It Takes A Church...

Goal for Presbyterians too? #MGBcomm

Better pastors. Healthier churches. Less bureaucracy.

via www.usatoday.com

An article from USA Today looks at the lack of effective leadership that is leading to the Methodist's church decline. Shouldn't the MGB Commission have no less a goal.

Other key quotes:

"(The denomination) is growingly irrelevant to the culture."

"...healthy local congregations are crucial."

"The congregation is the central focus. Everything we do as a church, it is all in support in creating vital congregations."

"We can't operate under the model of, 'We'll create great programs and have a great facility and people will come to us.'"

 

 

 

 

Hemorrhaging Pastors

Three. In one day. 

On Monday, I heard of three of my pastor friends who all resigned this week.  No affairs, no scandal, no one is renouncing faith.  But three, really good, experienced, pastors all turned in resignations and walked away.  Two are leaving church ministry all together.

The details are as different as the pastors themselves, but the common thread is that they finally got worn down by trying to bring change to a church system that was stuck.

I have been hearing from more pastors these days.  Some of it is related to my work with TAG Consulting, a lot of it is because I am, well, one of them.  We chat and email and text and the common thread is always the same: “The church is stuck and we don’t know what to do.”

Stuck and declining. Stuck and clinging to the past. Stuck and lurching to quick fixes, trying to find an easy answer for what is clearly a systemic challenge. (“If only you could preach better, pastor!” “If only you were more ‘pastoral’ and caring, pastor!”  “If only our worship was more dynamic, pastor!” “Please, pastor, DO something…That is what we pay you for isn’t it?”)

In some cases, the leaders of the church had turned on the pastor making him the scapegoat.  In others, there was a sense that the church just wanted to stop any change process.  For some, they are early in their tenures and are trying to get at the core issues early and bravely, looking squarely at what Jim Colllins calls “the brutal facts.”  But most of them are so far into their ministry at the church that it seems like whatever they do is too little too late.  After trying so hard, it seems that the church just gave up and hunkered down.  As one of my friends said, “This church has gone deaf to my voice.”  And soon after the finger-pointing begins, immediately followed by a big severance, a disillusioned pastor and a crippled church.

Most of my pastor friends acknowledge that they contributed in some way to the very circumstances that are forcing them out of the calling they love.  All of us acknowledge that seminary didn’t prepare us for this.  But, trying to rise to the occasion, they find themselves facing a wall of resistance that quickly turns into a voice of rejection.  The underlying, unspoken issue seems to be: “If only the pastor would stop trying to lead us and just pastor us, then we’d be fine.” 

Except we are not fine.  The culture is changing, the world is changing and churches are facing change on an unprecedented scale.  We are heading into uncharted territory and pastors and lay leaders need to learn to lead a mission together where there are real obstacles, real challenges and where the future is nothing like the past.

Until we do, we’ll keep bleeding pastors and we will watch our churches wither away.

Daring to Differ with Eugene Peterson (and Putting the Organic back in the Organizational)

I love Eugene Peterson. Well, his writings anyway.  But I am going to dare to differ with him on this one. 

Let’s be clear: I am huge Eugene Peterson fan. Huge. I read him and quote him and because of him, I have read people like Wendell Berry, for one. One off-hand comment he made when he came to talk at a “Theological Breakfast” at Fuller Theological Seminary changed my whole trajectory of ministry. And I once made a complete fool of myself in order to sit next to him at a conference where we were both speakers

So, when Rhett Smith posted a link on Facebook to a Gabe Lyon’s interview about Peterson’s take on pastoral work, I immediately clicked on it.  Rhett highlighted these two paragraphs and I want to take issue with one word that  I wish he had omitted: “organizational”.

“The way I understood the uniqueness of the pastoral vocation is that it is insistently personal. You cannot do pastoral work in a programmatic or impersonal or organizational way.
You've got to know the names of these people, know their lives, be in their homes. The unique vocation of pastor is to know those people. And at the same time, to know the scriptures, the whole world of scripture, so that stories of those people get integrated to the stories of scripture.”

