I have a quick question. I have an assistant/armorbearer who is great and she and her husband are always looking out for us. I can truly say that they love us dearly, by their actions. We spend a lot of time with them(we also spend time with others, too). We spend time with them as if they are friends. They are our friends and they also allow us to pastor them. The only problem is that other immature people in the ministry has a problem with it. They make little snob comments about them and to them in deceptive ways. We aren't trying to make others feel bad, or act as if they are more important, but they really adore us and try to include us in their lives, unlike others. What should we do? Should we not be so close to members in our church or just pray for those immature people to grow up?
I deal with this in several different ways depending upon who it is. With "staff" (actual pastor/admin staff that I may be closer to) I just let people deal with it. They should know that staff is staff.
With lay leaders or armor bearers as you mention it depends. Sometimes I make more of an effort to keep our relationship outside the realm of church services. For instance, I may do lunch with someone quite a lot, but nobody else in the church knows it unless they actually see us there. Nobody really knows who I do lunch with, who I'm on the phone with, who I might go shopping with, to the movies with, etc. etc. I do take different ladies on trips with me as an armor bearer, not always the same person because quite honestly it's too much for one person to go with me all the time when I speak. I usually take various ones I want to spend a little extra time with who also fit the qualifications of armor bearer. (For instance, I would never take a high needs person or somebody I needed to counsel all weekend!) They really have to serve all weekend, so it needs to be someone with basic maturity.
When people figure out that I'm closer to some, I just let them deal with it. But I definitely don't flaunt it or advertise when I do things with certain people. I think people DO need to grow up, however, I don't put gasoline on the fire if that makes sense.
I would add to that...there are always going to be immature people, no matter what you do, so just take those people with a grain of salt. As long as you aren't doing anything wrong (i.e. not having time for anyone else in the church or purposely excluding other people from your circle!).
My mom's very best friend is the pastor's wife of the church that I grew up in. That particular pastor's wife is the champion of making every single person feel like they're important. Very often (more often than not, I'd say!), when they'd go to lunch or go shopping, they'd turn it into a ministry opportunity and invite a lady from the church who they thought needed to get out. It's not like they sat around and dreamed up ways to exclude other people from their friendship - in fact, they went out of their way to INCLUDE other people. But you've still got people in the church who are going to behave as though they're in middle school, no matter how old they are.
As our district superintendent said in a sermon at the School of Ministry last year, "There are energy-givers and energy-takers. As a pastor, your closest friends need to be energy-givers, because the energy-takers are not friends - they're part of your ministry."
If you are blessed enough to have an armor-bearer/energy-giver in your congregation, then you are truly blessed. I just came from a church that was made up of 90% energy-takers. Probably more than that, but I'm just counting the actual membership roll. Appreciate the people in your church who are there for you as true, honest friends, but I echo Deanna when I say, just don't make a big deal out of it!
