ken wilson online

Skills, gifts, knowledge, passion, all pale in comparison to the emotional intelligence you’re going to need, young pastor. Of course, there are many other jobs with intense emotional demands–teaching, parenting, medicine, running a business–but this business is surely one of them. The emotional intelligence that’s needed involves the cultivation, simultaneously, of a thick skin along with a tender heart.

Take for example the need to hear, respond to, and learn from criticism. Of you, that is. Jonathan Edwards, one of the greatest church leaders in American history–an academic and a leader of the Great Awakening, was forced out of his job by parents who didn’t like an approach he took to some pastoral issue involving their children. (Reading the account, I can see their point, but it was a judgement call….)

So criticism comes your way. You are involved in making choices that affect the enterprise and the people who care about the enterprise. Every choice, from a certain perspective, narrows the options of the enterprise and the people who care about it. Most choices mean that you’re doing one thing and not several other alternatives. Many of these alternatives are reasonable alternatives and reasonable people advocate for them and are reasonably annoyed when their advocacy doesn’t determine the outcome. This is happening ALL THE TIME. People are generally understanding, but since it’s happening ALL THE TIME, even when those who don’t prefer a given choice forebear 90% of the time, there are always enough people who rarely (from their perspective) object, that someone is objecting to something OFTEN. Are you following the math?

Then of course, hurting people hurt people. As we all know, most of us being hurting people at times who hurt other people as an expression of our own hurt. Ask your spouse if he or she has noticed this. Churches, especially if they are doing and being what they are meant to do and be, should be FILLED with hurting people in various stages of having their hurts helped, tended, soothed, even healed. Are you following the math?

One last math lesson: time. It accumulates. So the longer you are at it, the more of this stuff comes your way. Add to time, memory. Some of it you forget, but not all of it. So the net effect: the longer you are at it the more really noxious experiences you accumulate.

Did anyone tell you about the anonymous prophecies? Yes, people drop off letters and notes and send emails–unsigned–with anonymous prophecies regarding you. How you haven’t recognized someone’s giftedness and God is going to punish you for it. How you are leading the flock of God astray and God is going to take you out of the life business if you don’t mend your ways. How you are missing the latest wave off the Spirit and you are in the process of being left behind. And we’ve read the books and know that’s not the group you want to be part of.

By the way, this doesn’t just happen in charismatic or Pentecostal churches, so you can’t duck it so easily by staying away from those settings.

Solution seems simple, correct? Get your kevlar on. Thicken your hide, put up your walls, shore up your defenses. Yes, do that, but not at the expense of keeping or gaining a tender heart: the ability to be non-defensive, to listen, to hear, to separate the wheat from the chaff of criticism, and benefit from it.

Because the fact is, you need the data that comes from criticism. You’ve got blind spots that need filling in. Sometimes you deserve to be criticized. Sometimes a good dose of criticism will save your keester.

And here’s the other factor worth remembering: God. It’s one of the great ironies that your sharpest critics and your least constructive ones will wrap their criticism in God talk. Favorite wrappings include the Bible and the Holy Spirit.

There are, I’m afraid, many pastors who have been so clubbed by the Bible and sliced by the Holy Spirit–and by that I mean they’ve been clubbed not by the actual Bible or sliced by the actual Holy Spirit, but they’ve received unfair, unkind, uninspired criticism wrapped in wrapping paper with little Bibles and doves on it–that they get defensive around the actual Bible and the real Dove. Thick skin, so necessary in any job involving people, turns into hard heart. Not a good combo for the God connection.

You would be amazed.

So young pastor, take it from a surviving pastor who loves his job and his church: plan on getting some help with your emotional life. Whatever help you need, when you need it. Counseling, talking, reading On the Religious Affections by Jonathan Edwards, or some secular sounding book on happiness beneath your spiritual dignity? You need it, you go get it. Plan on not being able to get by without exercise. Plan on not being able to thrive without praying, and having begun to pray, finding a way to pray that is actually restorative emotionally.

I know, none of this is easy. If you don’t know a recovering alcoholic who works a twelve step program, find and befriend one. You will find that this recovering alcoholic understand that he or she doesn’t have a big margin for error when dealing with alcohol. They need to work all of those demanding steps and keep working them to stay sober and have a shot at happiness. Same for you in this line of work, when it comes to tending the inner world and the emotional life. (I don’t mean the twelve steps per se, but they are a great start; I mean doing the things you need to do to cultivate thick skin and a tender heart.) It’s OK, I know many deeply happy, fruitful, wonderful, joyful God connected recovering alcoholics. Many of them are thankful for their alcoholism because it put ‘em on a short leash and kept ‘em close to God. Ain’t that what got you interested in the first place?

Tags: criticism, emotional intelligence, emotional life, happiness, on the religious affections, prayer, twelve steps

This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 6:33 am and is filed under advice to young pastors. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.