 To use a kind of parallelism that renders “organizational” synonymous to “programmatic” or even worse “impersonal” is to miss some of the true challenge, the “mess amidst the mystery” (to use a Peterson term) that is pastoral work. 

Pastors, at least, pastors of congregations, need be both “personal” and “organizational”.  If they are not, then they are likely not pastors.  Spiritual directors, certainly. Evangelists, possibly. Prophets, maybe.  But to be a pastor means to pastor both persons and the communities of which those persons are part.  It is to know the people, the scriptures, AND the organizational systems in which the word struggles to take root, grow in the souls and bear fruit in the lives of actual persons in actual towns and cities and cultures.

To use an illustration that I believe Peterson would both approve and understand (he has famously quoted Wendell Berry on the similarities between pastoral work and farm life), it’s the difference between Johnny Appleseed and an apple farmer. 

The farmer has to attend to both the seeds and the soil, and indeed, even more than the soil.  The farmer must be personally connected to the land yes, but also to the fences, the barns, the silos and the livestock. The farmer must pay personal attention to the environment, the weather, the terrain and the seasons.  The farmer must attend to the whole organic system that is the farm.  In the same way, a pastor can be the very best, most personally attentive, loving, caring, engaged and involved “shepherd” attending to the sheep, but if she doesn’t build a safe sheep pen, the wolves come.

And, let's be clear: For most of us pastors, the organizational part is way harder than the personal part.  We became pastors because we love people and we love the word. Most of us wish that we could somehow limit our calling to knowing our people and knowing the scriptures.  But we also know better. The church organizational system needs as much pastoring as any person and this is exactly where most of us are ill-prepared.  We till the soil, we plant the seed, we water and wait for harvest...and then the fences fail, the roof caves in, the well runs dry and the backhoe needs a new battery.  The bank calls our loan, the government changes its policies,the markets fluctuate, and huge cultural forces seem to conspire against us.  (Sounds like a church, huh?)

The root word for organizational is the same as “organic”.  And perhaps that is a better distinction to make.  With a growing dissatisfaction of impersonal organizational models, the answer isn’t to create a false divide between personal and organizational.  It is to re-personalize the organizational; to learn the ways of “organic” organizational pastoring. To reconsider our organizational models around the actual descriptions of health and fruitfulness that the scriptures teach and humans need.  

And I think Eugene Peterson, himself a farmer, could help us all on thinking about this one.

If this is true about Baptists, how much more true is it about Presbyterians?

The Reformer | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction.

"As Southern Baptists struggle to evangelize post-Christian America and rev up missions worldwide, they are finding that the denomination cannot face the future until they agree on what constitutes true Southern Baptist history and identity." 

Gus and Hal PLANT a Church: A Vision to Move Churches Forward.

Gus can’t walk, Hal is blind.  Alone they would each be what we sometime call “shut ins”.  Octogenarians both, they don’t get around very easily on their own.  But put them together, as they usually are, and those limitations don’t limit then all that much.  Gus sits in his wheelchair and gives direction, Hal pushes the wheelchair and follows Gus’ lead and together they get to where they want to go.

The first time I thought about Gus and Hal was at the New Church Development Conference that our church hosted for the Presbyterian Church (USA) Church Growth ministry.  The NCD pastors and team members in attendance were given an assignment to practice their observation and analysis skills in our community.  Teams spread out over a twenty mile radius and then came back with reports on what they saw.  As each team reported in, I scribbled notes.  It was as if I had been lent the eyes of a church planter to see my own community. 

