What is your greatest frustration in ministry?



Yesterday I was filling out an application for the Pastors of Excellence program (I’ll no doubt write more about that program in the future if I am accepted). The application was surprisingly probing.
One of the questions gave me some pause. It asked, “What is your greatest frustration in ministry?”
My immediate response was to say that nothing frustrated me more than when people get upset at something that has gone wrong or that hasn’t gone their way in the life of the church and, in response, they withhold something – perhaps their money or their time and talent or, in the worst cases, their entire presence.
I do hate that and find it very frustrating. And even if the thing that they are reacting to has nothing to do with me and is nothing that I could have (or should have) made to go differently, I always feel as if it is my fault. I feel personally attacked.
So that is the response that I wrote down. But when I went back and looked at it, I knew that I hadn’t really told the whole story. Though I hate that kind of circumstance, I realized what really frustrated me wasn’t quite that.
You see, I find that I may hate the circumstance but I do not hate the people who react that way. The real frustration is that I can sympathize with them, even while I do not approve of the ways that they respond. The reality is that things do go wrong in the church – sometimes very seriously wrong. People are unkind or unfeeling towards others. Disagreements are not dealt with constructively. Often (not always, of course) when people are upset they have good reason to be. I don’t like the way that they react but I am frustrated to find that I can sympathize with them. Perhaps it would be so much easier if I could just hate them, but I find that I can’t.
I have decided to preach a sermon (in a couple of months) on the issue of when people withdraw from their support of the church because they have been aggrieved. I don’t know what to say about it yet, but I am seeking some Biblical inspiration. The best story I can come up with so far is Jesus’ parable of the tenants who refused pay their rent, but that one hardly ends well – with everyone dead. (Though, I guess, that is where the church might end up if we don’t tackle this problem.)
Where else might I look?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Hymn for Canada Day

Image
At St. Andrew's Hespeler this Sunday (which is Canada Day) we are planning to sing the following as a hymn (not an act of patriotism but an act of prayer within worship). This was not conceived of as an addition to Canada's National Anthem but as a way of lifting up our nation in prayer and being open to acknowledge the contribution of those who went before. 1. O Canada, our home and native land, true patriot love in all of us command. With glowing hearts, we see thee rise, the true north, strong and free; from far and wide, O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free; O Canada, we stand on guard for thee; O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. 2. We, as we stand, acknowledge those who knew This place before and from its waters drew. They honour the Creator and, with drum and sacred song, They find the Divine Presence in the herbs and winds so strong. Let us, with them, make hope increase. Keep Kanata*
Read more

Honoured to have been in the room where it happened

Image
As I left the meeting of the General Assembly today there were many of the beautiful hymns and songs that we sang during Assembly still ringing in my ears and in my heart. But I also found myself singing another song to myself – one from the musical Hamilton: Now, in the musical, Aaron Burr is not singing about the exact experience that I feel that I had over the last few days. In his song he is actually lamenting the fact that he is shut out of the room where a significant decision was made and also the obscurity of what happened and the mystery of the give-and-take negotiations. That is not what I experienced at assembly. But I think I did experience the power of being part of a significant event where significant decisions are being made. I have blogged on each of the meeting days when we have discussed matters of human sexuality and would suggest that, if you haven't read those posts first, you could read my previous posts before this one before reading this one.
Read more

Why we really need to stop harmonizing the two stories of the birth of Jesus.

Image
Copyright © 2013 by W. Scott McAndless       The Gospel of Luke and the Gospel of Matthew have a great deal in common. They share much of the same material on the life and sayings of Jesus though they organize it somewhat differently. As far as we can understand from a study of the two texts, both Gospels were written independently (with neither making any reference to, nor apparently even having any knowledge of, the other) towards the end of the first century ce or perhaps even later.       Both gospels were written anonymously—with no names attached. It didn’t take the church very long to decide that they must have been written respectively by Matthew, one of Jesus’s twelve apostles, and Luke, an associate of Paul. But that is just tradition. The truth of the matter is that we really have no idea who might have written these books. All we have to help us to understand the interests, concerns and theological agendas of these two authors is what we find in the words they wr
Read more