The Divine Crash

After being a pastor for a few years I have made more than my share of mistakes. and I have found there are a few types of mistakes.

1. Wrong and you know it. Someone comes to you and says “Pastor, you really messed up” and you know they are right and you really did mess up something. These are honestly the easiest mistakes to deal with.  It is simply a matter of standing up and owning it. Putting on your big kid pants and taking your lumps like you deserve. Sometimes we stand from the pulpit and say “I’m sorry,” or other times it is a phone call but these are the easiest kind to deal with and grow from.

2. Not wrong and no one knows it. This is the kind when someone comes to you and says “Pastor you messed up.” and you know you didn’t do anything wrong. That the situation they are talking about is a situation where you handled everything right. Maybe the person in your office sees it differently than you do or maybe they don’t know the whole story. Either way, you didn’t do anything wrong.  These types of situations require a delicate balance between planting our feet and standing our ground and giving in for the sake of the relationship.  As a pastor we are in the relationship business and sometimes, I think, we need to cave in and admit the other person was right even if we don’t believe simply to preserve the relationship. This is a very difficult act and a very difficult thing to do but sometimes I think we may need to do that. I think sometimes giving in is right when to stand our ground would betray the confidential nature of certain situations. Other times we need to plant our feet and say “I’m sorry you feel that way, but…” this will hurt people and puts up barriers and walls. I think though that there are times this is important and necessary to drive people forward and hopefully closer to Jesus. But if we get it wrong and hold fast when we should give then we can do  A LOT  of damage to people, church, kingdom of God. Knowing which option is not easy and should be taken with great care.

3. Wrong and no one knows it. This is the hardest kind of mess up there is. This is when a pastor gets it very wrong, in some aspect and no one catches it. Whether it is from a sermon or a speeding ticket or something else more serious and no one knows.  What it means at its core is that there is no one there to push the pastor and challenge their own smugness. After awhile it can become almost like an addiction to see how badly we can screw it up before someone notices. This kind of mistake may go unnoticed for a short time but eventually it will catch up with a pastor and cost them more than they ever planned on spending. These kind of mistakes only happen in isolation and only because the pastor is alone. If you are reading this and you find yourself in these sorts of mistakes you need to find someone to tell and share with before it consumes you.

Last week we launched our brand new contemporary worship service. It was amazing, the spirit was moving, and it truly was a movement of God. Now comes the hard part of maintaining that momentum. To ask God to create that atmosphere again would be wrong.  Instead, I prefer to ask God to do something brand new again. I fear that if I ask God to do what was done before I might grow numb to it, but if God does something brand new again then I can’t grow numb.

It will be interesting to see what happens this week. My prayer is that I might simply be a part of what God is doing. I can’t wait to see what it will be.

Sunday’s are the most leadership intensive days. I stand and lead a congregation that is all over the map both spiritually and emotionally. I have people who don’t know Jesus and people who have been following Jesus for decades. I have people who are deeply hurting and others who are so joyous it makes me want to puke.

And I get to lead them all.  Not only is it humbling and an honor, it also makes me very nervous. I mean, who said I was qualified to do this? Seminary didn’t teach me how to deal with divorce, alcoholics, or poverty and yet that is exactly what I am dealing with here.

Truth is on Sunday mornings I get really nervous.

Then I realize that it was God who called me to this and that makes me more nervous because it means if I do it wrong it is God who gets disappointed.

Then I realize that without God I can never lead correctly or well. That humbles me. That is what gives me the strength to stand in front of all those eyeballs and proclaim grace and hope to all those people.

I think if I were to ever stop being nervous I would be unfit to be a pastor because it means I could do it without God’s help.

That deep sigh after a great vacation! What a great time. But now it is back to the grind. I love what I do and I love being a pastor but there are times it is important to get away, disconnect, and recharge. I got to attend worship where I was in charge of nothing and spend the time with my wife. That was worth the whole vacation.

I don’t know how often you rest, but I would recommend that whatever your vacation time is you should use all of it!

