J.S. Park

Loyalty For The Long Haul: Keeping Up With Your Pastor And People

It’s easy at first to latch onto a brand new pastor, a young witty blogger, or the latest sermon podcast — at least for a while. Because it’s new, a different voice, a fresh face, and we are all obsessed with shiny things out of the box. It’s why we perk up to a guest speaker, and why after years of hearing the same pastor, you can suddenly burst into tears at the traveling evangelist in town.

But loyalty for the long haul is difficult. Even a pastor staying at his own church longer than a decade is a rare accomplishment. For a churchgoer to stay that long, even rarer still. For as many new church members that join a long-standing church, just as many more will permanently leave.

We get tired more easily and we want newer things. In a day when every single person has a voice and there is a new one around every corner, we window-shop for the loudest one. Who is the most colorful? Who is the most outlandish? Who is the most relevant? Until we’re only asking, What’s in it for me?

Loyalty is now the exception. It has probably never been the norm. But I am pleading with you to be the exception, to be the consistent one, to be the guy who tries to stick it through to the very end. If you’ve started a hobby like a picture-a-day or journaling-your-life or collecting-old-books or cycling-on-a-trail, please don’t be the one who starts and stops a million little things. Don’t be the one who hops from island to island of half-baked commitment, hoping that one foot out the door will give you every excuse to quit when it’s “hard.” There may be a time to say goodbye, but it’s hardly ever when you want to.

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