Insurgent Advice for Pastors (Parishioners Welcome to Listen In)

            We all know that ministers are supposed to be great preachers, Bible scholars, and culture critics. They should have a rich interior life, great emotional intelligence, and manage time effectively. And so on.

            But there’s more. Stuff they don’t necessarily talk much about in seminary. So, what follows is my insurgent advice for young pastors. Take it with a grain of salt, since my experience may not be universally applicable. Still, this is the sort of stuff I would talk about if I were invited to a seminary ministry class. And, from another angle, it is the sort of insight that parishioners can use to support and encourage their pastor.

            One: Friends. For reasons I’ve never fully grasped, I find that ministers rarely make good friends with other ministers in their community. Partly, this is my fault. If making new friends isn’t my priority, it won’t happen. If I won’t brave time in traffic to get to the coffee shop, it won’t happen. If I don’t pick up the phone and ask about stopping by, I won’t. And if my internal theological or professional “weigh and evaluate,” apparatus is too finely tuned, I’ll be too judgmental.

            Still, even when I try to overcome these personal challenges and I do meet other ministers I rarely find my interest reciprocated. Maybe I’m just hard to like, but, from my conversations with fellow ministers I know in other contexts, I sense this reticence to connect is widespread. I think part of it is rooted in the temptation we all have to brag about how things are going rather than get real—and bragging is irritating.

            Ultimately, however, no man or woman is an island. We all need friends. So, if it isn’t going to be other ministers, it still needs to be someone else. Find friends! They are one of life’s greatest pleasures.

What does it take?

            Two: Loose ends. They are both unavoidable and precious. Unavoidable because you may have as many as two or three hundred “bosses” in your congregation, parishioners who feel strongly about “their” church and how it is going. They see you as many things—but also as their employee. So, that comes with lots of expectations. Your email box will fill up with their advice, queries, and complaints. They will corner you in the hallway to fret and direct and complain about everything from youth ministry to janitors to music selection. It adds up to a lot of emails that need to be answered, promises that need to be kept, serious concerns that must be addressed, and phone calls to make. Loose ends. Tough stuff.

            But loose ends are precious too, because each one—every email waiting for an answer, every expectation laid upon you in person, every appointment you need to make or keep—every loose end is a great opportunity. When you tie up loose ends you connect, you show yourself to be a caring minister, and you create trust. Tying up loose ends makes you real to other people, helps you laugh or weep with them, embrace or nudge. Loose ends are precious because they are a raw material ministry provides for connecting you more deeply with parishioners.

            So, tabulate those loose ends. Keep “to do,” lists. Answer every email religiously (spiritually?). Stay organized. Connect.

            Three: Anxiety is a fact of life in ministry. I used to handle anxiety easily, but it gets tougher and tougher as I get older—a pattern I’m seeing over and over among colleagues.  I’m not sure why. For me, it’s partly my nature. It is that unending sense that there is always more I could do (see two, above and four, below). And I’m anxious because of the ever-increasing complexity of the job itself. To make matters worse, fewer and fewer people are going to church. Success in growing churches is rare. But expectations for ministers remain high.

            What can I say? Most interesting jobs are more complex than they used to be. Most interesting jobs are never done.

            The thing is, all of us need to take anxiety seriously. Don’t drink too much. Don’t take it out on others. Face anxiety straight up without blaming others. Get counselling if your anxiety is extreme. Practice prayer or mindfulness meditation or a hobby or sports or long walks or best of all, all of these things, because they do give relief. Confide in your partner or a friend who will listen. Read up on anxiety. Get to know all about your enemy. Tackle it. If you don’t, your anxiety will stop being a helpful goad encouraging you to do what really matters, and will start being a corrosive force that saps your life of pleasure.

            Four: Relax. Even though the Bible loudly promotes the idea of Sabbath, too many ministers find it really hard to take time off. There are those loose ends I mentioned in two, above. And anxiety can sometimes fuel increasingly less productive attempts to get on top of things—attempts that take more and more time and that become a vicious cycle. What happens, eventually, if you don’t take enough time for yourself, is that you start spinning your wheels. Your time at work becomes less productive. You play Solitaire to avoid difficult tasks. Resentment about being busy builds. Things slide.

