Let’s be honest with one another. Do we really understand grace?

The trend, it seems to me, is that we are saved by grace and then it’s all up to us. That is, God does the initial work of ‘saving’ us and then we do the maintenance on our own. I suppose we might pay lip service every now and again to the work of the Spirit. I’m not persuaded that I am any closer to the truth of grace. I still try too hard to be holy not because I love God but because I really want to impress God. Really. Don’t we all want to hear God say, “Well done good and faithful servant. Enter into your master’s joy today”? Grace is someone else’s reconstruction project and not my maintenance project.

Maybe I want to hear that because I want God to be impressed at how in control I am of my situation. I’m not too particularly concerned to be dependent. I like control and being in charge. I certainly do not want to cede control to anyone. Lately I have found myself in a place where I have no control. I’m about one meal away from having to go to the local food pantry and beg. I’m about one drink away from falling off the wagon I have been on since 1991. I’m about one missed day of work away from not making the mortgage. Grace is someone else in control besides me.

I want to be close to God and yet right now I am about as far away from him as a human on earth can be from one who came near. On the other hand, I am closer to him than I have ever been. It’s oxymoronic, but true and it has nothing to do with me. I’m not so good at hiding, and God is so very good at finding. Grace is someone else finding me and not me making myself known.

I don’t understand grace. Maybe I should quit trying and just enjoy it. Or Swim in it. Or blame it. Run to it. Run from it. Eat it. Drink it. Put it in my pocket. Fly it like a kite. Grace is someone else’s idea of sustenance not mine.

I read this short essay tonight. Well, it’s not really an essay. It’s more like a blog post—a good one: short, sweet, and memorable. It’s called Refrigerator People and the Unfair Grace of God. Here’s a clip:

The One I serve is the Author of wildly beautiful, unfair grace.  He permits me to pray for people the world dismisses with a few well-placed words.  Dirtbags.  Scum of the earth.  Criminals.  Crazy people.  You know, the ones who “deserve it” when the going gets rough.  He invites me to dare to believe He’s big enough to redeem even these…and that He longs to do exactly that.  As I join Him in the conversation about them, He shows me much about their brokenness and their beauty…and much about mine as well.

The beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.  My prayer today is that every person on my fridge and on my heart will accept the unfair grace of God, and know freedom in this life.  I long to meet them on the other side, and celebrate with them the magnitude of that grace.

Grace will always be unfair. I’m undone. We are all undone by the God of grace because none of us can stand before him, read off our list of credentials, and hope to get in with a pat on the back and a smile. But we can expect to ‘get in’ when we are nothing more before God than who we are because of God. That is, when we make no effort whatsoever to impress him aside from just accepting what he offers in the form of grace, empty vessels holding up empty hands that have been lifted up by his strength that we hope he fills (faith?). Grace is God being pleased with us because he wants to and not because he has to.

I think some Christians put way too much stock in impressing God than they do in being impressed by God. Grace is God loving us because he can, not us loving him because we can’t.

I don’t really think I understand grace. I think the minute we think we do is the minute we will probably die because how can God afford for that message to be shared with the buildings full of Christians who think they are impressing God by being in church on Sundays and putting their trinkets into the passing plates and eating stale bread and warm juice? Jesus said it best, though, didn’t he: “It’s not the well who need a doctor, but the sick.”

He also said something like, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.” I know for a fact this verse angers people in the church more than any other verse in the Bible because there is not one of us who would dare admit that we are blind. We see all too well which is exactly why we make a wreck of the church. We see all too well which is exactly why the church, some churches anyhow, has become a museum for relics to be admired, dusted, and preserved instead of a distribution center of grace and goods; a feeding trough for the hungry and helpless; a hospital for the beaten and broken; a truck-stop for the weary and worn out. The church should be a pair binoculars or a telescope or reading glasses instead of a mirror. Grace is something we look through not something we look at.

That’s what grace does. It changes our perspective and shifts our gaze. Grace is someone else’s vision and not our own.

I know that’s what upsets people about grace: We prefer to look at ourselves. Grace demands that we do not. Grace demands–yes demands–that we cast our nets wide, and empty. Grace demands that we haul in the catch someone else has provided.

