It’s not easy as the visible overseer of a community to subject yourself to criticism. Last Sunday I invited people to please speak their minds without fear of repercussion. I even told the people that if at the end of the month they decide it’s time to trade me in for a better model, then I’d resign. If March is the month of discovery for us, then we need to get everything out and on the table. So, I’ve been receiving criticism… criticism for the way I’ve done things, for my style, for my preferences, weaknesses and so on. I’ve been receiving affirmation too. But somehow that tends to get drowned out by the criticism. In fact, most the time the affirmations are embedded in ways I can do the good things I do even better, which sometimes sounds like criticism… like saying, “You look great! Imagine if you lost 10 more pounds!” You get my drift.
But I must confess that I’ve discovered that there’s something liberating in open analysis. When a safe environment is provided for people to express their views, even if dissenting, they have a sense of liberation and involvement. Their place in the community has meaning. But it’s been surprisingly liberating for me too. Today, while I was having a meaningful and sometimes difficult conversation with a member of our community about serious issues concerning the community, I realized that I was okay with it. I realized that somehow the burden of the community wasn’t all mine, but shared by all those concerned. I realize, as the one supported by the community to prioritize care for the community above all else, that open dissent can be a healthy thing. This is not to say that one leads by majority opinion or consensus, but that somehow the spirit of the community is discernible by the community and the community participates in the overall health of itself. Perhaps strong leadership encourages this to happen. Perhaps strong leadership isn’t autocratic rule, even with the endorsement of the people, but round-table oversight. My expertise, educationally and experientially, is engaged in gently but firmly cultivating a community that is healthy… a community that does justice, loves mercy, and walks humbly. Believe me, this isn’t to say I’ll enjoy criticism. But I do know that it is a necessary ingredient in a healthy relationship, including community.
The photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings. The cactus symbolize for me the prickliness of criticism. Nevertheless they are beautiful, alive and an integral member of desert life.
If you want to purchase my cartoons or other nakedpastor artworks, go HERE. I’m open for requests too!
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
I was trying to explain something to someone the other day. He was upset that I seem to keep trashing the church. I’d told a story during my sermon last week that happened at a church conference years ago. He felt it was unfair to bring up the incident, that it puts the church in a bad light, and the church is getting trashed enough as it is. It gives the impression, he thought, that I believe our own church and my style of ministry has got it right and everyone else has got it wrong. I apologized and said that I wasn’t meaning to criticize that one incident, nor the Vineyard movement, nor conferences, nor Christianity, nor religion, but humanity in general. I may not have been clear enough on that.
I happen to believe that every little thing we think, say and do reveals something about our deepest selves. They are all little windows into our secret identities and darkest urges. So when I choose one incident and grab onto it and gnaw on it and won’t let it go, I’m like a dog with a bone. But it’s not the bone I really care about, but the larger issue it’s connected to. I ultimately don’t care about the bone, but the beast it’s attached to.
I do think politics, family, education, art, religion and so on, can be particularly pretentious manifestations of our darkest selves. I think it is important to dissect and analyze all that we think, say and do. It ought to expose our pretentions. It ought to reveal our hypocrisy. It ought to reveal the urgency of change. How else can we expect to be humble, to be transformed, or to find the love to help others?
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
I’m finding it very difficult lately to be two things at one time: a critic of the system I’m a part of. As you might have guessed by now, I’m both a critic of official Christianity and institutional church as well as being a full-time professional pastor. I find it really challenging to remain in the system. I experience why so many people abandon the church and religion. One of the main reasons, I must confess, is because of the backlash from the system itself and those within it when you express unrest with it. If you criticize an institution it is assumed that you have no moral right to be a part of it. You’re said to bite the hand that feeds you. And we often conclude that to criticize something is to hate it rather than suspect that the criticism is borne out of an intense passion for the thing.
Jacques Ellul, the French sociologist and theologian, wrote:
… the churches are so debilitated and apostate that a Christian can hardly bear to remain in a church, and yet, on the other hand, no Christian can leave a church lest he fail to confess his own part of the responsibility for the very conditions in a church which provoke protest
This ought to be, in my opinion, the dilemma of every church-going or church-skipping Christian in the world. I believe, like Ellul, that the church is horribly apostate and debilitated and borders on complete collusion with its fallen state among the principalities and the powers. I realize and accept my participation in its present condition. It’s time for transformation.
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Jorgen Klausen. I imagine this is Samson pushing against the pillars that brought down the temple and all within it, including himself. I guess there were no other options than to bring it all down.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
I think I need to explain something. I quite often get the accusation that I’m slamming another servant of the Lord or ministry when I’m found critiquing them on my blog. Look at yesterday’s fairly innocent (I thought) post HERE, read some of the comments, and you’ll see what I mean. I want to clarify something: I, for one, do not think that critiquing, challenging, questioning, or analyzing is unscriptural, un-Christian, or not Christ-like. In fact, I think the opposite is true. So, while I have serious issues with Bishop Eddie Long’s ideas on, say, his “Seven Reasons Why I Love A Big Church”, it doesn’t mean that I think he’s any less a person or Christian than I am. I’m sure he’s a better Christian and pastor. But he’s my brother, and I am his. I’m sure, if he looked through my website, that he would find some things that he could challenge me on.
If you look through my blog, you will find some posts that received some pretty heated debate. For instance, take a look at AN ANTI-RESPONSE TO AN ATHEIST, where I received 129 comments. I invite such challenges from my atheist friends because I honestly and humbly believe that they have provided valuable correction to my ideas that easily and often slip into religious presumptions I’ve inherited from years in the church surrounded by Christians. Or, take a look at the post on LEADERS, ELDERS, CONTEST & FREE STUFF for which I received 154 comments! All the comments are valued and appreciated because they come from all different denominational and non-denominational perspectives. I strongly agree with many of them, but that doesn’t mean I’m condemning, judging or slandering the person or their communities.
There are many people in the Christian fold who I strongly disagree with. I still consider them brothers or sisters and hope they would do the same for me. But please don’t ask me to be quiet about their ideas, because frankly, I think there are a mega-ton of “Christian” ideas out there that are actually harmful, damaging, abusive, and even cruel to the human being and to community. In fact, I think they predominate the religious landscape. I feel I must defy these, just like a shepherd would defy wild animals surrounding his flock. The principalities and the powers find their vessels of use just like the Spirit does, and we are those! Criticize my ideas! Tell me I’m wrong! Let’s reason together!
The fine art photograph is the creation of my friend Mark Hemmings, and is from his marvelously mysterious mannequin series.
Contributions to nakedpastor are greatly appreciated.
This isn’t an aerial view of northern barrens.
This is the bark on a red maple in my yard.
Not pretty as you might suppose.
But i think it beautiful, though barren.
And it got me thinking about the criticisms
you’ve raised against my church.
I have a revelation for you: all you see is bark.
Yes, it can appear damp, dark and even dead.
But you don’t know that coursing beneath
its hoary membrane is life teaming.
In the heart is sweet sap and living fluids.
Where you see lifeless and harsh presentations,
I see a protective layer against your damned disease.
There is something so beautiful in the core
that it would take your breath away.
Oddly, it’s when we’re at our best that
we don’t give a crap how we look to you!
But, loathing to look and deigning to discern,
you depart despising what you yourself have necessitated.
David Hayward is a pastor artistically stripping to the essential.
