Faith Conversations with Pastor Dennis

If I’m ever going to get consistent with this blogging thing, I’ve got to stop waiting for the great flashes of inspiration and start going with what’s on my heart.  So this morning I’m going with what’s on my heart.

Some study out there shows that 70% of American pastors feel like they have no close friends.  That brings an odd sense of comfort.  At least I’m not alone in my loneliness. 

What does pastoral friendlessness look like?  It’s not knowing who to call when you and your wife would love to spend a fun evening with another couple.  It’s having to call someone across the country when you’re struggling because it’s not safe to let someone in your church “family” know.  It’s looking with envy at church people who go on camping trips together and wondering why you never get invited — or never do the inviting.  It’s getting together with another pastor over lunch but never getting beyond “church talk.”  It’s discovering that social media with its promise of “friendship” just leaves you feeling more isolated and less understood.   It’s preaching about Christ’s commandment that we should love one another but then having to keep to yourself how you’re getting privately beaten up by mean church members.   Do you get the picture?

I know that pastors and their spouses aren’t the only lonely people in America.  I think many people feel relationally isolated — thus the popularity of the afore-mentioned social media dangling friendship like steak before a starving wolf.   I also know that pastors aren’t the only lonely people in churches.  Not by a long shot.  But Jesus spoke, I think, for all pastor-shepherds when he said, “I know my sheep and my sheep know me” (John 10:14).  I think he’s talking about more than knowing each other’s names and status updates.

We pastors bear a large part of the blame.  I was trained in seminary that a pastor should not develop close friendships in a congregation lest you be accused of playing favorites.  So you learn to hold people at arm’s length.  You learn not to be transparent about your human longings to be loved and accepted for who you are.   You don’t ever admit your struggles, your failings, your imperfect family so no one will see a chink in the armor.  Yep, our loneliness is our own fault to a big extent.

But I think churches bear part of the blame, too.  What people seem to forget is that in answering God’s call to ministry, pastors and their spouses leave behind their close relational network of family and friends.   They come and give themselves to the people of their congregations  — in the words of Ruth, they tell churches “Your people will be my people.”  But in too many cases, the people don’t reciprocate.  They don’t open their hearts and their homes to the one God has called to shepherd them.  They expect pastors to rejoice with them when they rejoice and weep with them when they weep — but they don’t feel the need to do the same with their pastors.   So many shepherds and their families are left to celebrate and grieve alone.

It doesn’t matter how big your church is.  In fact, I’ve gotten more lonely the bigger my congregations have been.  Maybe it’s because people assume that someone else is caring for and befriending their pastor.  Maybe it’s because the bigger the church, the more you’re expected to be the up-front talking head.  I’ve heard that stand-up comedians tend to be very lonely and hurting under the surface.   Don’t admit it — your job is to please the crowd.

This epidemic of pastoral loneliness may be the norm, but it’s not normal — not as Jesus defines normal.   If the shepherd feels alone, what does that mean for the sheep?  I’d welcome your thoughts.  Thanks.

A few days ago I read this article by the Barna Research Group on the state of marriage in our country.  I was saddened but not particularly surprised by the finding that born-again Christians get divorced as regularly as people outside the faith (33% of people in both groups have been married and divorced).  But I was startled to learn that “many young people are moving toward embracing the idea of serial marriage, in which a person gets married two or three times, seeking a different partner for each phase of their adult life” (emphasis mine).

At first I fumed at this notion of getting a new spouse for each new season of life, sort of like a person trades in their old, beat-up car after a decade of driving for a shiny new model.  But then I got to thinking about my almost 33-year-old marriage and the various stages my wife and I have moved through.  Each new season has required significant adjustments on both of our parts:

*The first 5 years, when we moved far away from our families and entered the incredible adventure of sharing life with another person.

*The childbearing years that coincided with the start of our years in pastoral ministry.   We had to learn how to be parents, not only to three little boys, but in many ways to congregations filled with needy and demanding people.  What responsibility!

*The season of leaving the only home our boys had ever known to move to Ohio, only to move back to New York state five years later.  Those were times of guiding our family through intense stress and change.

*That challenging, heart-wrenching, yet tremendously rewarding period of raising three teenage boys.  My wife and I had to learn to parent in new ways and often had to assure each other that we would somehow survive!