Grace forces us into the uncomfortable position of having to consider someone else which, interestingly enough, is kind of what God did in Jesus.

And grace is unfair to a fault. Newton should have written that song: His unfair Grace, how disturbing the sound, that saves so many like me…

The ones we think deserve the most hell are the ones God invites to the wedding supper; the ones we think will most certainly be under wrath are the very ones being saved; and the ones we hope suffer the worst are the very ones God is in the process of healing the most. And we don’t like it because we know that Scripture says such people are under wrath and, thus, deserve to be. We understand not the mysteries and secrets of how the Kingdom works and grows and produces–nor why God happens to invite to and secure in his salvation the most wretched and ugly among us.

I’m not making predictions for God’s grace because I don’t understand it any more than anyone else. If I did, I would be dead. Grace is someone else seeing me as I am and not me seeing myself as I should be.

Grace is unfair because grace is the business end of God’s dealings with sinners—sinners of all kinds, and not just the ones we think God should deal with, like ourselves. I don’t deserve God’s grace any more than anyone else but I’ll gladly take what he gives.

I’m happy to let God be God. I’m happy to let God save the way God saves. I’m happy to let God save those God saves.

I’m happy that salvation is the work of Jesus, not me. I’m happy it’s about grace and nothing else.

I am beginning an entirely new life as of August 21, 2009–leaving the past behind, pressing on into Scripture, and reclaiming some aspects of my life that have been allowed to grow shallow. Part of this reclamation project is to read through Scripture all over again. I will go slowly and not press the issue of hurrying. I want to hear God’s voice and story all over again with fresh ears and see his words with fresh eyes. I will be going from beginning to end, straight through, and blogging what I learn along the way. I might read more than one chapter a day, but I will be blogging every chapter I read. Part of my transition out of paid ministry is to be recaptured by the Word of God all over again from an ‘unprofessional’ point of view. I need to be refreshed in the Scripture and get my bearings back. This is my first step in that endeavor: reading Scripture all over again for the first time. There’s a lot of hurt that goes along with transitioning from what you have always known to something entirely unknown. I will need food, good food, along the way. I think the Bible is a good place to start. I hope you will care to join me.–jerry

Reclamation Project, Day 1

Genesis 1

It is easy to engage in debates and arguments concerning what Genesis 1 means. I, myself, have argued those lines. It is a no-win battle. What is often not argued is what is stated in the text. That is, let’s try hard not to read into the text our modern arguments, but instead let’s take time to simply read what a typical Hebrew might have read or heard read if they went to a synagogue on the Sabbath. How would they have heard the words?

I think they would have heard about God. There would not have been the sort of debates that we engage in when it comes to Scripture in general or Genesis in particular. They would have heard about God. I think sometimes I have been so ready to see what I think about God in Scripture that I have overlooked what God actually is in Scripture; especially Genesis. So note with me a couple of the more obvious things about Genesis 1 that I never hear anyone debating because they are so consumed with whether or not Genesis is talking about their favorite story of our origins.

First, God is. Genesis begins with God. This means the Bible begins with God. This means that the history recorded in the rest of the Bible begins with God. This means the beginning begins with God. God is. It’s rather simple. I think an original reader would have heard that. God is.

Second, God speaks. All through this chapter there is one voice that dominates the entire cosmos, there is one voice that is consistently heard in the beginning: God’s. We don’t know much about this God who is, but we instantly learn that He is, He is Spirit, and that He speaks. I think this means we should be interested in what he says, we should listen to his voice, and if he speaks in the beginning, does he speak again? What does he say? How does he say it? Why does he say it?

Third, God does. This God, of whom we know little so far, is doing things. He is making worlds. His voice is power to create, power to make, power to do. His voice, the only voice speaking in the entirety of the cosmos—makes worlds. ‘God made’ is heard over and over again in this chapter. His voice is permissive, “let there be.” Only he determined when it was right for these things to be and to happen.

Fourth, God blesses and commands. “God blessed them and said, ‘be fruitful and multiply.’” The work that he has called us to do (he gives the same command to creatures and man, verses 22, 28) is an aspect of his blessing for us. Tending gardens, pro-creating—being given power to make as he made, bearing his image, receiving his creation as our own, all of these things are part of his blessings for us. This God, who is described to us only once, ‘Spirit,’ interacts with his creation. He charges beasts and man alike to continue the work of creation that he started. God shares.

