Just as parents are wise to avoid making one of their children special, so pastors must love and serve every person in the congregation equally.
In some churches, the pastor and spouse may unthinkingly single out a couple or subgroup of the congregation for greater time and attention. They may share meals in one another’s homes, or even go camping together.
Some members left out of this elite circle may not care, but this fraternization won’t sit well with other members of the congregation, for a crucial pastoral principle is violated by such selective closeness – the principle that, while some members may be more likable or share more interests than others, all members are equally deserving of the pastor’s love and care.
The rule doesn’t mean pastors must dole out attention with precision, like a pharmacist counting out pills. A member of the congregation who comes down with a serious illness will naturally receive amplified pastoral attention to see them through their crisis.
The pastor may even focus attention for a time on newcomers to the congregation or to new converts. Mature members will understand.
Social closeness with a subgroup in the church is dangerous. One fine church I know of became divided and eventually failed due in part to the pastor’s focus on a group of younger members to the neglect of everyone else.
Still, you may say, this kind of constraint is unfair because pastors need close friendships, just like anyone else.
Here’s one response: Many years ago I heard a speaker at a ministers’ conference propose that pastoral couples develop friendship with another denomination’s pastoral couple in the community. Or with another pastoral couple in a nearby church of the same denomination.
Even then, however, the association should be discreet, not time consuming. It is a pastor’s sacrificial gift to project love and interest toward the whole flock, and to sense and serve needs equally across the congregation.
A measuring stick any pastor can use is to ask: “Am I equally the pastor to all of the people, all of the time?” If the answer is yes, love for the Lord and wisdom in caring for the whole flock will take it from there.
Image info: Marco Verch Professional Photographer (via flickr.com)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
My new memoir, FROM KITCHEN CHAIR TO PULPIT: A Memoir of Family, Faith, and Ministry, has just been published. I hope you will click on one of the links that follow to be taken to the page on these sites that enable you to view and potentially purchase the paperback or ebook. My book shows just how extraordinary the pastoral life can be, describing how I prepared for ministry and ministered to three congregations and then, as a bishop, to pastors as a bishop, with the help of my wife, Kathleen, and the support of our children as they grew up from children to adults.
Just Call Me Pastor 
Having turned #70 two months apart, celebrating 50 years this coming March (2023) and loving pastoral ministry yet not at the same places and smaller places, we relate to your writing with heartfelt gratitude for this volume. Thank you, Pastor/Bishop Bastian. You may not know our Matthew died April 21, 2021. You had blessed him at Anderson University decades ago. He suffered with victory for 26 years because of the Father’s great love, grace and power. Matthew was a pastor in his heart but an acquatic lifeguard. He led his supervisor to Faith in Jesus Christ before his death. Matthew remembered your blessing through the years. With love and prayer for God’s power, love snd grace in your lives. We’d love to visit with you again. Nelson and Camille Blount