Being Before Doing: pastor with a people

41-42 The Master said, “Martha, dear Martha, you’re fussing far too much and getting yourself worked up over nothing. One thing only is essential, and Mary has chosen it—it’s the main course, and won’t be taken from her.”

—Luke 10:41-42 (the message)

The stated goal of my first position was to revive the church’s ministry to teens and children. I had been hired by First Baptist Church of Toms River, a church seeking to revive its ministry. The Lead Pastor gave me an incredible blessing. The task placed on my was to invest my life into the lives of the teens of the church. In the 2 years that I spent there God blessed me with rich, deep relationships with the students there. The church was in the midst of a civil war as they were divided over what it would mean for the church to be “revived.” The trials of that church deeply knit together our souls with those of the teens there. The student ministry flourished and grew because of the love felt between the leaders of the group and the students present.

But when I changed positions to a growing, LARGE church something changed. I officially became a pastor.

The word “pastor” felt enormous. It came with expectations—some spoken, others silently handed down from my own imposed expectations. I thought being a pastor meant doing the job well: leading programs, teaching heavy doctrine, running meetings efficiently, preparing sermons with polish. And for a while, I poured myself into those tasks.

Ministry became heavy. Not because the work was inherently bad—it was good work. But it left me with little energy to invest myself into others. I found myself constantly exhausted and feeling like something was wrong. I longed to be Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus and being the presence of Jesus to others but I felt bound to run the litany of programs, fearful that I would be rejected if they were not done with polish.

As they continued their travel, Jesus entered a village. A woman by the name of Martha welcomed him and made him feel quite at home. She had a sister, Mary, who sat before the Master, hanging on every word he said. But Martha was pulled away by all she had to do in the kitchen. Later, she stepped in, interrupting them. “Master, don’t you care that my sister has abandoned the kitchen to me? Tell her to lend me a hand.”

Luke 10:38-40

I don’t like who I become when I drift towards performance. Like Martha, I become full of tension, I blame others, demand their participation, and live in anxiety. Martha’s words ring in my ears

In pastoral ministry, the difference between performance and presence can be subtle—but the effects are profound. Performance is often polished, impressive, and efficient. Presence is messy, slow, and deeply human. I’ve lived in both spaces.

In many seasons of ministry, I’ve drifted toward performance. There are tasks to accomplish, programs to run, expectations to meet, and people to impress. There’s always another sermon to prepare, another leadership decision to make, another meeting to attend. And over time, ministry can become a role I step into rather than a life I inhabit. I start to measure myself by outcomes and feedback. I can hide behind competence and productivity, hoping no one notices how detached or weary I’ve become.

But presence—real presence—doesn’t allow for that kind of hiding. Presence requires me to show up as a person, not just a pastor. It requires vulnerability, attention, and a kind of pastoral courage that says: “I’m here with you. I see you. And I’m willing to let you see me too.”

That changed slowly, as it always does. Through some hard conversations. Through exhaustion. Through the invitation of God to return to love. Through the gift of a small group of students who wanted to laugh, study, pray, and live together. Through letting myself be loved and needed, not just useful.

Presence isn’t efficient. It takes time to truly know someone. It takes intentionality to slow down, to sit with sorrow, to listen without fixing. Presence also takes trust—trust that God is at work in the space between us, and that my worth is not dependent on my output.

The temptation to perform is strong. But when I reflect on the moments in ministry that have mattered most, they weren’t my most polished sermons or biggest events. They were the conversations where I let my guard down. The late-night talks with students. The hospital visits where I had no words. The prayers I stumbled through when someone was grieving. The laughter and tears in living rooms, dorm rooms, and parking lots.

Pastoral ministry isn’t a show. It’s a shared life. It’s Christ meeting us—right where we are, as we are—and then walking with us toward wholeness. Presence is the space where vocation becomes tangible, where ministry becomes mutual, and where God does his deepest work.

I still wrestle with the pull to perform. But I’m learning to choose presence. I’m learning to trust that being with people is often more powerful than doing things for them. Because when I show up with my full self, I give others permission to do the same. And in that space, Christ shows up too.

So may we be pastors who don’t just perform for our people, but who are truly present with them. And may our presence—flawed, human, and Spirit-filled—be a glimpse of the presence of Christ himself.