Fifth, God wants to be known. I believe God desires that knowledge of him be made abundantly evident in the creation. Paul says that since the creation, God’s invisible attributes, his eternal power, his divine nature have been clearly perceived ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20). I always thought this meant that God could be seen in the trees, in volcanoes, in stars and planets, in rivers, lakes, oceans, and things like that. But look what Genesis says: It is man and woman who bear the image of God. God’s power, his divine nature, his invisible attributes are not best seen in trees and rocks and mountains but in human beings—the ones who bear His image. God wants to be known–and we are the ones to show forth God. He created us in his image which means, I guess, that He has decided what we are to show of him. How will we do?

It was man who was charged with the responsibility to bear the image of God. It is man and woman who are created in the image of God not trees, not lemurs, not badgers, not lumps of coal, not angler fish. God wants his image to be seen on this earth in human beings. In a sense we are the visible manifestation of what is invisible (Spirit). We are to be the ones who make known what is unknown.

I will be interested to see how this story unfolds and what else this God has to say. I will be interested to see if this man and woman will bear his image the way he wants us to. In the meantime, this first chapter of the Bible gives us a great introduction to God even if the picture of God is not yet entirely fleshed out for us.

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“God looks to those who are humble and contrite of spirit and who tremble when he speaks (Isaiah 66:2). He resists the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5). Remember, grace means that he is acting in their lives.

“So the humble are dependent upon God, not on themselves. They humble themselves ‘under the mighty hand of God’ (1 Peter 5:6)—that is, by depending upon God to act. They abandon outcomes entirely to him. They ‘cast all [their] anxiety on him, because he cares for [them]’ (1 Peter 5:7). The result is assurance that the mission and the ministry will be accomplished, in God’s time and in God’s way. They don’t need to be the vision, and the goals we set for them are God’s business, not ours. We do the very best we know, we work hard, and even self-sacrificially. But we do not carry the load, and our ego is not involved in any way with the mission and the ministry. In our love of Jesus and his Father, we truly have abandoned our life to him. Our life is not an object of deep concern.”

–Dallas Willard, The Great Omission, 100-101

Been a while since I posted here, but things have been crazy. Now I am ready to start writing again and I have a lot to say.

Since I last posted, I have applied and been accepted into graduate school at Cleveland State University. There I am studying to be a Special Education teacher with emphasis in Moderate to Intensive specialization. I am no longer a pastor/preacher in a local church. I am unemployed. I have no church home. This excerpt, from a longer post at my personal blog, concerns worship. It is based on what I learned as I worshiped with and Anglican church on August 2, 2009.

I will have much more to say. I’m glad Relevant Christian is still here for me to post to. Stop back and visit soon. Blessings. Jerry.

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Do you know what it is like to be killed in worship? Do you know what it is like to have the Word of God cut you to the heart? Do you know what it is like to hear the Word of God declared, proclaimed, and announced and find yourself at the sharp end of a sword?

I know what the Lord is up to, I think. I think the Lord is leading me back to himself, back to the place where I can worship again. But he is leading in a way that only He can lead. I can’t get there on my own because I do not know the way. I’m like Frodo trying to find Mordor: I’m willing to go, but I do not know the way. Thankfully, the Lord orders our steps. Thankfully, he is not willing that we stay out in the desert place. Thankfully, the Lord pitches His tents in Sheol and finds us there. When we arrive, He is already there, waiting, watching, hoping, and loving–loving us back to health and worship. He resurrects us!

One of the last songs my band played on my last Sunday at the church was a song called ‘Floodgate’.

“In the desert my soul waits. For a drop of heaven’s rain. I’m thirsty for you. River of the springs of life, You alone can satisfy. I’m thirsty for you. Living Water, Pour down, Drench this desert, I need you now.”

“Open up the Floodgate, send down your waterfall. Let Your might Spirit flow, down to the desert plains below. Open up the Floodgate. Send down Your waterfall.”

