My style of pastoring is a constant frustration to people. Including myself. I don’t fit the bill. And I am vocal about it. I’m open about my struggle with the church, with my vocation, with the faith altogether. I’m open about my own doubts, fears, and questions. I am frequently informed that our church would be better off with a different pastor. Sometimes by those I pastor. But when someone decides to talk to me about it, or when I feel the time has come for me to open my mouth, I tell them that it isn’t just because I am lazy or deficient or inept. I tell them I am like this on purpose, that I am intentional about it and have theological reasons why I am the kind of pastor I am.
I believe my own obvious weaknesses allow others to be weak also. It often happens that when someone visits our church, their reaction is, “Wow! Your people have a lot of problems. They seem to struggle so much!” Actually, no. They are normal human beings. I believe everyone everywhere struggles just as much as we do. We’re just more open about it. And people find this kind of community where they can be honest about their struggles refreshing. How else can you help me bear my burden if we don’t know what it is?
I’ve been told so many times that as a leader I need to exemplify what it means to be a victorious Christian. If I don’t live victoriously, why would anyone want to hang around? Exactly! Which is why some don’t. I would rather exemplify what is real than what is superficial and artificial. I want to demonstrate joy in suffering, not joy without it. I want to be authentic and real, spots and wrinkles and all.
I believe that being open about my weaknesses is what the cross demands. The bible portrays Jesus as weak. The same with Paul. And I love the story of David. There’s something about not leading with authority that is repugnant. I see this in the biblical stories. But I’ve also see this in my own life. When I am deliberately weak and don’t lead with authority and power, which is so popular and in demand, people take this as a green light to despise you, insult you, and consider you disposable. I don’t get no respect. They really don’t know what they are doing. But we are like chickens in a coop. When one becomes sick or has a weakness, the others will crucify it. Well… peck it to death. I’ve raised chickens and I know what I’m talking about. I’m also a pastor and I know what I’m talking about there also.
I thoroughly believe that being weak releases a power that would otherwise hide itself. I think Paul understood this mystery. That’s why he boasted about his weaknesses. It proved that true spiritual wisdom and power was not achieved by human ingenuity, cleverness, intelligence, ambition or charisma. This is why I am the way I am with my community. The depth of love, generosity, spirituality and wisdom is not something we have manufactured. The weakness and humility of the people, even their plainness, ordinariness and self-effacement, are the fertile soil in which things like love, generosity, and wisdom grow.
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I was telling a friend today that I feel like I am a voice crying in the wilderness sometimes. I sense I am working behind enemy lines in very hostile territory. My style of pastoring is very different. I know that. And our church community is very different. We know that. The result of my and our uniqueness* brings harassment verbally, socially, spiritually, etc. Here are just some of the reasons:
- You can believe however you want if you want. You do anyway.
- You need not have to fear the constant surveillance of behavior.
- You do not have to submit to, support, or subject yourself to a vision.
- You are free to question. Even the pastor. Take that both ways.
- You aren’t pressured at all into giving your money.
- You need not be ashamed of your failures or weaknesses, perceived or otherwise.
- You aren’t expected to fit into a certain lifestyle.
- You can embrace and/or choose your own orientation.
- You can bring your unedited authentic self into the community.
- You do not have to fear authority, manipulation or control.
*We don’t look unique. But the spirit of the community is definitely unique. You’d have to be here to feel what I mean. You are welcome anytime!
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Vision is incompatible with church community. The vision and mission statement talk is very provocative and tempting. As soon as anyone questions what our purpose is, it has the immediate and alluring aura of imagining, creating and shaping our future. It’s called futuring. And it is very sexy. If you are a business or an influence or lobby group or club or even a charity or anything else, you will need to have a vision and articulate a mission statement. But not a church. People, even believers, must have the freedom to assemble without being required to serve a vision created by the pastor or the leaders or even the collective. Otherwise their personal freedom out of necessity is sublimated. You have a choice: you either serve a vision or you serve people. The church can’t do both.
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All institutions belong to the category of principalities and powers. They are not inherently evil. The principalities and powers are, like all things, created. We are to have dominion over them, not them over us. They are to serve us. Not us them. This includes the institution we call the church.
