From the Heart and Mind of One Pastor

Question….which is more important: That which a Pastor is called of God to be and do, or that which the people in the church believe a Pastor ought to be  and do? And questions two, three, four…..how perfect is a person called to ministry expected to be? How do people decide what kind of “good” is “good enough”? And who gets to decide?

Understanding that Pastoring is a public vocation, many people believe they know the hows and whats of Pastoral ministry, the same way people think they know what plays should be called in the huddle of their favorite football team. The truth is, being a QB in the huddle is a lot more challenging than being a fan in a bleacher. One knows little about what it actually takes to be a Coach or a QB until they occupy such a place. But people born in a culture of rugged and highly valued individualism do not see it this way. They believe, because we are taught to highly value our own personal opinions, that it is our God-given right to critique, judge, criticize and instruct anyone we take a notion to critique. As a pastor, I have come to understand the tremendous challenge of such a calling, and the tremendous difficulties in figuring out how to do it in a way that honors Christ. People actually believe they are helping me when they come to “straighten me out” or “tell me how it’s done” or “compare me to pastor so and so” who lived in a different time under a different set of circumstances ministering to a different group of people. The unconscious audacity of those who believe they know exactly how a Pastor is supposed to act and what they are supposed to believe is similar to taking over in the cock pit of a 747 when the plane is on its way to the runway. I have little doubt that if I showed up in the offices of a variety of people and instructed them as to how to sell cars or how to move real estate or how to doctor patients or how to run their business or how to teach physics or how to run a college institution (and on and one we could go) these people would no doubt usher me out off the premises in a moments time. And they would be wise to do so, for I know very little about any of these vocational areas in which people serve. But the one calling that everyone seems to be an expert in is the ministry of the gospel (and of course, coaching their favorite football team)

For any Pastor truly called at least one thing is most often true - we have been taught, through education and life experiences, that we are in a life and death ministry. If the airplane were truly going down, I imagine that most of you would say to the captain, “I sure hope he knows what he is doing!” Rather than, “get out of the cock pit and let me show you how to do this!!” However, I have found, and many church leaders will agree, this is seldom what we hear. We are confronted daily with individuals who more fully and completely understand our calling beyond what we ever will, and will often spend their entire lives looking for a pastor who does it the way they think it should be done, never once stopping to ask themselves – “how might I serve this less than perfect minister of the gospel who is trying as best he can to do a vocation that is full of far more questions than answers?” This is another way of asking the simple question, “How might I more fully and completely serve the man or woman God has called to the church He has also called me to serve as well?” Instead, many people pause long enough to ask – “I wonder if this time I’ll find a Pastor that will do things the way I think he should do things”. In 30 years of ministry I have got quite adept at identifying those persons who are just passing through on their way to find this pastor. Just as a first divorce, statistically speaking, is the greatest single predictor of future divorce, a person who has already left a church because of a Pastor is much more likely to do it a second time as well. In many ways, staying married is determined by the same thing our local church commitment is defined by – our ability to forgive each other and a commitment that carries us through the difficult times.

There are times when I feel a deep sense of compassion for my wife, just because she is married to me. I have witnessed her lose more friends and have more relationships end because of me than I care to mention. People that she was sure cared for her deeply, who disappear from her life just because they no longer want me as their Pastor. I assure you, the challenge of being married to a pastor is a challenge many of you would never choose to experience. My wife said to me recently that it seems like she has hardly seen me of late. Her words alone set me to thinking profoundly about what I do. What must it be like to be married to a man who is constantly on call, who has to treat complete strangers like family, and who often is pulled in so many directions that it is often hard to say which end is up. I thought to myself: ‘how hard it must be to be the wife or son of a Pastor.” I mean, think about their life, sacrificing days and weeks of quality family time while their Dad/husband gives himself away to people who often will abandon, judge and reject him as easily as they might toss an old worn pair of shoes . They do this in the name of principle, or theological differences, or sometimes what they believe to be blatent weaknesses on the part of a person in ministry(as if we all don’t have them). But they do it with very little regard for how it affects the Pastor, the family of the Pastor, or the people God has united them to in a local church. There are times when I wonder if people actually even think about the fact that we are human beings with hearts and feelings in the same way as other people.

I think that being my wife must be quite impossible. Every day she shares her husband with people who feel no more allegiance to him or the church he ministers to than they do the car they drive or the grocery store they shop in. She must sacrifice time, a listening ear, and years of relationship to people who care very little about her, her husband, or her child. I have witnessed this cutting my son deeply. He loves Jesus with the heart of a child, but has learned the church can be a place that has very little concern for the way they treat a person they deem “not good enough” to meet the pious standards they set up for pastors and his family, while often not living up to these standards themselves. (Have you ever noticed the double standard people apply to those in ministry and their family?) I pray daily that one day my son will understand the church to be a compassionate loving group of disciples who find it more important to serve Jesus than to be right, the church I often get to see with the majority of the people I work with. However, because the true disciple is usually the less vocal and certainly the more humble of the lot, this is the member my wife and son seldom hear from. How can it be that my son finds more love and acceptance from people who have no relationship with Jesus then he has found among many of those who claim to love Jesus these 19 years of his life? If I had a nickel for each person who counted themselves worthy to judge or evaluate my son, though they did not take one second of their lives to get to know him, I’d be retired and living on an Island I purchased with my assets, writing full time about the dangers of the post modern church in a day and time when the world desperately needs the love of Jesus no matter our theological tendencies.
 

Why is it that my wife sacrifices her husband daily for the sake of so many people who feel no more compassion for her or her loneliness than you’d find on a crowded street in NY City in the middle of rush hour? I am not sure people understand the depth of the sacrifice she makes for the churches her husband is called to. Each day I try to help her to celebrate the true member, the loving disciple, the person who strive to love the way Jesus loves. I hope that somehow, some way, their compassion will be enough to overcome the pain, rejection and abandonment she and my son all too often experience just because they live with and love a Pastor. (Peace out)