17 Things Easy to Forget When You’re the Pastor

1. I like me.  You should too.  If you don’t, we can both let that be okay.  Really.

2. I am doing the best I can and most days, that’s actually pretty good.

3. I am no one’s savior.

4. Everyone isn’t interested in God . . . or Jesus . . . or church . . . even among those who come every Sunday.

5. The fact that others think the minutia of my life is of interest doesn’t mean that it is.

6. The fact that others think the minutia of my life is of no importance doesn’t mean that it isn’t.

7. The same God that adores you adores me too.

8. This job ain’t for sissies.

9. I take grace seriously and that’s a big deal.  A very big deal.

10. I really do know stuff and sharing it is my job.

11. The fact that some will avoid me like the plague does not mean that I am socially unacceptable.

12. Even when I’m operating from a script (like a sermon), chances are you aren’t.

13. It is not my job to explain myself (grace is as much for me as for you).

14. Chances are if I’m doing my job, I will not be the cool, the popular, kid.  The reverse is also true:  if I am the cool kid, I’m probably not doing my job.

15. I am actually allowed to have a life outside of church, but never outside of God.  God and church are not the same thing.  One is merely an instrumentality (even if an embodiment) of the other.

16. Your discomfort may mean that I got it wrong.  But it might also mean that I got it right – or more accurately, that the Holy Spirit did.

17. Some think this is just a job.  They’re wrong.

An Unsolicited Job Reference for Arlene: What You Should Be Wanting in a Pastor

Seminary buddy Arlene shares on FB her journey in seeking a call with 7+ years of experience as a solo pastor under her belt.

Arlene reports some of the reasons she’s been given for not being called:  shoes, hair, laugh (not sure if was that I did or that it was too loud), age, my voice . . . 

Here’s what I know about all this insanity:

1. It’s easy (for me) to reduce this to sexism (I firmly believe it is that, but it is other things as well).

2. There’s a harsh irony that lives within me that ‘appreciates’ the honesty of these folks – would it be kinder or smarter to keep that nonsense to themselves?  I think so.

3. I am learning from Arlene’s experience: should I ever be in another job interview situation, I think I’ll just take it straight on with something like this: some of you may not like my hair – or my voice – or my style of dress – or my laugh – that’s okay – I don’t like yours either, yet here I am, still willing to be your pastor . . . or something like that – ‘just being honest’ (which is vastly different than truth telling) can be a reciprocal thing – how quickly we forget that.

4. Some of us are taking ourselves wayyyyyy to seriously if another’s laugh brings discomfit.

But I didn’t write this for them.  I write this for Arlene.  And here is what I would have you know about this dear friend, beloved by so many:

I met Arlene in the summer before our first ‘official’ semester in seminary.  We, and a whole host of others, were getting a head start by taking Greek in the summer semester.  Within a few hours spent in her company, I was astonished to observe the interactions of others with this woman I barely knew.

Strangers would, within a few minutes of sitting beside her, begin to unburden themselves uninvited on her – sharing their pain and sorrow, seeking solace in the gentling of her presence.

She’s that gal – the one you can tell anything to and know that somehow, you don’t know quite how – she will hear and understand.

I realized then that Arlene already was a pastor – all she needed was the paper to make it official.

I don’t remember her shoes, but her feet are walking feet – feet that go the extra mile simply to sit with a friend or even an enemy, in need.  And they’re feet that know how to jump and dance and live.

Her laugh is contagious, inviting everyone in on the joke.

I’m not sure what the hair thing is about – all I can draw from there is my own experience, by which I continue to be surprised at how invested congregants can be in how I choose to style my hair.  It’s a bit flattering and more than a little weird.  Even my mother doesn’t have that much to say about my appearance (and believe me when I tell you that she is not silent on the matter).

Arlene points out that the reasons that she’s been given have not included anything about her pastoral skills, her theology, her preaching (silly us: that’s what we thought it was all about).

