These were the golden years. This was our honeymoon spiritually, and literally matrimonially. This was a good church with good people.
But we were also just babies, maybe naïve in the best sense. Jason Isbell wrote, "You've got to try and keep yourself naïve/In spite of all the evidence believe." How do I say this kindly, we hadn't seen the dark underbelly of ministry. What I mean is, we hadn't yet sat through hostile church conferences or observed unhealthy ministry ambition. We hadn't seen pastors, unjustly fired without biblical cause--forced out of their ministry without even severance. We hadn't seen unscrupulous pastors foisted onto unwitting congregations by good old boy dynamics.
If I'm not careful I'll make myself sound like a pristine saint, above all this. I'm not. I'm human. But I have been thinking about how a person can negotiate life in vocational ministry and not have your soul tarnished in the process. How do I avoid becoming a cynic as negative experiences accumulate?
Wariness isn't cynicism. We are right to be wary of aspects of ministry that have nothing to do with Christ or His Kingdom. My former Sunday School teacher and seminary professor John Hammett once said, "Good motives are hard to come by." That is a good observation about fallen human nature. I learned that being wary is a wise thing in the sense that I should be wise as a serpent, but innocent as a dove (Matthew 10:16).
Ministry metrics matter. Notice the questions that denominations ask, "How many? How much?" Not, "What kind? What is the quality of the work in people's lives?" Of course that is harder to quantify. It also doesn't open the door for comparison, the great enemy of soul satisfaction. Maybe the thing to do is to make your own list of metrics that have healthier spiritual connotations and don't lead you to compare yourself with anyone else.
This is very difficult to do, but avoid attaching your self-worth to ministry. As primers on how to do this read Kent and Barbara Hughes great book Liberating Ministry from the Success Syndrome, or Eugene Peterson's Under the Unpredictable Plant. Both of these books focus on perspective. And I find that my perspective needs realignment almost daily.
Avoid the trap of bigger being better. Most churches are fewer than 100 in worship attendance while almost all of the models who get platformed are those whose "high capacity leadership" us average Joes can never replicate. I can't think of anything more incongruent to the Gospel than the idea of a celebrity pastor. I know that some people come to prominence because they are uniquely talented, but I hope with all my heart they remember 1 Corinthians 4:7.
My advice is to look away from that ministry empire you are prone to compare your own assignment with for the sake of your heart. Does Jesus see us in our little Gospel outposts? I hope so, there sure are a lot of us. After all, "Who has despised the day of small things?" (Zechariah 4:10)
"Keep your eyes on Jesus" sounds like the biggest cliché going, but if that's not the cure, there isn't one. How else can a person process decades of experiences that are bound to include disappointment, hurts, and betrayals, and yet not have their hearts calcify?
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