Human Beings were not created as robots to work forever. We need to rest.  When we don’t rest we can’t function to the best of our ability.

So, take a break, and connect with the God who takes a day off.

People often ask me if I ever get nervous. My standard response is something to the effect of “I did at first but not anymore.”

I would suggest that there are some things that make me very nervous. I would suggest that there are some things that will make any pastor nervous.  If they don’t then perhaps they are lying to you and even to themselves.

Family in Church. Not my family, the have to love me. But the family of parishioners.  Especially for some of my more involved parishioners.  They brought their relatives with them who don’t normally attend and that makes me nervous.  Whether it is Christmas/Easter or for baptisms/confirmation  I am leading what my parishioners say they believe and if I don’t do well I will make them look bad to their family, and that makes me nervous. I am not bothered if people like me, but it is terrifying to think that people might not like their family because of what I said.

Hard Sermons. Sometimes in preaching the prophetic word of God I call out specific sins.  Not specific people but specific actions (that I may or may not know about).  For example: 47% of Christians admit to a pornography problem in their home. While I may not know specifically a person in the congregation who struggles with this, I know that if I preach on avoiding lust that it will touch a nerve in 47% of my church (Source).  This makes me nervous.  To know that I am standing up and proclaiming that sin is wrong is a dangerous thing. And that makes me nervous.

Casting Vision. In my role as a pastor I find that one of my main tasks is casting a vision and pointing the direction I believe God is calling us to go.  This is terrifying, it presumes that God has shown me a direction. It presumes that I heard God correctly. It presumes that when I stand up and state that God wants us to go a certain direction that people actually care where God wants us to go.  This is where doubts doesn’t creep it, it comes roaring like a Rhino wearing a jetpack.  What if I’m wrong? What if I’m right? What if? What if? What if? All of that doubt in trying to cast a vision for a particular congregation makes me nervous.

So what do I do with all this doubt? For me, I have to measure it. Why am I nervous? Is it because I am touching on the divine and bringing people one step closer to God? Or could I be nervous because I am about to do something stupid? My deciding factor is who gets the glory? If I face my nerves and do it anyway, who will be praised? Me or God? If it is me, then I shouldn’t do it.  If God gets the glory then it is worth being nervous about and fighting through those nerves.

What about you? When do you get nervous?

In the town I serve as pastor, a house caught on fire. The house is a complete loss. The family and pets are fine. I went to the scene of the fire to see how I could help the family.  They are not a part of the church but they are a part of the community.

The first was about one block from the my house and the church so I walked down. By the time I arrived the fire department was there and people were scurrying everywhere.  I looked for the family and they were safe, pets were safe, and I asked if they needed a place to stay, clothes, food, etc… but they were already taken care of. So I asked if I could pray for them.  Every member of the family said no (never had a person turn down prayer before).  I checked with the Fire Department supervisor and they had brought in a Fireman Rehab unit that had water, and snacks for the fireman.

So here I stood, unable to help the family, unwelcome to pray with the family, not needed to help the fireman. Honestly I felt totally impotent. There was nothing I could do.  Or at least there was nothing I knew to do.

I don’t want to downplay the tragedy the family just endured but this feeling of being a leader and not being able to do anything that helps.  Maybe it is a superman-complex or maybe it is just the reality of the situation that sometimes I can’t fix the problem, no matter how much I want to.

How do I as a pastor bring Christ to a situation like that? How do I remind people that Jesus is already there in a situation like that?

If you have an answer, I would love to read it in the comment section.

I felt like this was an appropriate post after my last post and something I have been thinking about lately. Sometimes people are wrong (not me, but other people).

Sometimes you are wrong. 

And sometimes people will point out to you that you are wrong.

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Pastors, when was the last time you were in church and you weren’t in charge? When it wasn’t a learning event or work related but was a time for you to sit with your family and just worship the God of the universe? God created us to worship in community.  Pastors are not exempt from that.  (more…)