In many ways, this is what worship should be: A place where God’s Holy Spirit is let loose and people humbled by the Spirit, refreshed by the prayer, forgiven by Christ, submitted to the Word are strengthened to go out and…and…wreck it all over again.

Isn’t that what grace is? Isn’t that what grace is about? We don’t worship because we have something to offer God–as if He needs anything we have to offer. We worship because we need something–we need Grace, we need forgiveness, we need mercy, we need love, we need his invitation to come to the table He has prepared. We silly Christians have the expectation that everyone, including the preacher, comes to church on Sunday morning perfect and ready, willing and able to perform an act of worship for the Lord. It’s our duty, after all. It is church to go and meet at the appointed hour and offer something to God—be it a song, a dollar, or a sermon. But ironically, that’s not how the Lord sees it at all.

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.”

Or, if you prefer New Testament lingo,

“When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.” (Luke 24:30-31)

You know this don’t you? Worship is not something we offer to God—how can we worship God?! All we offer is faltering lips and stammering tongues, broken and damaged by life and the world. Rather, it is something we are invited in to by God himself. We come thinking we are going to bless Him and instead what ends up happening is that He blesses us, invites us around the table, baptizes us with His Holy Spirit, feeds us with His Word, pronounces us forgiven, and joins our hearts in fellowship!

If worship is something we are merely doing, something we do because we think we have something to give God, I suspect it is something closer to idolatry we are practicing. If we show up at worship full of life and energy, filled with all sorts of humanity, strong and mighty—then maybe we are not ready to worship at all. If we show up thinking that that is religion, that that is Christianity, that that is our pilgrimage–we we really have no idea what we are engaged in at all.  But if we show up, if we can,  limping in, on crutches, slouched over, beaten, broken, tired, strung out, hung-over from a week of busy and doing—completely undone—then, perhaps we are ready to worship because, then, when we are empty, there is room for God to be, to fill, and replenish.  There is room for God to minister to us in His Spirit. Isn’t that what Jesus does? He came to serve, not be served. As if we can; as if that stopped when he ascended into heaven!

I see what is happening. The last couple of weeks I have been worshiping with broken, empty, undone people. And Christ has showed up, almost unannounced because the people didn’t consider themselves worthy of His presence.

I see what is happening. The emptying takes a lot longer when we have so much baggage, but it is not until we are completely empty that God can begin investing in us Himself.

And that is the way worship ought to be. That’s the way church ought to be.

Psalm 119:105 & 114

105 Your word is a lamp to my feet
and a light for my path.

114 You are my refuge and my shield;
I have put my hope in your word.

Psalm 37:4-8

4 Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart.

5 Commit your way to the LORD;
trust in him and he will do this:

6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,
the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.

7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways,
when they carry out their wicked schemes.

8 Refrain from anger and turn from wrath;
do not fret—it leads only to evil.

PSALM 111:7-9

7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.

8 They are steadfast for ever and ever,
done in faithfulness and uprightness.

9 He provided redemption for his people;
he ordained his covenant forever—
holy and awesome is his name.

Letting Love

“We are created by love, to live in love, for the sake of love…By worshiping efficiency, the human race has achieved the highest left of efficiency in history, but how much have we grown in love?” (Gerald May, quoted in John Eldredge, Waking the Dead, 48)

I’m thinking about this love—and especially as this love relates to the church; to Christians. Commenting on 1 John 5:1, author Morris Womack writes:

“If love is one of the familial traits in God’s family, then each of his children will love God and love the brothers and the sisters in God’s family. You cannot love God without loving your brother. You cannot have one without the other. John reminds us that the way for us to become children of God is (1) by loving God; and (2) by carrying out his commands…[T]he conclusion we expect is: therefore if you love God you will love your fellow Christian.” (College Press NIV Commentary, Morris Womack, 1, 2, &; 3 John, 116-117)

And yet…and yet…Eldredge asks, “Why is it so easy to get angry at, or to resent, or simply to grow indifferent toward the very people we once loved?” (Waking the Dead, 113). John made it perfectly clear in his letter, “…everyone who loves the father loves his child as well…This is how we know that we love the children of God of God: by loving God and carrying out his commands” (1 John 5:1b-2).