            So, take time off: every day, every week, and every year. Walk the dog. Pick up a novel. Visit friends. Play a game of Scrabble. It takes discipline and self-understanding to get the balance right and to stay organized enough to leave time for yourself. If you don’t try, however, you are not going to make it as a minister, because you will burn out—and probably with lots of unfair resentment to spare.

            Five: Flexibility. Ministry isn’t unique. Lots of jobs come with huge responsibilities, stress, potential conflict, anxiety, and high expectations. But ministry is very special too. We usually have a great deal of flexibility in how we structure our days and lives. We’re not expected to clock in or out. We can arrange, on almost any day, to either golf with a friend or be home when the kids return from school. We need to recognize that flexibility, exploit and enjoy it. It is one of the things I most love about my job.

            So, don’t complain about the unreal expectations placed on us ministers unless you also own up to some of our great benefits. And perhaps most important, be disciplined about both taking advantage of your flexibility, and about not using it to waste your time.

            Six: Don’t show contempt—even in private. If there is one quality in a minister that, from my perspective and experience at least, suggests failure, it is a penchant for complaining about your parishioners or refusing to hold them in high regard or even attacking them publically from the pulpit.

            People catch on when you don’t hold them in high esteem. You can’t hide contempt for long. People have a sixth sense for it, even if you think you’re putting on a great show. Don’t be condescending. Don’t mock in private. Don’t disparage parishioners to staff or other parishioners. This is just really, really dumb. Not only is showing contempt hypocritical, given scripture’s own values, you will eventually pay for your contempt with your own happiness and probably even your career.  

            Seven. Congratulate. This is a corollary to “don’t show contempt.” Churches thrive on success, gratitude, and volunteerism. So, congratulate members or committees or leaders whenever there is a reason to do so, even if the reason is weak! A steady stream of congratulations from the minister sets the mood for all congregational interaction. Congratulations create positive vibes. Saying “thanks,” makes people happy and encourages them to volunteer again. Every church needs to be a place where people are happy to leave with a job to do, and the expectation that they will be thanked helps make it so.

            Eight: Moving on. Leaving your current charge can relieve some stresses. You get out from under a lot of loose ends. You don’t have to repair those difficult relations that mark every ministry stop. You can skimp on sermon preparation by starting out with oldies but goodies in your barrel.

            But moving also creates great stress—just check out one of those web pages that lists the most stressful activities people regularly engage in. Moving is right up there with things like death in the family and marital breakdown. What’s more, many ministerial moves are to distant cities where you may not have friends or family and the support they offer.

            Moving is hard on kids too—though you never really know how hard till they tell you about it twenty years later. And ultimately, honeymoons in new churches only last a few months, and then it will be back to all the usual challenges, stresses, and strains. So, before you move, think twice—because moves are about you and your family’s long-term health as much as they are about the congregation’s.

            Nine: Exegesis. Exegeting a difficult text to within an inch of its life, as if this is what matters most about preaching, is just wrong. It isn’t the sitz in leben or unique use of the aorist that matters most about texts, at least week in and out. No. What congregations really need to hear about are the big themes of scripture, the core story, and how that stuff still makes a difference today. Instead of focusing on exegeting difficult texts, ministers would be way further ahead by paying attention to the art of actually getting people people hear the old, old story with new ears and interest. Spend your time on that.

            Ten: God’s gift to ministry. It isn’t me and it isn’t you. We all have weaknesses that, even if we recognize them and work hard on them, we are never going to totally overcome. We cannot be equally skilled at every aspect of our jobs. People will recognize our weaknesses even when we don’t, and they will likely grumble and complain too. If we expect or need 100% positive feedback about everything we do, we will all be unhappy campers.
           So, I try to keep two things in mind. First, I never stop trying to do better, because I have not yet arrived and with time I could do better. But second, along the way, I’ve tried to admit my weaknesses and ask for help—either for training to overcome my weaknesses or for other people to step in and do what I find most difficult. The alternative is us to live in a make-belief world with make-belief accomplishments.

When Ministers Age

Yesterday, with my wife Irene listening, I said to an old friend in ministry something like: “I don’t have the energy that I used to. I can’t work ten- and twelve-hour days anymore.”

“Whoa, did you hear what you said?” Irene asked, afterwards. “Is that really true?”