But there was another tone to the church planter’s reports.  Sitting in the midst of our recently refurbished church campus, most of them couldn’t help but feel wistful at the abundance of opportunities they could see, and the lack of resources that they had (especially compared to our “established” church).  That is when it dawned on me.  The church planters are Gus: they can see but they don’t have the means to get to the needs.  The established churches, like my own are Hal: they have the energy to push, but can’t always see the need or opportunity.   Alone, we don’t move.  Together--Hal pushing Gus, Gus leading Hal--we travel into the midst of new places to do new things we could never do alone. 

In other posts, I offered Gus and Hal and their collaborative partnership as an opportunity for pastors to ward off burnout by returning to a vision of leadership that is closer to the New Testament model of partnership.  I have also suggested that the key for Gus and Hal (and Lewis and Clark) was to be humbly aware of our limitations, but focused on using our strengths.  In this post, I want to suggest that we consider this model for whole congregations. 

What would happen in our denomination if every church had a partner new church development?  What if for every blind, but energized Hal, there was a visionary, but lame Gus?  What would happen if each church saw the possibilities of this kind of collaborative partnership for both congregations?  Even more, what would happen for the mission of Christ?

Gus and Hal Get out into the World: Living Beyond Limitations

Last post I introduced you to two widowers at my church, Gus and Hal.  Gus can’t walk, Hal is blind.  Either one of those disabilities is enough to discourage most of us, let alone a couple of 80 year old widowers who are feeling the effects of age and loss.  You wouldn’t begrudge either one if they decided to stay home and watch SportsCenter (well, Gus anyway) or listen to books on tape.  Oftentimes losses lead to a lesser experience of life.  We become more aware of our limitations and we, well, limit ourselves.  And indeed, in time that will be the case with all of us.

But Gus and Hal together don’t let limitations limit them quite so much.  And the key word is “together”.  When they come to church, they come together.  Gus sits in his wheelchair and guides Hal, who pushes the wheelchair and lets Gus give direction.  Gus can see, Hal can move and together they get out into the world.

The secret to their partnership is both simple and profound. 

1. They are keenly aware of their limitations, but they focus on their strengths. 
2. They have partnered together around their strengths. 

And you don’t have to have a degenerative eye disease or be an amputee to know that what is true of Gus and Hal is true for all of us.  We all have limitations and we all have strengths.  The accepted wisdom is that in order to be successful in life, one needs to continually focus on improving one’s weaknesses.  The assumption being that a truly good life is a life of self-contained, self-reliant independence. 

Gus and Hal challenge that assumption and demonstrate the difference of what partnership can do.  If Gus tried to get around on his own, he wouldn’t get very far.  He could likely push his own wheelchair for a while but when his arms gave out he’d be done.  If Hal wanted to get out and about into the world, he’d be limited also, but by focusing on Gus’ good eyes and Hal’s strong legs and back, together they go further than they ever could alone.

Recently, in my work with TAG Consulting, I was trained in CoreClarity.  CoreClarity is a tool that builds upon Strengthfinders to help people know and maximize their innate talents.  It’s an interesting and helpful tool that is being used by corporations, non-profits, international ministries and churches (like I am doing with my staff) to help people focus more on their strengths and less on trying to improve on their weaknesses.

The studies done on focusing on turning talents into strengths are pretty clear.  If people can honestly accept the truth about their strengths and weaknesses, those who put most of their energy into using and developing their strengths (instead of overcoming their weaknesses) are far more successful, energized and passionate about life.  Partnerships that build around a diversity of strengths create more successful teams AND allow each person to function in the areas where they are most talented, animated and have the most to contribute. 

They key to living beyond limitations:  Awareness of limitations, developing strengths and collaborating with others.

So, where do you put most of your energy?  Overcoming your own weaknesses in search of an elusive (and lonely) self-sufficiency?  Or enjoying and developing your talents into strengths in partnership with others? 

Gus and Hal Go to Church: Possibilities for Burned Out Clerics

Gus and Hal are widowers at my church.  Octogenarians both, they have become friends since their wives passed.  It's getting harder for both of them to come to church on Sundays, but to be sure when they are there, they are there together. 

