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wanna be a pastor? ready for the mud?
To be a pastor requires the willingness to do your biblical studies and your theology down in the mud from which humanity arose and in which we continue to live and move and have our being. You think your job as a pastor is to apply biblical truth to people at a safe remove? Think again. Your job as a pastor is to be willing to come alongside real people having real struggles. Sometimes the people are like you and their struggles like your own. Sometimes they are unlike you–they and their struggles that is. And your job is to know them in their struggles as if they were your own.
I’m tired of pastors who are willing to pontificate on the tenderest of issues— depression, suicide, addiction, matters of sexuality, divorce-remarriage–as though their job were to be a kind of resource librarian, finding and applying the required truth from behind a desk. Don’t give me your glib answers to depression if you haven’t paid your dues talking to depressed people struggling with their faith. Don’t talk to me about the biblical perspective on divorce and remarriage without walking through the agony of divorce and decisions about remarriage with some people you know and love who are going through it. I can do my own google search on the biblical teaching on divorce and remarriage, thank you. If I’m a person who needs a pastor, I need someone who knows the truth, or cares to know the truth (I trust the latter, more than the former) and who knows me. Out of the mud me. Still in the mud me.
So if you’re thinking about becoming a pastor you want to ask yourself how you feel about mucking about in the mud.
More to come on this. Much more.
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:12 pm
Ken, I’m greatly looking forward to the much more. Something is wrong between pastors and their flocks, and no one seems to be talking about it. No one likes holding pastors accountable. It’s a taboo subject. Like pedophilia. And incest. One doesn’t speak about such things because it’s impolite, and one might be shot as the messenger of bad news.
February 4th, 2008 at 5:50 am
crucial stuff! its kind of like counting the cost…
i read margaret guenter’s book ‘holy listening’ recently, and in one section she talks about the implications of any sort of gift of empathy in the spiritual director…which when we are compassionate and empathetic listeners walking as sacred companions with others in the mess of life, we cannot help but take others’ sins upon ourselves…to which she points to the practical issues in ‘burden bearing’. it’s worth the read…
this also sort of remind me of some wordcraft i wrote last year, the legends of lowtide:
there is a cloud of witnesses who intercede at low-tide
digging a way so that voyaging vessels do not collide
with dangers that waters in darkness can hide
that can gash the hull of a ship on its side
and cause it to sink in the oncoming tide
lost to the sea and there to abide
no, our heroes dig deeper for those who cannot cope
a profound trench that will become a pathway to hope
making a way to ease the burden a little faster
to come through at high tide meeting a generous harbour Master
tugging their way in deep draft carrying burdens of oppression
yet a way has been made through with this messy intercession
yes, the wandering ships loaded down for journey
on a passage to safe harbour amidst a storm-tossed sea
our heroes wear waders to protect as they trudge
through the muck and the mire clearing the sludge
yet the grime it seeps off them as they clear the way
devoted to their work so that none go astray
now they follow the channel dredged by legends unseen
to unload their burdens and new grace to glean
February 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am
duke, I hadn’t been thinking about the issue of accountability of pastors in the post you commented on–so the “much more” probably won’t touch on that. I do know someone who is blogging extensively on that topic, however! ken
February 4th, 2008 at 10:43 am
steve,
you anticipated my next post in the “advice to young pastors” category….thanks for the verse–it’s a brave man who ventures into verse these days: VENTURE ON! (Just saw that your blog isn’t verse adverse!)
ken
February 4th, 2008 at 11:09 am
steve, oops! that’s averse, not adverse, isn’t it? See that’s why you’re a brave man–poets must spell properly and I can’t. ken