It is true. The realization that I’m slowing down has been rattling around in the back of my consciousness for some time now. But I’ve resisted putting that feeling on the table to examine more closely. This sense I’m slowing down is humbling, a bit scary, and the occasion for more than a little insecurity on my part about what it takes to be a pastor these days.

After all, the church is in crisis, right? We need better, sharper pastors than ever. Better communicators, more hip, multi-taskers, people who can run with the younger crowd that doesn’t want to come to church to hear some old-geezer who (from their perspective) can’t possibly know what life is like for Millennials or Gen Xers like them. How is an old guy—I’m 58—going to find the energy to run with this younger crowd?

Sometimes I wonder. A bit of background is probably in order. I have never been the sort of pastor to work too hard. I’ve never put in those fifty- or sixty-hour weeks that I keep hearing other pastors talk about. I tend to think lots of pastors either exaggerate about how much they work, or waste too much time and call that work.

I’ve always been good at setting reasonable boundaries and explaining them to parishioners. For example, when I had little kids, in the days before email, I asked people not to phone me between 3:30 (when they got home from school) and 8:00 pm (when they were in bed). I explained why, and said that emergencies were excepted. Parishioners were always very good about respecting those boundaries and the other ones I set as time and circumstances changed.

I also understood, from the beginning, that I wasn’t and will never be a high-energy person. But still, I always got my sermons written by Friday afternoon, my pastoral visits done, and found plenty of time for reading and for doing my hobbies—some of which, like genealogy, can be time-consuming. Organization helped. Being focussed on the clock helps. Not having a TV helps. Not being one for shopping or going to movies helps.

But lately, sometimes I feel as if the energy I’ve been able to focus on my work—which was always more than enough—is sagging. In truth, this realization has been creeping up on me for a few years now. Where I used to go to two and often three meetings a week after the kids were in bed, now one is about all I really want to get out for, if I can manage it. Where once I used to be able to spend hours in the evenings reading, now I tend to have a hard time concentrating after ten pm. Where once I had the get-up-and-go to start new Bible Studies and Second Services and be a member of a small group and serve on Presbytery-level committees and write book reviews, now I’d rather sit at home and read a book for a the few hours I can before I fall asleep.

What really surprised me when my wife asked me about my energy level, upon reflection, is that the friend I had been talking on the phone to mirrored my comments. He too struggled with how much he had to give to his church now, compared to thirty years ago. And if I think about it, I’ve heard plenty of ministers in private settings with other ministers who, approaching 60 or 65, have confessed that they’re either just putting in time or struggling to finish well. They are tired.

Does this mean I’m a bad pastor?

No, I don’t think so. I think that I’m more skilled, steadier, more emotionally in tune with my parishioners than I was at thirty, half a lifetime ago. I think my preaching has evolved and improved a lot. I think I work a lot smarter than I used to. I don’t major in minors nearly as much. I can remember, in one church I served, going to the mat to get them to switch from individual cups to a large cup for dipping. In another church I spent months educating and promoting and begging the council to use a certain Eucharistic liturgy that I loved. In both cases I didn’t understand about how there is a right time for everything, including change. I’ve grown up, and in many ways my church is getting more bang for its bucks now than ever, I think.

Still, I am running the last lap of my mile in ministry. Even if I finish the race well, as I certainly plan on, this last lap is going to be a bit slower than the first three. And I wonder what that means, exactly, for the church I’m serving.

Will I have the energy to manage major change, if that is necessary? Do parishioners sometimes wonder why I’m not busier? Am I rationalizing with myself when I think I’m better than I used to be—at least better when it comes to time management and quality of work?

My current congregation isn’t unreasonable in their demands. They are a very supportive bunch. No one is complaining. I like what I’m doing immensely, and don’t feel as if I’m putting in my time, at all. But this is a topic—how one’s energy for the work fluctuates with the seasons of life—a topic that I have not heard many ministers talk about publically, as opposed to privately.

Do we short-change our churches in this go-go culture as we age? Are we fooling our congregations sometimes, just to make it through? Or are older, somewhat wiser (we hope) though somewhat weary (probably) pastors sort of like used-cars? If you can take a few dents and higher mileage, they represent a better deal? Even though no one really wants a used car? What do you think?