Why is love so difficult for us? I mean, as I read blogs and the comment sections of blogs I am led to believe that the family of God is one great big, gigantic dysfunctional family. Why? Because we can’t and don’t and won’t love our brothers in Christ—no matter that we are commanded to. But it is one thing to lament the lack of love and quite another to offer solutions. It is one thing to see others as the stumbling block (“I can’t love them”) and quite another to see ourselves as the stumbling block (“I won’t love them.”) I wonder which is worse.

Ah, therein is my problem. I have no solutions. I don’t know how to convince people that they not only should love their brothers and sisters but that they can. That seems to be what grace does in our lives. That is, enables us to do something, love, that previously we could not do and would not do. I don’t know how to convince myself that I should love. Hey, sometimes it is hard to get over hurt. It is one thing to want love to win and quite another to go out of my way to make certain that is a reality.

Someone else wrote: “Brotherly love is proof of love of God; but the reverse is also true.” (Smalley, 268) Ouch. That hurts. Brotherly love, love God, love people. It makes my head hurt thinking about the various peoples that God calls me to love and the various peoples that God, by virtue of his command, calls to love even me. I can’t imagine the horror some people experience when they read in the Scripture that they are, by virtue of their new birth in Christ, obligated to love so-and-so; or me. I am probably more amazed at the people who have willingly, sacrificially, unconditionally, without an agenda loved me; warts and all that is. Yet I complain when I am commanded to love so-and-so.

Eugene Peterson wrote in Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places:

“A primary task of the community of Jesus is to maintain this lifelong cultivation of love in all the messiness of its families, neighborhoods, congregations, and missions. Love is intricate, demanding, glorious, deeply human, and God-honoring, but—and here’s the thing—never a finished product, never an accomplishment, always flawed in some degree or other. So why define our identity in terms that can never be satisfied? There are so many easier ways to give meaning and significance to our human condition: giving assent to a creed or keeping a prescribed moral code are the most common in congregations.” (313)

Don’t you think that is too much pressure? Quite frankly it would be much easier if we did have a set of rules that would measure our success; indeed, many think we do. But the Scripture is rather clear that the measure of our success is determined by our love for one another and in no other way. There’s an easy way and the right way. The easy way is rules; the right way is love. And Peterson is right: love is never a finished project or product. There is always some obstacle we have to overcome along the way. Love always wins when we are brave enough to love.

I don’t think I’m searching for anything out of the ordinary, although, to be sure, love is out of the ordinary. It is not what we are accustomed to in this life. So when we get involved with the Jesus life we are shocked that this is what we are called to do. Love one another. Love one another. A new command I give you, Love one another. Jesus said it three times on the night he was betrayed. Three times! I suppose that shocked his disciples that night. Love one another. Pshaw! What sort of kingdom is going to grow, overcome the world, and remain when the cornerstone of that kingdom is love for another?

I’m not looking for anything out of the ordinary, although love does not come naturally to us. To love the people of God causes us all sorts of revulsion and convulsions and indigestion. Yet that command is not rescinded: Love one another is what Jesus left us with. He could have said any of a billion different things is the ‘new command’ he was giving us. And yet…and yet…our story, his story, is defined by love. No matter how complicated it becomes the command never changes: Love one another. Jesus either had a sense of humor or he was serious. Could be both. But while not excluding the former, I am inclined toward the latter.

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for one another. If anyone one of you has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in you? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth” (1 John 3:16-18).

Yeah, right. That’s going to work.

Confessions of a Frustrated (Christian) Preacher, pt 5 (1 of 2)

“In the same way, the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should receive their living from the gospel. But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me. I would rather die than have anyone deprive me of this boast. Yet when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it” (1 Corinthians 9:7-18).

“ ‘I’ve had it with the church. I think that I should go back to school and become a psychotherapist.’

