I left Pitt with a very disillusioned view of campus ministry and headed to Ohio State. While there, God blessed me with a very rewarding ministry. I saw fruit of growth with students. I enjoyed the work. Though there was a fly in the ointment that brought me back to my time at Pitt. It took place at a church that I observed from a safe distance. I saw the actions of what went on and I think it affected me deeply.
With an attempt to remain nameless: I saw a close ordained pastor friend of mine almost lose his job. He was in my opinion the epitome of a good, God loving associate pastor of a large suburban parish. I observed his love and kindness on many occasions and in many circumstances that proved to me that what I was witnessing was the true definition of a pastor. Though I also saw the Board of Trustees of his church almost let him go because his mission trips to New Orleans (in which he took 150 people over three trips in the course of a year) come over budget by $2,000. This is a church with 4 full time pastors and a multi-million dollar budget. I saw this church all but sign his papers of termination before the session stepped in and stopped it.
What affected me was the issues that drove their decision. It was hard to see this laboring pastor be treated so poorly. The people making the decision thought they were doing the will of God by letting him go for a well spent 2 grand. This is clearly an issue of poor discipleship though why are the poorly disciple people allowed to make big decisions? This question however is not my problem with call.
The major problem is this. How can we trust a system that would hire and fire someone due to money questions? The statement "we cant afford this pastor" repels me from wanting to be apart of the system that would utter it. I don't ever want to be in that pastors shoe's.
My questions: should that have a weight on why I should be a pastor? Should I see my work as redeeming that system?
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2 comments:
Hey Dan,
I wanted to let you know in all this I'm praying for you. Perhaps you had wanted a definite answer from me, and I couldn't give it, but I do give prayers. I continue to think of the two themes which seemed to occur most frequently to me in your life--community (however imperfect) and pastor. These seem to be first your need and then expression of the gospel through you.
Persistently praying,
Matt
*PS, hope the Hebrew final went well.
Dan,
I would caution you about being extreme in your response: either seeing yourself as being against/fixing the system or deciding to work outside of the system. It is totally out of line for this church to base decisions totally on being over budget in a single area. I wonder if there is more back story than that. Still, if you take one extreme and see yourself as fixing the system you are going to run into problems. For one, you are going to burn a lot of bridges and probably end up getting very little else done in a church. Even more dangerous is the idea that it is my ministry or your ministry and not God's ministry. God fixes these churches, not us. On the other extreme--for some reason God chooses to work through these really broken institutions called churches. Were it me in control, I would do it a different way. But God set up the church. And like Tappy talked about with scripture, you gotta deal with whatever God gives you. Despite its flaws, and believe me I have seen it at its worst, I believe that the church is the hope of the world. It is God's plan for kingdom work here on earth for the time being. As you sort out your call, I hope you remember that your primary call is to be totally open to God and serve him faithfully wherever He puts you. And I also hope you remember that being a pastor is not primarily a organizational or institutional job. Many people see it that way. Ultimately it is a spiritual job where you like Moses go into God's presence on the mountain and come back down to speak truth into the individual lives of your people. In the end I don't think you are going to figure out your call logically. I think eventually as my dad says you will "know in your knower."
-Jordan
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