Hal is blind. Gus is an amputee confined to a wheel chair.  When they come to church, Hal pushes Gus and Gus directs Hal.  They make their way through the parking lot and the patio to their place together in the pew.  And together, and only together, they come to church.  A blind man who can't see giving energy to a man who can't walk.  A lame man who can't move giving direction to a man who lacks vision. But together, they worship, take part in community and offer their gifts, and, well, inspire a whole lot of us.

Amidst the recent posts on clergy burnout, a number of thoughtful contributions have been made to both causes and possible cures, but one possibility is presented in the friendship of these two older men: partnership.  Honest, authentic, mutually interdependent partnership.

I contend that so much of the burden that leaders feel comes from the noble but misguided belief that leadership requires broad shoulders and an ability to stand under pressures alone.  Most of us give lip service to needing colleagues and being collaborative, but when the "buck stops", we really do believe that it stops on one desk only.

Sadly, this is a far piece removed from the New Testament witness where, short of Jesus' own work on the cross, virtually every other expression of the ministry of the Spirit was revealed to the world in pairs or threes (or more).  Jesus sent the 70 two by two.  Peter, James and John healed and preached, Paul and Barnabas, Paul and Silas, Paul and Silas and Timothy, Barnabas and John Mark.  Priscilla and Aquila.  And a host of other examples, of course.

We also forget in all of our ministering that the church is first and foremost an organic relational “system”: a “people”, a “community”, a “family”, where the demands of an "emotional field"  are so complex that they most like the human families we grew up in that are ideally (though obviously not always, not necessarily and not perfectly) led by a partnership called "Mom and Dad."  Instead, churches eagerly organize ourselves into "single-parent families" and wonder why most pastors aren't up to the demands.  (And again make us marvel at actual heads of single parent households who so often do such an amazing job.)

Somewhere along the way, partnerships were considered too unwieldy or unworkable and we started thinking more in hierarchies, where there is one "head".  Today, you'll hear people speak of a kind of military chain of command that is necessary in the battle for the Kingdom of heaven.  Community and collaboration may be good for dividing up tasks in "camp" or when we are "settled" in some place.  Partnership may be good for a family, but not a mission, we think.  On the "front lines" someone needs to be in charge. If we are leading into "hostile" or "uncharted territory", it's best we follow one vision, one voice...so we think.

While I'll save saying more for another post, let me just quickly remind us of the first true explorers in American consciousness.  True heroes who defied all conventions of the day, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark not only were the first Americans to cross the continent, but they did it with it extraordinary success.  And, as Stephen Ambrose reminds us, they are etched in our minds as one relational unit, "Lewisandclark".  They were partners, "equals in all respects," they declared over and over again.  In a world where most still believed in the divine right of kings, where even American presidents were from a different standing and class, in a military culture where there was a clear chain of command, and in the midst of a task that was filled with the unknown and uncertain, the only thing that Lewis and Clark counted on was that "in all respects" they would be "Lewisandclark."  (For a fascinating book on the leadership lessons of Lewis and Clark, including the “principal of productive partnership, see Jack Uldrich’s book on the topic.)

For my own denominational clan, this addiction to individual leadership is a contradiction to our core principles. As much as we Presbyterians live under the constitutional conviction that all leadership is shared between elders and pastors, still most of us function as if the role of elders is either to be a "board of directors" with the pastor being the Executive officer, or the spiritual "counsel" giving advice and offering prayers to the ONE true minister of the church.   Ironically, the phrase repeated over and over again to describe that actual work of pastors, begins with the clause, "Together with..."  Pastors lead the church, "together with..." the Session, the elders, the deacons, and, of course, associate pastors.  But of course, we don't-- at least not enough to really make a difference in our functioning and health.