*Our current “empty-nester” season.  It’s hard to believe that it’s already been four years since that day we came home from leaving our youngest son at college and looked at three empty bedrooms.   We had a serious period of adjustment, but it didn’t take us long to realize that there are many wonderful things about this stage of marriage!

As I look back over our history together, I realize that we have experienced “serial marriage.”  Both my wife and I have changed over the years, to the point that I’m not sure we bear much resemblance to those two lovesick teenagers who started dating 38 years ago.   We have become “different partners for each phase of our adult life.”

This is what I’ve learned through this adventure of sharing three decades of life with one woman: you can have a serial marriage to the same person!  You don’t have to go through the heartbreak of ripping apart one relationship and struggling to establish another.  You can grow and change through the seasons of life together.   Sure, it’s sometimes tough — what change isn’t? — but if you are willing to travel over the choppy waters together, your relationship emerges stronger and richer.

Shortly after our last son left home, my wife bought a plaque that says “Grow old with me — the best is yet to be.”  Why would I trade that priceless gift in for someone else?

So . . . what do you think?

I never knew Chuck Colson personally, but I’ll miss him.  I found his voice to be one of deep insight and integrity in the evangelical community.  His books and daily commentaries helped me navigate my way through our society’s moral morass.  The news of his death this past weekend has evoked in me a strange sort of grief.   Who will the American church turn to now?

That got me to thinking of times throughout Christian history when a great leader died.  Did people wonder what the Church would do now without Augustine?  How the Protestant Reformation would continue without Martin Luther?  If the Methodist church could possibly thrive without the leadership of John Wesley?

In smaller ways, we are prone to ask the same sorts of questions in our local assemblies.  What will we do without Pastor _____?  How can we ever go on without this music leader or that Sunday School teacher?  Will our church ever be the same now that saintly sister so-and-so has gone to be with the Lord?  When I left two previous pastorates to accept a new assignment, there were a few people in those churches predicting their quick demise (while others no doubt were quietly celebrating!).

What do we do when another voice is silenced?  The Lord answered my question this morning in my daily psalm-reading: “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save.  When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing” (Psalm 146:3-4).  The Psalmist makes no distinction between good leaders and bad leaders in this passage.  One day they will be gone, and along with them, all of their carefully-conceived plans.

So how do we deal with this reality?  In the very next breath, the writer says, “Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God.”  His is the only voice that will never be silenced.  His are the only plans that will never crumble to dust.  If we put our trust in any leader but Him, we will ultimately be disappointed.

It’s a helpful reminder that no human leader is indispensable.  That includes me as a twelve-year pastor of my current church.  The Lord is capable of raising up a Joshua to succeed a Moses, a Billy Graham to succeed a Dwight L. Moody, or a _________ to succeed Chuck Colson.  Someday someone will take my place — and quite capably.

Let me speak for all of us Christian leaders: please don’t cling too tightly.

We are in the process of reviewing our church’s insurance policy.  Yesterday I learned that companies now provide coverage in case someone listens to a sermon, either in a service or even on the church’s podcast, and sues the church for mental or emotional distress caused by the message.

I have gone through a series of reactions to this news.  My first inclination was to remove all my sermons from our church’s website lest some outsider listen to a message and claim emotional damage from what they hear.  Who knows when I might inadvertently trample on someone’s fragile psyche?  It’s a scary thought.

Then I thought about situations where a preacher could justly be accused of causing emotional distress.  For instance, when a sermon exposes certain confidential information about a parishioner, or when a message incites violent behavior against a person or group.  Preaching can certainly be used in an abusive manner.

But my primary response has been one of disbelief.   Are the only safe sermons these days those that soothe and salve and stroke our sagging self-esteem?  Are we to exchange the surgical scalpel of God’s truth — which is designed to judge the very thoughts and attitudes of our hearts (Hebrews 4:12) — for a sermonic version of a Q-tip?

You see, I recognize that there have been more than a few times across the years when a sermon has created “mental or emotional distress” for me.  For instance, when a message exposed hidden sin in my life.  Or showed me that I needed to forgive someone who had inflicted deep pain upon me.  Or called me to let go of some cherished idol in my heart.  How dare that preacher meddle with my life!