“That’s what a lot of disillusioned clergy do. They still want to help people, but they can’t seem to do it within the church.” (Charles Irish, Back to the Upper Room, 9)

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My second full-time, paid ministry position began when I was 27 and ended when I was 29 and 5 months. I was too young. Someone told me that, a respected person, when I was at a weekend retreat. Ah, sure. Who at the age of 27 wants to be told, let alone admit, that they are too young for something? Many professional athletes are in their prime at 27, it shouldn’t be any different for a paid preacher. I confess that I was not fully prepared for the level of politics that has to be played in a local congregation and in that sense I was too young. I was naive, easily manipulated, impulsive, defensive, and stubborn. There was yet to be developed in me the spirit of faith, the sustenance of grace, and the humility of defenselessness. Those things are developed in the crucible of turmoil.

I have said, on more than one occasion, that paid ministry is a different animal altogether. The local paid preacher, at least in my own denomination, carries a great deal of responsibility—far more than is biblically mandated or professionally reasonable. If the preacher is part of a multi-person staff, that responsibility is lessened; if he is solo, it is heightened. In all of the churches I have served, I have been solo with no other paid staff. (Please don’t misinterpret me here: I assure you this is not a complaint, just reality.) This means, ultimately, that the bulk of the work falls on the paid preacher’s shoulders. I was young enough to expect the church to work and encouraged the church to be an ‘every member ministry’. Every member ministry is a myth of epic proportions. The American way is easier: Let’s just pay someone to do it.

The paid preacher is chained, literally, to the expectations of those who write his job description and sign his paycheck. He is only relatively free to pursue his gifts and passions. He is on-call 24/7 and is paid for 40. Again, there is no whining here, just brutal facts. The sad truth is that in my experience paid ministry is neither ‘paid’ nor ‘ministry.’ It is something akin to indentured servitude or serfdom if he lives in a parsonage. I don’t think that is an exaggeration. There is the unwritten rule that the preacher can be bothered at any time, for any reason, and by any person. His home phone is published under the words ‘parsonage’ unless he owns his own house.

I believe there is a place for our modern concept of ministry and I believe there are some people who are made for it. It and they are called, collectively, The Church, The Body of Christ, The Congregation. The worker, yes, is worth his wage, but I have grown to believe more and more that our modern model for paid ministry is downright unbiblical and unnecessary when the Church functions according to the biblical descriptions and prescriptions. The Bible describes the church as a place where everyone is gifted by God (e.g., 1 Corinthians 12) to accomplish the work He has prepared in advance for us to do (cf. Ephesians).

The problem, as I see it, is that congregations end up believing they have paid for services—therefore, they do not have to do anything but show up on Sundays—that is, admittedly, a terribly vague generalization and not true in all cases. “It” is the preacher’s job. And if it is done properly, the paid preacher will spend the majority of his time planning, administrating, attending meetings, taking phone calls, or visiting the parishioners in their houses among other things. Most preachers will not be lost in their study of the Scripture or hunkering down in the prayer closet. Yet this doesn’t seem to jive with what Scripture says. Consider Acts 6 where we can clearly see that the responsibilities of the church have clear lines of delineation:

“In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, “It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.

“This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them. So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.”

In the absence of apostles dedicated to the preaching and praying, I believe that some are specifically called to such ministry. As Paul wrote in Ephesians Jesus himself apportioned such gifts (such people!): “It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up…” Some people are specifically called and gifted for ‘pastoral’ (visitation) ministry; others are not. Some are specifically called to preaching ministry; most are not. Since very few churches are willing (or able) to pay someone simply for their involvement in the Word and Prayer, the line gets blurred and ‘paid’ preachers become hirelings to do all the work that those gifted in the congregation should do—a truly every member ministry. Instead of all of us taking care of one another, it is the ‘pastor’s’ job.
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I think there is a better way to do church, a better way to be church—a better way to be a minister of Christ. I also believe that this is precisely the place where my disillusionment with the church and with ‘paid ministry’ comes into the picture. I know it is not the same for every single preacher on the planet. I know my experience is and is not unique. I know that making one person, effectively, the CEO/Pastor/Preacher/Planner/Etc., is the American way to do things. I know there is not a biblical prohibition against paid ministry per se. (Although I don’t know that the modern version is what the apostles had in mind.)