I believe that our probably is that we haven't taken seriously our limitations when we carry the burden of leadership alone.  Some of us are blind, some of us can't move.  Most  of us don't have the "energy, intelligence, imagination and love" that a congregation needs all by ourselves.  And frankly, the stubbornness to think that we can lead without taking into our accounts our limitations is likely much of what is burning us out.

And in the next post, I'll explore the secret behind both Gus and Hal and Lewisandclark that can help us not only keep from burning out, but actually help us to move forward healthy and well.

The Death of Middle Judicatories

Hamm,_The_Death_of_MIddle_Judicatories,_8.23.10_Edition.pdf (42 KB)

via columbiapartnership.typepad.com

A thought-provoking article by Dick Hamm and a link to the Los Ranchos Presbytery's attempt to move beyond the "spoke and wheel" approach that Dick Hamm wisely critiques.

Burned out or Soul-Starved?

In the Greek myth, Narcissus dies of starvation.  Cursed to fall in love with the next face he sees because he cruelly hurts another, he sees his reflection in a pond, falls in love with his own image and can’t pull himself away—even to eat or drink.  Continually ‘feeding’ the adoration of the image, he never eats and dies.

Today, the debate over what “causes” narcissism is filled with as many varied voices as there are experts.  But almost everyone agrees on this: Pastoral ministry is rampant with narcissistically wounded people.  We clergy join politicians, entertainers, and business leaders in this category.  And I want to suggest yet another cause for the “burnout” we see amongst clergy:  We are actually soul-starved. 

The projection of others onto our roles, the requirement of being constantly “on”, the necessity “wooing” people who are growing more disinterested and resistant to our messages, and the stress of living professionally and personally in the “family-system” environment that is the church feeds our images and starves our true, whole, authentic-to-God selves.

To be clear, the popular description of the narcissist as the self-absorbed, “me-centered person” actually misses the deeper, more painful reality.  Most narcissists are themselves wounded souls, who for whatever reason need to defend against our insecurity or fear of abandonment. As Peter Steinke describes it, “Outwardly vain, the narcissist is inwardly impaired. “

We gravitate to the limelight, because that is where we have found that we get the affirmation and affection that we all need.  Whatever the complex circumstances, (and every one of us has a different story with differing degrees of woundedness), most of us grew up in environments where we were praised and affirmed when we were “on” and felt ignored or rejected at least in part for our true selves.  We pastors, as Henri Nouwen said, are all “wounded healers” and that in one way, this is how God works in our lives to redeem our brokenness—by letting us use our pain to minister to others.  

But when this broken place in our lives is denied or rejected; when we stay stuck in our lack of self-awareness, (some think the word “Narcissus” comes from the Greek word for “slumber” or “numbness”) we create and continue a pattern that feeds our images but ignores the needs of our true, wounded, selves.

For Steinke, when unexamined and unacknowledged, this creates a cyclical pattern of relationship between a pastor and congregation  The narcissistically wounded pastor requires the congregation to ‘supply’ affirmation, and the congregation, enthralled by the giftedness, insight and spiritual magnetism of the leader feel themselves to be ‘special’ and so keep supplying the pastor's ego needs.The dynamics of narcissism revolve around the lack of self-knowledge.

Steinke again:

So one person remains intoxicated with all the praise and adulation he manipulates from others, and the others are enthralled to be associated with someone larger than life. Those who function narcissistically do well so long as they have people who adore them. But some can be so insecure inside that they must ensure their specialness with more and more admirers. They thrive on the ecstasy of numbers.

As a pastor, I have spent the better part of the last twenty-five years figuring out what really feeds me, what really nourishes my soul and what is little more than “swooning” over my image.  When I raise my hands in worship, all stand and give me attention; when I speak they listen in rapt silence, when I finish a good sermon, people line up to tell me that they LOVE me.  (When was the last time you told your plumber, lawyer or financial advisor that you LOVED them for doing their jobs.)  But if I spend my life getting nothing more than the love that is projected on my role, I will not just burn out and fade away, I will die vocationally.