Of course, there’s nothing new about all this.  In the past, people may not have sued God’s spokesmen.  Instead, they were known to throw them in wells (like Jeremiah).  Or saw them in two (like Isaiah).  Or cut off their heads (like John the Baptist).  Our method may seem more sophisticated, but the message is still the same: tell us what we want to hear, or else!

I have an idea for our church’s next staff position.  It will be an “Itching Ears Editor”(see II Timothy 4:3) to go over my sermons with a fine toothcomb before I preach them and weed out anything that people might not like.   After all, who knows what someone might do if they would happen to fall under conviction?

Walter Wink writes that killing Jesus was like trying to destroy a dandelion seed-head by blowing on it (Engaging the Powers).   Two millenia later we are still celebrating the great cosmic joke God pulled on Satan when He raised Jesus from the dead.   Celebrate loud and long this Easter day.   Jesus is alive — and the seeds are still blowing in the wind!

Have you ever wished that you could get inside someone’s mind and find out the way they think?  There are times, especially when someone makes a choice I don’t understand, when I ask myself “What was he thinking?”  (I’m sure others must often wonder the same thing about me!)

I’ve sometimes wondered what Jesus was thinking when he hung on the cross, suffering for six long, torturous hours.  This morning during my scripture reading I think I got at least a partial answer.

In my Bible, Psalm 31 is ascribed to David.  It’s the anguished cry of a man who is suffering.  He talks about distress.  Grief.  Rejection.  Mockery.  Even the feeling of being cut off from God’s sight.  At one point David prays, “Into Your hand I commit my spirit” (verse 5).  He entrusts himself to the care of the only One who can sustain and rescue him.

Into Your hand I commit my spirit.  Those words sound strangely familiar.  And then it strikes me: those are the very words, the final words, Jesus prayed from the cross.  In his last breath, Jesus was breathing out the words of scripture.

That’s not the only moment when Jesus spoke scripture from the cross.  His desperate cry “My God, why have You forsaken me?” was a direct quotation of Psalm 22:1, another song of suffering that contains descriptions eerily similar to what a crucified person would experience.  Here again, Jesus is borrowing the words of scripture to express the deep cries of his heart.

So, what was Jesus thinking as he hung there on the cross against the backdrop of darkening skies, mocking bystanders, weeping friends?  Evidently he was clinging to the words of scripture that he had hidden in his heart for such a time as this.  Those words were a profound source of strength and hope in the most soul-crushing of circumstances.  I can’t be sure of this, obviously, but I imagine that on the cross Jesus was silently reciting the words of passages like Psalm 31 and 22, forming their cries into prayers.

That leads me to ask myself this question.  What am I thinking during my own times of struggle . . . pain . . . fears of abandonment?   I easily get consumed with my feelings — or better said, I easily get overwhelmed by my feelings.  What would happen if I learned instead to turn to scripture and let its words fill my mind and form my prayers?  What if I could even now be disciplining myself to “store up God’s Word in my heart” (Psalm 119:11) so that I can call on those words when my own seem so inadequate?

So during this Holy Week — what are you thinking?

Ugh.  For the second week in a row I’ve had to tell our worship pastor that I’m sensing a change of direction in the sermon plan for this Sunday, a plan I had given him months ago.  I’m well aware of how this messes up the selection of worship and choir songs.  Unfortunately, it’s something he has had to get used to after four years of working with me — and fortunately, he is very patient and forgiving!

It’s something I’ve come to realize more and more about myself: I don’t do real well with long-range planning.  It’s not that I don’t try.  For instance, I have started putting planning retreats into my calendar each summer where I ask the Lord to give me His direction for my preaching over the coming year.  It helps me greatly, as well as those who work with me, to know where I’m headed.  And for general overall planning (like, I’ve known for several months that I would be preaching this Lenten season on how Jesus teaches us to pray), it works fairly well.  But it’s the week-to-week discernment of the Spirit’s direction that wreaks havoc with my plans.