A few weeks ago I attended what we might call a house church of young adults (here and here). I was asked to come and share with them some of my thoughts. We met in a living room. There was food and wine. It was fun. And we had communion, had a theological discussion, and there was prayer. What was missing was this sense of expectation that an institution imposes on people. There was no overriding agenda that had to be met. And these young people were free of the constant surveillance that the church often exercises over its members. Their spiritual condition was their own personal responsibility, and they gathered occasionally to encourage one another. They didn’t come hoping that this would fill a void in their own lives. We just gathered as friends. And even though there was a recognition of commitment and even love, I came free and left free. I realize that it is easier to achieve this without a building, staff, budgets and charters, etc. But it was refreshing.
This isn’t easy to accomplish. It means constantly challenging the principalities and powers, the institution, to humble itself, relinquish its vision and agenda that is often dehumanizing, and serve us.
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Every day I converse with people who have left the organized church. They are very spiritual people interested in living authentic lives of integrity, justice, love and vocation. But they are turned off of the institution we call church. I understand.
I had squirrels in my house once. Do you know how impossible it is to catch a squirrel? If they smell anything human on the bait, you won’t catch them. Same with my children and so many, many of my friends: if there is any sense of a trap, they won’t even come close. They can smell control and manipulation from a mile away. Even if the control is minor and sincere, they won’t take it. Not even a nibble.
Let’s look at the difference between a family and an institution. The problem with an institution is that it requires the sublimation of individual freedom to some degree. I think a healthy family is otherwise: it promotes individual freedom, nurtures it, encourages it and allows its expression. (Now, when it comes to hurting other people or themselves, then it needs to be addressed. Of course.)
Many of my friends and my own children want to be free. They don’t wish to sublimate their own freedom for the sake of an institution’s security or success. How is the church today different than Molech in the Old Testament that required the sacrifice of our own children for its existence? Can we be a collective, a community, a church, without requiring people to sacrifice themselves for it? Can individually free people gather together without allowing the principalities and powers to subtly take precedence and erode their own freedom for the sake of its own life?
My readers, these are serious questions for serious times.
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One of the greatest enemies of the church is fantasy.
Just like fantasy is one of the greatest enemies of a marriage.
Dissatisfied with reality, we create a fantasy of what we desire. The greater the fantasy, the greater the gulf between reality and the fantasy, the greater the dissatisfaction. It eventually ends in fracture, divorce, neurosis, spiritual death, all wrapped in a candy coating of quick recovery and delicious denial.
This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t work on our reality. Last night our church had an Open Round Table where we discussed how we are doing. Lisa and I, at times, need to sit down and ask ourselves if our marriage is healthy. Are we spending enough time together? Are we communicating? Is there anything we are overlooking? Are we being truthful to who we are, with ourselves and with one another? And these are questions we really do ask ourselves. But the worst thing I could do is to say to her something like, “Can you be more sexy, like Rachel McAdams?”
Fantasy is common fare. It is the air we breathe. And I find the church the perfect breeding ground for its propagation. We are aswim in fantasy and don’t even know it.
Prayer, bible study, worship, fellowship. It doesn’t get any better than that.*
But we wish it would.
(*Some might wonder where “mission” is. In my opinion, if we did these four things, our mission is accomplished. Being is doing.)
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I don’t at this time want to divulge all the abuses that has happened to me in the church from the hands of its leaders and members. For many reasons. One is that those experiences carry a significance for me that is sacred. To tell you about them diminishes their gravity. Perhaps one day. But another reason is that I don’t know how to do it in ways that wouldn’t inflict the same harm upon the perpetrators. They are still within the church, the same universal tribe I am still a part of, and to broadcast my experiences could become a form of vengeance I am not willing to exact. Perhaps one day, when all the poison has been lanced, I will be able to tell you my stories completely free of malice.
So on the one hand I am vague. I don’t name names unless I am sure I am not harming someone, even if you might think they deserve it. Because I have experienced it in full measure first hand, I am extremely sensitive to abuse within religious structures and organizations. This is why, on the other hand, I am considered ruthless in my critique of the principalities and the powers. Because they can be abusive in such subtle, illusive and even unconscious ways, I seem unforgiving in my analysis of the church, religion and spirituality. I and my family have been tortured by very well-meaning and sincere Christians who still don’t comprehend the wounds they have inflicted. But it is because I believe in people, their well-being, rights and freedoms that I do what I do.
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David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