Even worse, the problem with the language of “burnout” is that it actually feeds the image we need to resist.  We live in a world where people admire those who “give their all”, who “leave it out on the field”, who give a “110%”.  But if we could become more aware that we actually starving ourselves we can choose to take responsibility for our own soul-nourishment.

To that end,  let me offer some steps and some resources that I use and suggest for my pastor friends that I partner with, mentor or coach.

First, admit that, if you are feeling soul-starved, very likely you have fallen into the trap of trying to get the love and affirmation you need from your image or role rather than for your deepest, most authentic self.  It will be easier to do this if you know that you are not the only wounded soul in the pulpit, so, start by doing a little reading.  Read Susan Howatch’s Glittering Images, or Henri Nouwen’s Wounded Healer and embrace that at least in some small way, our issues soul starvation are really about our feeding a real need in the wrong way. 

Second, try to become more self-reflective, more “awake” and pay attention to how often we go into a numb ‘soul-trance’ when we are in our roles.  Specifically, try to become aware that every time that you get a “charge” from serving in your role, you are very likely at that moment, being drained, not filled. What you really need in order to serve the congregation and the people in your life in a healthy, enduring way,  can only come out of the limelight, in the moments when you are most authentic, real and vulnerable, open to God in truth and to those who see beyond your role to your self.  In order to lead, you need allies and partners in the church, but in order to thrive most pastors need friends who don’t need them to be “the pastor.”  Read Ruth Hailey Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership, or Leighton Ford’s The Attentive Life. And then...

Third, intentionally build in structures and relationships that attend to your whole self.  If the soul, as it is best understood biblically, is the ‘enfleshed spirit’ of a person, then what we need is MORE attention to ourselves, not less. That is our real selves and not our roles. I have found, that I don’t just need vacations to get a break, I need them to get out of the spotlight and enjoy the restoration that comes from being with a family who loves me and old friends who have no investment in my role.  I need to hike and ski and run and engage my body in ways that both challenge me and for which I get no “public” affirmation (I am NEVER going to win my age group in a marathon, I am not exactly built like a Kenyan.)  When I spend time in nature, I get reconnected to the reality of a world that is much bigger than me and in which I am a very small part.  When I travel I become more aware that the world really doesn’t revolve around me and that is not only very good news, but a genuine relief.  In addition, I have spent the better part of twenty years off and on in therapy and why even as I coach pastors, I have my own coaching group and covenant group to continually pay attention to the ways that I can fall back into numb, soul-starving patterns of feeding my image and not my self. 

If we re-frame burn out as soul starvation, then we realize that with the right fuel, we can probably keep doing ministry for a long time.  Unlike a withered branch that burns up, we are actually capable of being re-nourished and re-fueled.  If we can continually attend to our souls, then maybe the flame that consumes us can actually be for us and for many, a good flame that lights the way for a good long life of ministry.

Worn Out from Wearing the Collar

I’ll never forget the first time I saw a priest drinking a beer. 

It was at my grandmother’s house and I was maybe five years old.  The local priest had stopped in for a visit and he was enjoying a late afternoon refreshment with my grandmother and my uncle.  His collar was slightly askew and his top button of his cassock was undone and he smiled when he saw me. But I think it was an awkward moment for both of us.

I’m a Presbyterian in a pretty informal beach town.  So, although I am a “man of the cloth” I rarely wear anything that distinguishes me as clergy.  I don’t wear a clerical collar (although some Presbyterians do), I don’t even wear a clergy robe or hoods or even a stole while leading worship (though I have some pretty great robes with stripes that I trot out for ordinations and such)  The truth is that I barely ever wear a suit and tie.  In fact, there is very little that distinguishes me outwardly as a pastor.  And I like it that way.  I like looking and feeling like a “regular” guy who is just like everyone else.  Honestly, I take pride when people meet me and are surprised that I am a pastor. (“You don’t seem like a pastor,” one person said to me, “you seem normal.”)