But what I have experienced has led me to a place where I can no longer do ministry precisely because of the paycheck that comes along with it. The paycheck hasn’t freed me for ministry, it has shackled me to the expectations of others and it has prevented the full expenditure of whatever gifts and passions I might have (and probably stagnated my congregation since I seem unable to motivate them at any level). In other words, it has limited ministry. What’s better? Preaching to a few people on Sunday mornings, once per week, for about 30 minutes and hoping that the church building will be the primary place for ‘salt and light’ type of evangelism, and being beholden to the whims of the paycheck? Or being out and about among the ‘lost’ all day, every day, doing good deeds, influencing people directly who are without Christ, preaching as we go, wherever we go, wherever we are led, and being free to do ministry out of love and not obligation?

This is the struggle I have been having for a number of years now and it has come to a head in my current ministry. The frustration is born out of the problems I noted above and out of the desire to be free to serve Christ in a more meaningful way because I love and not because I am obligated.
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“How can they fathom that half the world is too poor to feed its kids when their church just spent two years raising money to build an addition to their building? They gather, they sing, they hear a talk from the pastor, and then they get back in the car with their parent and they go home; the garage door opens up, the car goes in, and the garage door goes down. This is the revolution? This is what Jesus had in mind?” (Rob Bell and Don Golden, Jesus Wants to Save Christians, 138)

I don’t believe it is. Christ has called us to something more as ministers of his Gospel.

Confessions of a Frustrated (Christian) Preacher, pt 4

“From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.” (Ephesians 4:16)

“A Church is the new humanity on display.” (Jesus Wants to Save Christians, Rob Bell, 155)

I believe this is true, but if it is I think it is scarcely a compliment to the new humanity. As this series continues, and as I draw closer to telling the story of my current ministry experience, you will see that I am not kidding at all. One caveat. Please don’t misinterpret my point. Don’t mistake ministry for Christianity. I love being a Christian and wouldn’t change it for the world. I’m just finding it more and more difficult to live it out while being paid to preach. That said, there’s a lot that needs to be said about the way preachers are treated within the church by other Christians.

The key to this post is to remember this: Preachers are Christians too.

Pulpit Supply

While I was in college, still learning to preach and still developing a theological perspective, I volunteered for the school to do what is called pulpit supply. Simply put, a church would call the college if they needed a preacher for the weekend (perhaps the preacher was on vacation or had been fired), the school would call upon its pool of volunteer student-preachers, and we would go. Some of my best times at college were doing pulpit supply. I traveled all over Michigan, Indiana, and Ohio preaching. At one point, a church asked me to stay on for several consecutive weeks preaching. I loved it because I knew after the morning worship, I could leave. Freedom.

Pulpit supply was also some of my worst times. Two times in particular come to mind. The first instance occurred once when I was preaching in a church down around Detroit. My wife and I arrived early and went into the auditorium and selected a seat in a pew down near the front. After a while, an older lady came in and was looking rather glum. My wife, tactfully asked her if everything was alright. The woman responded, shaking her head, “Oh, not so good.” My wife asked, “Oh, what’s wrong?” And the woman responded, and I kid you not, “Well, it’s just that you are in my seat.”

We were 24 years old. I was the guest preacher.

A second incident was about as bad. I will say this, most of the churches I preached in as a pulpit supply preacher paid well. Among those of us who did supply preaching, there were a couple we really hoped for on any given Sunday. One was in Michigan and the other in Indiana. Both were decent trips, requiring several hours of travel, and paid $250 per week. For college students, this was amazing money. It was motivation to preach well and get invited back the next Sunday (incidentally, when I was hired at my first church in West Virginia, I made, you guessed it, $250 per week).

I visited a church in Ohio as the pulpit supply preacher. It was easily a 3-4 hour trip. It was as close to my parents as it was to me because I distinctly remember my mother and grandmother making the trip to listen to me preach. It was no small church hurting for cash, but at the end of the day, I received a paltry $30. It was not even an official check from the church treasurer. It was a personal check from one of the members.

Even back then, that barely covered the expense of the fuel required to get there (and there was no lunch afterward). It sounds petty, but these two experiences were the mere beginning of my experiences as a ‘professional’ preacher of the Gospel. I learned early that some things in the church are sacred and it is not the things one might expect.