The best way I can describe it is like this.  I’ll start studying and praying over the pre-selected subject and scripture passage for the coming Sunday, and sometimes I’ll feel this sense of restlessness.  Yeah, it sounded good when I put it down on the calendar months ago, but now it seems to fit as poorly as my old clothes that are now three sizes too big.  This frustrates me to no end, and I let the Lord know that.  What I seem to hear in return is “Just follow my leading.  You can trust Me.”  Yeah, that’s easy for You to say.  But I already announced the sermon title in last week’s bulletin and my worship leader has for weeks been practicing a choir song that fit beautifully with the scheduled message.  It can be downright embarrassing!

The challenge is, I’m the “lead pastor” of a fairly good-sized church where advanced planning is a must.  I direct a staff that waits with bated breath for me to give them my vision for the future.  I’ve read the books and understand how important strategic planning is.  But sometimes I’m aware that my desire for a long-range blueprint can become a substitute in my life for day-to-day trust.  I want to know the destination ahead of time — the Lord most of the time seems to tell me to just “keep in step with My Spirit” (Galatians 5:25).

I know about the long-range planners in the Bible, like Solomon the temple-builder and Nehemiah the city-planner.  I know that this is the way God works with many (most?) leaders.  But I seem to connect more with Abraham who wandered from place to place, following God’s direction for that day.  It seems that the Lord did a pretty good job of getting him where he needed to go in the end!  (I should add that the Lord on occasion has given me more long-term direction when that direction was needed, such as plans for church building expansion a number of years ago.  But for me this seems to be the exception rather than the rule.)

How does this kind of leadership (or should I say “Spirit-followership”) fit into the institutional church setting?  That’s the tension I frequently live with.  Is there anyone out there who can relate?

ADD is no longer just the sickness of some kids who can’t sit still for more than two minutes.  Attention Deficit Disorder has become our societal disease-of-choice.

I challenge you to take this little test to see if you might be suffering from this malady:

* Try reading one chapter of a book at one sitting, and I mean one word at a time.

* The next time you’re in a conversation with another person, ask them a question designed to get them talking about their life.  Then look them in the eyes and concentrate on what they’re saying without inserting your comments or checking your watch.

* Leave your Smart Phone at home the next time you go to a meeting or out on a date or to church.  If you start twitching or go into a panic attack over what you might be missing, immediately consult your physician.

Linda Stone, a thought leader in the field of technology, has coined the term “partial continuous attention” to describe the effect of being constantly on-call through the little devices we carry with us.  She says on her blog, “We pay continuous partial attention in an effort NOT TO MISS ANYTHING. It is an always-on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior that involves an artificial sense of constant crisis. We are always in high alert when we pay continuous partial attention.”

Continuous partial attention.  I think that’s a pretty accurate description of our lives.  Over-stimulated.  Under-focused.  Frequently distracted.  Always available to the siren call of technology, yet less and less available to the voices that quietly call and wait for our full attention.

I’m especially concerned — very concerned, as a matter of fact — about what all of this techno-distraction is doing to our spiritual lives.  One way of understanding the Christian life is being fully attentive to God.  We are called as Christ-followers to be more focused on the priorities of His Kingdom than the fleeting fads of our culture.  But who or what is getting our attention?  Are we so connected to social media that we are become increasingly disconnected from the Spirit?   Do we dare to ask if the mind of Christ is truly being formed in us?

I appeal to you, my sisters and brothers, to join me in being less available to our technological gadgets and being more available to God.  Consider adapting one of these disciplines for the remainder of Lent:

1.  Leave your Smart Phone at home or in the car when you come to church.  Give God the gift of your undivided focus as you come to worship Him.

2.  Make each Sunday a sabbath from all forms of social media.

3.  Designate a couple of time frames each day — maybe once in the morning and again in the evening — for checking email or updating your facebook status.  The rest of the day, leave it alone.

4.  Turn off your cell phone when you’re at the dinner table, at a meeting, or engaged in personal conversation.  Give those others your full, undistracted attention.  Any text messages can wait till you’re done.

David said, “I have set the Lord always before me.  Because He is at my right hand, I will not be shaken” (Psalm 16:8).  He is at our right hand, too — if we are paying attention.

I’d like to know what you think.

As I write this post, angry mobs in Afghanistan are continuing their violent protests over the recent Koran burning at a NATO base.  All the rioting and killing seems to be working.  Even President Obama has extended his “sincere apologies,” expressed his “deep regrets,” and vowed to hold those responsible accountable.

