk of building a spiritual life on that column: “Because when we know of people, we have caricatures.” A caricature can inspire you. It cannot see you, so it can never tell you anything you did not already choose to hear.

Copeland turns the same observation into a question worth writing across the top of your sheet: “am I watching a pastor or do I have a pastor watching over me”. Look at your four columns and answer it honestly before you go on.

If you are in a group, keep the sheets private. Ask people to share only what surprised them, or how many names ended up in the last column. The point of the exercise is self-honesty, and that disappears the moment anyone feels compared.

Read one verse slowly

Now read the verse that describes being watched over. Read it twice before you mark anything.

“Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves: for they watch for your souls, as they that must give account, that they may do it with joy, and not with grief: for that is unprofitable for you.” (Hebrews 13:17)

Work through three observation tasks with a pen in hand:

1. Circle every action the leaders take. Underline every action the readers take.
2. Find the reason the verse gives for submitting. Is it the leaders’ title, their skill, or something they are doing?
3. Find who benefits when the relationship goes well and who loses when it goes badly.

Most readers notice that the reason given is the watching. The leaders “watch for your souls,” and they do it as people who must give account to God. Watching requires nearness. Someone cannot watch for a soul he has never met. The verse also ends on your interest, not the leaders’: a grieving shepherd is “unprofitable for you.”

Read the verse in its setting before applying it. Hebrews was written to a particular first-century congregation that had leaders who knew them. The verse describes a relationship of real care and real accountability. It does not hand unlimited authority to anyone holding a title, and nothing in it asks you to stay under someone who harms you. Its weight falls on leaders who keep watch and on members who make that watching possible.

Copeland applies the verse to himself as someone who pastors others: “I’m never so grown that I don’t need a soul watcher.” That sentence matters for your inventory. Needing someone in the fourth column is not a stage you outgrow once you know your Bible well.

Correction in Scripture does not run only through the pastor, though. Read two more passages and note who corrects whom, and in what manner.

“Rebuke not an elder, but intreat him as a father; and the younger men as brethren; The elder women as mothers; the younger as sisters, with all purity.” (1 Timothy 5:1-2)

“Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.” (Galatians 6:1)

In 1 Timothy 5, Paul tells Timothy to handle correction as family would, with different care for different members of the household. In Galatians 6, ordinary believers restore one another, gently, while watching their own weakness. Copeland draws the conclusion for a church full of expectations: “it can’t all be the pastor.” Your third column, the people you did not choose, belongs in this picture as much as your fourth.

Why correction needs a person nearby

Copeland explains the difference between instruction and correction with his own trainer at the gym: “she’ll tell me what we’re getting ready to do, she’ll demonstrate it for me, and then while I’m doing the exercise, she’ll correct my form.” When he explains why she can do what his workout apps cannot, he gives a four-word answer: “Because she knows me.”

That answer shows what your first column can and cannot give you. Teaching can travel to you from anywhere. Correction cannot, because it depends on someone seeing you live the teaching, with your particular limits and habits. Copeland names the problem exactly: “you don’t know your own blind spots”. A small group of friends you chose helps, but friends chosen for comfort tend to share your blind spots.

This is where the people you did not choose come in. Copeland says “God has called out some people to be your brothers and sisters that you would not have picked”. Lisa Fields describes how those people have worked in her own life: “It’s the people that cause me the most headache that have made me think, oh, there’s things in myself that need to change.” Friction is not proof that you are in the wrong church. Sometimes it is the place where correction finally gets in. Proverbs puts it bluntly: “Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6).

Test your sheet against this. Look at the people in your third column. Has anyone there ever said something true to you that you did not want to hear? What did you do with it?

A fair objection: is this just about control?

Some readers will hear all this as a call to hand power to whoever runs the church. That objection deserves a direct answer, because authority has been abused, and the hurt is real. Copeland does not deny it. His response is that “the existence of bad examples does not negate the necessity for good examples.” He also shifts the question from whether to be pastored to how you chose the person you followed. He asks whether people were looking for a biblical standard or simply for popularity.

Being pastored also runs in both directions. It is not passive. Copeland describes the member’s side of the relationship this way: “what can I contribute to the person who has oversight over my soul, namely in terms of prayer and support and even accountability.” Lisa Fields told the men whose question started the conversation that they were “approaching church as a consumer, not a contributor.” A congregant prays for leaders, supports them and holds them to the standard Scripture sets. A customer only evaluates them.

The practice for this week: give one person standing

Lisa Fields observes that healing and growth do not happen by drifting: “there has to be some intentionality. There has to be an effort, and there has to be some facing fears.” This practice asks for a small amount of all three.

1. Choose one name. Take it from your fourth column. If that column is empty, choose a pastor, elder or ministry leader in a congregation you attend, or are willing to attend. Lisa Fields acknowledges that not every leader can know every member deeply, so a trusted elder or ministry leader who serves under the pastor is a real option.
2. Pray for that person by name every day. Copeland is plain about it: “You have to pray for your pastor.” Ask God for their faithfulness, their family and their own soul. It is hard to stay a customer of someone you pray for daily.
3. Ask for one short conversation. Keep the request simple, something like I want to be known here, not just attend. Would you meet with me once and tell me what you notice?
4. Bring one area where you suspect your form is off. Choose something specific: how you handle money, conflict in your home, a habit you keep excusing. You decide how much to share. Then listen without defending yourself for the first few minutes.
5. Do one thing with someone from your third column. Sit with them, ask them a real question about their life, or offer help. You are not trying to make them a friend this week. You are just staying near someone God placed in your life.

At the end of the week, write two or three sentences on what actually happened, not on what you hoped would happen.

If a leader has hurt you

If your fourth column is empty because a leader broke your trust, adjust the practice. You do not owe anyone your trust on a schedule. Do not ask the person who hurt you for the conversation in step three. For this week, write down what you would need to see in a leader before giving them standing. Copeland’s test is a good place to start: “you need to pay attention to their doctrine as well as their conduct.” Read 1 Timothy 3:1-7 and list the marks you could actually observe in a person over time. The failures of a leader are real and grievous, and they are not the failure of Christ.

If what happened was abuse, and especially if it is still happening, your first step is safety and qualified help, such as a trusted counselor, before any search for a new church. If the harm involves a partner or your home, the National Domestic Violence Hotline is 1-800-799-7233.

Questions for talking it through

These work for the second group meeting or for a second sitting alone. A facilitator should let silence happen, should not answer for the group, and should never press anyone to share their inventory. If someone describes being harmed by a leader, listen first and do not defend the institution.

1. Which column of your inventory surprised you most, and why do you think it looks the way it does?
2. In Hebrews 13:17, the reason for submitting is that leaders watch for souls. What would a leader need to know about you to do that? What have you kept hidden that would make it impossible?
3. Think of a correction you once received that turned out to be right. What made it possible for you to hear it, or what made it hard?
4. Where is the line between healthy pastoral authority and control? What in the passages you read helps you draw that line?
5. If you carried out the practice, what did the conversation show you that a sermon or podcast could not have?
6. What would it look like for you to contribute to your pastor’s life and not only receive from it?

Back to the sheet

Pull out your four columns again. You began by asking who has standing to correct you. Before you put the paper away, ask the reverse question: in whose third column do you appear? Someone in your congregation did not choose you either. Copeland put it this way: “how about we just consider that maybe God is smarter than us”. If that is true, then being pastored includes letting God place you near people you would never have picked, and staying long enough for both of you to be changed.