Interviews

I didn’t learn my lessons well during pulpit supply. I didn’t get any smarter when it came to interviews. The interview is where a preacher ought to decide if he is going to a church not if the church is going to call the preacher. Sadly, however, not many preachers are afforded the luxury of being so picky. To be honest, I was just plain stupid when it came to interviews, and young. I’ll share a couple of examples.

I interviewed at a small church in West Virginia for my first paid position. Admittedly, it was a small church and I should have listened to my wife’s concerns, but I wanted to preach and I was graduating soon. I needed to work, I wanted to work; I wanted to preach. So I hurried the process along. I don’t remember too much about the interview except for one particular question that came from one of the ‘elders’ of the church. I was not yet 25, my wife was just barely 24. We were about one and half months from graduation. We had one son.

The question? “Are you planning on having any more children?” I should have known at that point, but I wanted to preach so I answered that we weren’t planning on it (my second son was born less than a year later). I learned later what that question meant. My wife had gone home for a visit one weekend. My son was only about 2. We started the worship: singing, praying, and then the preaching. While I was preaching my son, about 2, grew restless as he sat by himself in the front row. He started talking and wiggling and clowning. I was stared at by the congregation while I preached by eyes that seemed to be saying, “What are you going to do about your son?” No one lifted a finger to help. Not one.

So I picked him up in my arms and preached the sermon with him on my hip. I learned that day what they meant by, “Do you plan on having any more children?”

In a second interview, at a different, yet another, church in West Virginia, I was asked an equally astounding question. I had been ‘out of ministry’ for about 10 months or so but I had started working myself back into shape by serving in my home church in a variety of ways and by doing some pulpit supply at a nearby church in West Virginia. At some point, ‘they’ decided they liked me well enough to begin conducting some rather informal interviews. One such informal interview was with one of the elders who, probably not incidentally, had been the mayor of the town at one point in his career.

Don’t get me wrong. He was a great friend and my closest ally while in the church. (I’ll have more to say about this congregation in my next post.) Yet it was during one of these informal interviews that he asked me a question that I should have listened to more closely. The question? “How do you feel about the gays?” Honestly, I had no idea what I thought about ‘the gays.’ It wasn’t something I thought I needed to put a lot of thought into and, to be sure, I’m not really sure how I even answered. I must have answered well enough because I was hired less than a month later.
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Back then, I was too young to know better because all I really wanted to do was preach. Preaching is what I do, it is what I love. What I learned, though, is that no one can enter into a church with the assumption that all he will do is preach-even if that is what he knows in his heart he is called to do. There is, without a doubt, an agenda in most established churches that is incomprehensible to the outsider looking in. The agenda is spoken in one way, “We want the church to grow.” But it is fleshed out in another way, “We want it to grow on our terms and you must conform to our ways in order for that to happen.”

Please don’t misunderstand me: I love the church because it is the bride of Christ and because I belong to it. My criticism is not of every church, nor of every Christian. What I am saying is that a large part of my reason for making plans to leave the paid ministry is because of the way I have been treated as a preacher.

There is a simple way to look at this: The preacher is not a member of the local church despite his confession to the contrary. He is never a member who is paid. (The paycheck always, always, dictates and controls.) This is the only explanation I can come up with for why local churches treat preachers the way they do. I’m writing from experience: I know this to be true. I am willing to bet there are many more preachers in the church who know exactly what I am talking about and until the local church accepts preachers as equal members, and not as mere itinerants or transients, they will continue to do so.

You see, it is not the responsibility of the local congregation, so goes the logic, to do what Paul said in Ephesians 4:16 for the preacher they have hired. It is assumed, however, that this is the preacher’s job to do this for the congregation who hired him. He has a responsibility to the local congregation, but they have none to him. The hired preacher is always expendable (hence the evils of the parsonage and the pay).

It’s almost like churches are saying: Preachers aren’t Christians so we can treat them however we want. And if this is how they treat preachers who are Christians then just imagine how they treat those who truly are not Christians.

Imagine.

Things referenced in this post:

Rob Bell
Michigan
Indiana
Church Elders
Ohio

Previous Posts in this Series:

Confessions of a Frustrated (Christian) Preacher, 1
Confessions of a Frustrated (Christian) Preacher, 2
Confessions of a Frustrated (Christian) Preacher, 3