Which leads me to ask this question: should we Christians learn a lesson from the Muslims?  Should we go the streets when officials trample on our convictions?

From one perspective, we have good reason to be upset. Recent actions of our government have treated our religious sensitivities with disdain.  A new health care law requires Catholic institutions to betray their church’s position regarding contraceptives. (President Obama later offered a conciliatory gesture, but he stopped short of apologizing to the Catholic leadership.)  Activist courts have made same-sex marriage a legal right in a growing number of states, thus redefining an institution that millions believe was ordained by God to be a union between a man and a woman.

Many Christians like me are frustrated.  Offended.  Feeling betrayed.  Maybe it’s time for us to take to the streets and engage in a little effagy-burning.  There are enough of us that it certainly wouldn’t take long for our government officials to feel the heat.  I’ll bet we could force them to knuckle under the pressure in no time at all.

But we shouldn’t do that.  This is one of the things that should distinguish Christians from the Muslim mobs we see on the news.  When we act like that, we betray something much deeper than our religious convictions.  We betray our Savior himself, who “when he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (I Peter 2:23).

It seems that God’s strategy is not to crush His enemies (at least not until the end of time when they remain defiant in their rebellion against Him).  His strategy is not to coerce His opponents into compliance, but to win them. When we use hate-filled rhetoric and retaliate with violence –  some in our camp have been known to do that — we send the world the entirely wrong message about our Lord.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t use the means of protest afforded us in a democratic society.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t speak out.  I’m not saying we shouldn’t use nonviolent resistance if it comes to that.  But we must always remember these words from the apostle James: “Human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires” (James 1:20).

So what do you think?

In my church tradition, the season of Lent hardly gets more than a passing glance.  At the most, some of us will talk about what pleasure we’re giving up for Lent: Coke, chocolate, or American Idol.   But most Christians in my tribe seem to celebrate our freedom from such restrictive disciplines.

I’m wondering if we’re missing something.

Over the past few years I’ve become more interested in Lent.  For sixteen centuries or so, a large swath of the Church has kept this forty-day period as a time of preparation for the grand celebration of Easter.  It’s a time to ask two probing questions: (1) Where in my life have I gotten away from God? and (2) What practices can help me find my way back to God?  One of those practices is letting go of some earthly treasure in order to lay ahold of a lasting spiritual one — thus, the origin of “denying oneself” during Lent.

I’ve learned, though, that the emphasis is not what pleasure we give up for Lent, but what greater treasure we grasp.  It’s like the man Jesus talked about who sold everything he had in order to buy the field that contained priceless treasure (Matthew 13:44).  Relationship with Jesus is the Treasure that the wise person gladly surrenders all that she has in order to obtain.

I have recently discovered this glad surrender in my own life.  Several months ago I found that Facebook was finding a much too prominent place in my life.  I finally gave it up, which wasn’t an easy thing to do — especially when I’m surrounded by people who love to share little tidbits of information they learn from other people’s lives through Facebook.  But I’m glad to say that I wouldn’t go back.  I have found a deeper availability to God’s presence on a daily basis that the habit of Facebook was interfering with.  Now as Lent begins, I’m asking the Lord to show me if there is some other earthly pleasure I need to let go of in order to lay hold of eternal treasure.

So during Lent, I hope you will let go of some lesser pleasure so that your hand has room to grasp a deeper, more lasting one.  Maybe you would like to share with me what Lent is looking like in your life.  I’d love to hear from you.  In the meantime, I invite you to reflect on these rich words from a hymn-writing friend, Ken Bible:

Lay aside your passing pleasures.                                                                                                
Look beyond what cannot last.
                                                                                                 Shallow hopes are mere distractions.                                                                                       
Earthly comforts soon are past.
                                                                                                      See in Christ a grand horizon.
                                                                                                          Find a life more rich and vast.

Gladly trade your crumbling treasure.
                                                                                         Gain the pearl of greatest price.                                                                                                       
Life is more than pain and pleasure.                                                                                                
Life in Him is true delight.
                                                                                                                Find your freedom, find your glory,
                                                                                               Find yourself in Jesus Christ.
Words by Ken Bible
.  Music by William Owen; arr. by Ken Bible
                                               © 2004 by LNWhymns.com. Used by permission.

To read the entire hymn or listen to the tune, visit this link.