Inaccessible pastors miss God-sent opportunities …

The ministry I lead requires me to visit a lot of churches and interact with a lot of pastors.

Over the past few years, a trend I’ve noticed among many church leaders is that a LOT of pastors are increasingly becoming inaccessible to just about anyone attempting to connect with them. Calls are being blocked by gate-keeping administrative assistants, and voicemails and emails are literally ignored.

Nothing says, “I don’t care about you” more than being ignored. That’s a terrible look for a pastor!

When discussing this topic with with a few church leaders, some say, “I know what they want and I just don’t want to be bothered with it.”

Be bothered with it!

By ignoring contact with the PERSON, you’re communicating you don’t care about the PERSON. If you’re not interested in what they want to discuss with you, have courage to return the call and say you’re not interested in what they want to discuss.

But what I’ve also noticed is many of these leaders THINK they know the value of what someone wants to talk about, when they really don’t know the details, the whole story — the real value — of what someone has to proffer, but they’re willing to lose out on God-sent opportunities by guessing at why someone wants to talk to them and being too cowardly to engage someone.

This arrogant assumption of knowing the needs, offerings, or motives of a potential contact reminds me of how Tanja Höls, a 43-year-old janitor at a German library, nearly missed out on a fortune. Instead of just cleaning around what appeared to be a worthless box that was in his way, Höls lifted the lid of an old wooden box only to discover a small fortune in Medieval coins — 172 of them, in fact, valued at six figures.

“It’s not that it went unnoticed. After all, staff at the State Library in Passau had been giving the wooden box regular dustings for years. It’s just that until recently, nobody ever thought to pop the lid and take a peek inside.”

What started as a casual curiosity has led to a conscious treasure hunt. “I know every corner of this building,” said Höls, “and in the future my eyes are going to be more peeled than ever for interesting finds.”

That’s very different than a time last year when I left voicemails and sent emails to a couple pastors regarding someone in their area I was working with long-distance who was responding to the Gospel and wanted to be baptized. Neither minister ever returned any of multiple attempted contacts! They missed out on a God-sent treasure!

Of course, like with everyone else, church leaders only have so much time and can’t take every call at the time they come in. But they can MAKE time to return calls and respond to emails. It won’t make much of a dent in a weekly schedule to set aside some time to respond to people trying to connect, and in the process, you may discover God sending you treasure in a contact you never could have properly valued without making a connection.

And ever so important, responding to people allows you an opportunity to value them and share the kindness of Christ that should mark your every interaction with people.

Some church leaders might think the more “important” you become, the more inaccessible you’re supposed to become. But my observations are the opposite is true among the greatest leaders I’ve known or interacted with. A few years ago, I called the administrative assistant to the pastor of a very large multi-site megachurch. I had been a member of that church long ago, but had never met this pastor. I asked if I could get a meeting, and 30 minutes was found for me in his very busy schedule. This leader didn’t know me at all, but he made himself accessible in a way that worked for him and communicated value toward the connection I was seeking to have with him.

Sometimes there really isn’t enough time to meet everyone who wants to meet, but leaders need to make time for a quick return call, or a 30-second email response. When you begin to make yourself inaccessible to people, you’re losing your focus on the crux of Christ calling you to leadership: to engage in the lives of people!

Scotty