I watched a pastor preach today on a DVD. He was talking to a bunch of church leaders, and he started his talk by declaring, “I love my church!” Everybody applauded. He described this passion he felt for his congregation, and then he lightly challenged everyone by saying, “Do you love your church? Are you doing this out of passion and love, or is this just a job to you.” He went on, making his point that leading a church was too important, too critical to be “just a job.”
At which point he lost me.
You see, I’m a rare pastor who happens to think that there’s nothing wrong with your church job being “just a job.”
As long as we look at a “job” in the way that God would want us too.
So many of us hunger for the all-consuming passion that we see in our heroes: people who’s lives are subsumed by the all-encompassing goal, by the “one thing” (remember Curly from City Slickers?). We want to charge out of bed (if we even went to bed at all) and down our six shots of espresso while on our way to the office at 4:45am, to stay until 7pm. We want to burn red-hot with vision and focus, motivating and cajoling our congregations to greater and greater spiritual heights and intensity.
But what if there’s a dark side to our passion and motivation?
Put another way, what if it’s okay—even sacred—to simply “work”?
I think that sometimes our spiritual fire and passion—our determination to have “not just a job”—sends an unintended message to the people we pastor.
It can say, “my work matters more than yours.”
It can say, “Don’t worry, I’ll muster up the spiritual fire for you.”
It can say, “The spiritual life is built on spirts of passion and intensity, not steadiness and obedience.”
It can say, “It’s a sprint, not a marathon.”
Am I arguing against passion, vision and focus in general? No. I read Paul’s passion and intensity. But what would’ve happened to the integrity of Paul’s message had he said, “Oh crap I have to sew these damned tents again.”
Our “it can’t be just a job” rhetoric can send an unintended message of pity to all those scrambling minions who don’t have a choice about their work.
Meanwhile, scripture says that it’s a good thing to be able to care for your family; Paul writes that you whatever you do should do as if working for the Lord. Scripture tells stories of offerings given to the poor (it’s hard to give offerings if you don’t have a job).
Pastors, it’s no crime to just “go to work”. Accounts do it every day; so do plumbers. Are there labors any less sacred than ours? Their mission fields are probably more fruitful than ours, given that most of us (at this point) spend more time with fellow church-workers and Christians.
Do everyone a favor and just go to work once in a while.
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1 comment:
Ok, I've edited this comment umpteen times, so here's the (still too long) gist.
I kinda think we're saying the same thing, from different sides of the same coin.
1) Passions sometimes looks like a quadruple shot of espresso, but to me, it mostly looks like a steadiness, like joy. Joy looks like New Year's Eve, like a wedding day, but it also just looks like doing laundry, picking up kids from school, mowing the lawn, coffee with a friend...like everyday, and it's the thread of living. And maybe passion and joy are synonymous.
2) Pastors can help in adding, or sadly sometimes, diminishing passion, but I feel, like joy, it's hard to derive without God being involve. ie Pastors are not responsible for getting me up spiritually in the morning, but they can help, like everyone else, like how we all help each other stay upright, no matter what our titles/callings/jobs are.
3) Too many people are phoning LIFE in, esp. in our apathetic, luxe-craving, celeb-envying society, let alone work and calling. I think most laypeople see pastoring as both work and calling, so I think it's expected that pastors a) are more accountable for their influential roles as spiritual leaders and guides so b)it has more weight in the world because what pastors can do, which is kinda walk right into someone's heart, speak and shape, and leave, unlike most professions so c) that should be taken seriously and d) I think it's expected that the pastor is the most passionate about their church, seeing that their the shepherds of the church, but that doesn't bar the lil sheep from garnering passion, too.
So, as someone who is realizing how passionless her work is, I say fall on the side of passion, as long as you know what passion really looks like.
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