Learning to Say No (Without Apologizing)
I've been coaching pastors long enough to know what's killing them. It's not the long hours—though those don't help. It's not the difficult people—though they take their toll. It's not even the spiritual warfare, the budget pressures, or the constant criticism.
It's the inability to say one simple word: No.
Two letters. One syllable. And for most pastors, it might as well be a foreign language.
• • •
Kevin pastored a church of about 300 in central Ohio. Good guy. Faithful. The kind of pastor who answered every call, attended every event, and never left the office before the last person in the building.
When he came to me, he was running on fumes. His marriage was strained. His kids had stopped asking him to come to their games because they already knew the answer. His doctor had used the word "pre-diabetic," and he'd done nothing about it.
"I can't say no," he told me in our first session. "I'm their pastor. This is what I signed up for."
I asked him a question that made him go quiet: "Who told you that being a pastor means being available to everyone, all the time, for everything?"
He couldn't answer. Because nobody had told him. He'd just absorbed it—from seminary culture, from congregation expectations, from the silent pressure of watching other pastors burn themselves to ash and call it faithfulness.
The Night Everything Changed
Three weeks into our coaching relationship, Kevin texted me at 9:47 PM on a Tuesday.
"I just did it. I said no."
Here's what happened: A church member called, asking Kevin to visit her mother in the hospital—two hours away—for a woman Kevin had never met, who attended a different church. It was the kind of request Kevin had said yes to many times before.
But that night, exhausted, running on four hours of sleep, knowing his wife was already in bed alone—again, Kevin typed something he'd never typed before:
"I'm so sorry to hear about your mother. I won't be able to make that visit, but I'd encourage you to reach out to her pastor. I'll be praying for her and for you."
He hit send. Then he turned off his phone—another first—and went to bed.
"I barely slept," he told me later. "I was convinced I'd wake up to an angry voicemail. Or that she'd leave the church. Or that God would be disappointed in me."
The next morning, Kevin checked his phone with dread. The church member had replied: "Thank you, Pastor. I called her pastor, and he's going this afternoon. I didn't even think to ask him first."
Read that again.
She didn't even think to ask the appropriate person first.
Kevin's constant availability hadn't just been hurting him—it had been training his congregation to bypass normal channels. To treat him as the answer to every need. To never develop their own capacity for care and discernment.
His "yes" to everything had become an obstacle to the church's growth.
Six Months Later
Kevin didn't become a different person overnight. But over the following months, something shifted.
He started asking himself a question before every request: "Is this something only I can do, or is this something anyone who cares could do?"
Most of the time, the answer was the latter. And slowly, he started saying no to those requests—not with guilt, not with excuses, but with the quiet confidence of a man who had rediscovered his actual calling.
His preaching improved. (Funny what happens when you have time to prepare.)
His marriage started healing. (Funny what happens when your wife isn't competing with 300 other people for your attention.)
His church started growing—not just in numbers, but in maturity. People stepped up because there was finally room for them to step up. The congregation that had been trained to depend on Kevin started learning to depend on each other.
• • •
Here's what I want you to hear:
Jesus said no.
In Mark 1, the crowds were looking for Him. The disciples found Him praying and said, "Everyone is looking for you!" There were sick people who needed healing. Desperate people who needed miracles. And Jesus said, "Let us go somewhere else."
He walked away from legitimate needs to pursue His actual mission.
If the Son of God could say no to genuine needs without guilt or apology, what makes you think you're supposed to say yes to everything?
The Messiah complex isn't ministry. It's a cancer that will kill you, your family, and eventually the church you're trying so hard to serve.
Here's what I learned about myself many years ago. The only thing people in my church can't do is the things I'm too lazy to train them for or too proud to let go of. That changed everything for me!
Ready to Learn How to Say No?
Kevin didn't figure this out alone. He needed someone outside his situation to help him see what he couldn't see. That's what coaching is—one pastor helping another find their way back to sustainable, faithful ministry.
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About the Author
Tim Eldred has been serving in pastoral ministry for over three decades and has had the privilege of training and mentoring thousands of pastors in over 40 countries. He is the founder of The Authentic Pastor. Most importantly, he is a husband, father, and grandfather.
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