I wish churches had the wisdom of 12-Step programs, which say something like this: although you may not like all of us, you will come to love us in a very special way, the same way that we already love you.

When it comes to church, I can truthfully say that I have seldom cared much about being liked; but I care very much about loving and being loved.

Isn’t that our business – loving?

Can’t we do better than this?

Consider how my sister in the faith concludes her own musings on the hurts she has sustained:  . . . all will be well, all will be well, all manner of things will be well (borrowing from Julian of Norwich).

That’s Arlene in a nutshell.

You may not have any idea of the life journey she’s had.

It isn’t necessary that you do.

But know this: whether you love her or not, she already loves you.

And by my reckoning, that makes her someone you would be damned lucky to have in your church.


_____________
*I asked Arlene for permission to publish this, as it is her story, her experience.  She agreed, hoping that someone might draw solace and healing and perhaps feel less alone in what can be a very painful journey in seeking a call.

SermonCliffNote: Stewards of God's Call

God calls whom God will when God will how God will.  The Bible is replete with the call stories of God’s people, including Moses, perhaps the most unwilling of all.

When God came calling in the form of a burning bush, Moses repeatedly protests his own unsuitability, asking who am I to do this thing and who are you to ask me?  My own favorite is when he pleads with God: O Lord, please send someone else!

To all of Moses’ protests, God responds with providing.

Many, if not all, call stories have protest as the response to God’s invitation. . . Amos protests he is just a farmer . . . Jeremiah that he is just a boy . . . Isaiah that he is not worthy . . . Jonah that God’s message is not worthy . . . Esther that she’ll be killed . . .

Yet God persists with all of them.  God provides for all of them.  And God fulfills God’s purposes through all of them.  Even so, not every call story in the Bible is a success: Saul almost brings a nation to ruin that God gave him to take care of . . . Judas was as much a disciple, as much called as Peter and Andrew and James and the rest . . .

Preacher G. Lloyd Rediger speaks of the duty we Christians have to be “responsible stewards” of God’s call to us.  God has given us a heart, a passion, a desire, to do something and that something is God’s call to us.

Yet God’s call is not an invitation received without conflict – often there is doubt . . . and fear . . . confusion . . . and even lack of desire . . . because the call of God is a very big deal . . . and too often we humans live in a perpetual state of smallness, forgetting who and what we were created to be and to do, settling for far too little and calling it good or good enough.

When we believe we are too few . . . too weak . . . too old . . . or too young . . . too tired to act, to move, to help, we make ourselves too small . . .

When we buy in to the lies of our culture that only big money and big business and big churches can do anything of real import, we make ourselves too small . . .

And few though we may be in number, we were not made for small –

In the words of poet Marianne Williamson:

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

Our imagining is a big part of our stewarding of God’s call . . . for if we cannot or dare not imagine what God has in store, we will not see it come to life.

For God’s call to bear fruit, we must first imagine that it can.

For change to happen in ourselves and in our world, we must first believe, imagine its happening.

The call is always an invitation into the movement of the divine dance of coming and going:  come . . . with me . . . go . . . and do . . .

The question is . . . will we?  Dare we?

I AM GOING TO LOVE YOU

I AM GOING TO LOVE YOU
I SAY THIS IN THE BOLDNESS
OF CAPITAL LETTERS


I AM GOING TO LOVE YOU
THAT IS MY JOB
MY CALLING
MY PRIVILEGE
AND I AM GOING TO DO IT

I AM GOING TO LOVE YOU
THAT’S MY COMMITMENT
HEEDING BUECHNER’S ADVICE:
I SHALL SEE YOU SET
IN THE FRAME OF LOVE

I AM GOING TO LOVE YOU
AND
I HOPE YOU WILL LOVE ME TOO

I KNOW IT'S HARD, 

BUT I HOPE YOU WILL

I AM GOING TO LOVE YOU

IN FACT, I ALREADY DO