But sometimes, that is part of the problem.  Because I look and even feel like I am just like everyone else, I forget that, really in most people’s eyes, I am not.  No matter how much I might want to escape being seen in my role, I am always “on.”  After thirteen years pastoring at the same church and the same small town, most everybody knows that I am “the pastor”.  It’s the way I am introduced to friends, it’s the reason I am the biggest party-killer in town.  It’s also the reason why my neighbors were all nervous when we first moved in (“What if the pastor hears my wife and me arguing?”) It’s the reason why kids who have been Facebook friends with me for years “unfriend” me when they go to college.  Even my wife and kids know that others look at them differently and that’s because of me too.  (“They are ‘the pastor’s wife’ or the “P.Ks”.)

When I take a political stand or I post a status update on Facebook, it reflects on my church and even some would say on God.  I am the host of every gathering making sure that others are included.  I have to break the ice and remember names and be cordial or someone will tell someone that “those  Presbyterians” sure are  (fill in the blank with favorite derogatory remark spoken when feeling slighted.) 

I’m not complaining. I really do know that I signed up for this.  It comes along with everybody in my church knowing my salary and me knowing that someday I will have to leave this community after I leave the church.  But bluntly, there are some pretty great things that go along with this role too.  We pastors are really significant to people’s lives.  We get invited into holy moments where others are asked to stay out. We can walk into emergency rooms and bedsides and family gatherings.  We are handed babies to bless and are told family secrets.

And pastoring comes with some great perks, too.  I have enjoyed wonderful dinners, great bottles of wine, thoughtful gifts and some amazing opportunities to meet people because I am someone’s pastor.  I have met ambassadors, CEOs, celebrities, political figures and college presidents.  I sat at the head table of a gala event with a presidential cabinet member just because I was giving a prayer before dinner.  (A pastor friend of mine was whisked away to a Caribbean Island to perform a wedding for a big movie star.)  On top of that I am prayed for by literally dozens of people every day, I am always greeted warmly when I arrive at church, I am introduced to everyone’s friends and family members, I have a key to every room in the church.  I can walk into any meeting in our church, any conversation on our patio and interrupt whatever they are doing to say something…and they thank me for doing so. 

Now let’s be clear here.  And this is the thing most of us forget.  Tod Bolsinger cannot do any of this.  Tod Bolsinger, the person, isn’t all that interesting and really wouldn’t be invited to much of this.  Tod Bolsinger, the person, can’t interrupt anyone without being a rude, inconsiderate boob.  (If I try that at home, my 13 year old daughter says, “Daddy, you are interrupting.” ) But “THE PASTOR” can.  The Pastor is invited into all those places given all those perks and treated with such respect because of our ROLE and NOT our self.  While in order to be authentic I have to bring myself to my role, I can never forget that I am not my role.  When I confuse my role and my self, I inevitably take too much too personally and bear burdens that are meant for God and not any human. 

When people get angry or hurt, either mad at God or mad at the church, who do they focus their rage upon?  The Pastor.  When as Pastor of the church I have had to fire staff members, work with Session to cut budgets of key ministries, make decisions that others didn’t like or implement change others didn’t want, who gets the brunt of the attack? The Pastor.  Only when I am clear about the difference between my self and my role can I protect myself from taking the disappointment, anger, awkwardness, projections, and distance of others personally.

We pastors are only going to develop the staying power to stay in our positions if we first admit that this is really OUR problem.  Not only our congregants and the public-at-large, but WE continually confuse our “self” with our “role.”  And until we get clear that “I am more than my role” nobody else will either.

(In my next post, I will return to the “Three Conversations” that led me to take on a coaching and consulting role with pastors and how my own utilization of some good coaches and mentors have helped me to clarify my own sense of self and role.)