I love you pastor.

As preachers we want to be careful of our words. To mean what we say and to say what we mean. So when someone outside our family and our most intimate acquaintances says "I love you", how do you respond?

For some the words, "I love you" are easy to speak. For others they always seem awkward, even to those closest to them. Early in my ministry I never had given the question much thought. (In large part because the topic had never come up. Which likely speaks to the depth of impact of my earliest days as a pastor, serving only on the weekends while I attended seminary during the week.)

I think the question really came up the first time while I was being interviewed for what would become my second pastorate. It seemed the former pastor was uncomfortable with this level of relational vocabulary. I think I can understand the pastor's reticence to water down the meaning and depth of our language's most important words. But I also heard the hurt of an unreturned "I love you."

The result is that for years I found myself thinking way too much when someone said to me "I love you pastor."

I have come to understand that a huge element of my call as pastor is to love my congregation. I think this is part of what Jesus was speaking to Peter about on the beach. "If you love me, feed/tend my sheep." I have no desire to be a hireling, employed to simply manage sheep. I want to be a shepherd. A shepherd knows his sheep. A good shepherd loves his sheep.

So, today it gives me great pleasure to humbly reply, "I love you too."