Support Your Local Sheriff
I don’t know about you but we have a set of movies that we’ll tune into regardless of how many times we’ve already watched them. Some, like “Tombstone” have famous lines in them. Others like “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” have great music associated with them. For us, the movie “Support Your Local Sheriff” with James Gardner falls in this category for a light comedy involving an almost invincible character.
James Gardner’s character is a man on his way to Australia that stops at a gold boom town in California and accepts the sheriff job where the bad guys have driven off (or killed) the prior sheriffs. The town is split between wanting law and order and being afraid of giving up the vices in the town they’ve had up until then. I’d describe the town’s people support of the new sheriff lukewarm or varied at best. If you haven’t watched the movie, I’d recommend renting and watching it. If you like it, they made a very similar “Support Your Local Gunfighter” that is almost as good and with almost the same cast.
What made me think about that movie was an article I read today titled “5 Simple Ways to Bless Your Pastor This Week” by Camryn Zamora who oversees the women’s ministry in her husband’s church in Abu Dhabi (in the UAE). They are:
1. Pray for your pastor
2. Exhort him
3. Learn
4. Serve
5. Release
Our Pastor, Patrick, has mentioned that he and the elders are given the great empowerment and responsibility for watching over our souls as part of the body of Christ. We need to remember that as fellow Christians, they are subject to the same temptations and challenges as the rest of us. We need to raise them up by praying for them and exhorting them. Those are probably the two easiest, and yet important ways, for them to feel that prayer works both ways.
The last three are harder in that they take effort on our part to learn from the messages that are preached, serve the leaders when applicable, and finally to release your pastor and elders from unfair expectations. If you had tentatively planned to go out to lunch with Patrick and you woke up that morning feeling like crud, you’d hope he’d understand and be willing to reschedule. Conversely, Patrick is trying to balance counseling needs, planning and preparing administrative needs, teaching classes each week, checking on the well-being of the flock… oh and still getting a sermon ready for Sunday. Sometimes he needs some grace and flexibility.
“The saying is trustworthy: If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, he desires a noble task. Therefore an overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not a drunkard, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own household well, with all dignity keeping his children submissive, for if someone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he care for God’s church? He must not be a recent convert, or he may become puffed up with conceit and fall into the condemnation of the devil. Moreover, he must be well thought of by outsiders, so that he may not fall into disgrace, into a snare of the devil.” - 1 Timothy 3:1-7 ESV
In the movie “Support Your Local Sheriff”, James Gardner came to a town where some people supported him a lot. Others not so much. However, everyone in the town hoped he’d come in and make things better. We just need to support our local Sheriff.
