Wish I'd Known

There are times as a pastor I wish I knew fifteen years ago what I know now. There are some tidbits of wisdom that I've learned over the last fifteen years:

1. Don't drink coffee with your white robe on
2. Don't mention sex or anything related to bodily functions in sermons
3. Close your blinds at night so people don't report to you the next day what they saw you doing in your home
4. Laugh and cry freely; pastors with hardened hearts are no fun
5. Be kind to your family. Using up all your goodness at work is not a valid excuse for grumpiness.
6. Write down announcements or else you forget something or go off on weird tangents.
7. Pray regularly.

And that exhausts my tidbits of wisdom.

The main thing I wish I'd known fifteen years ago isn't related to any of that wisdom. I wish I'd known how incompetent and impotent I am.

I went back and forth on whether to use incompetent or impotent.

Incompetent: Not having the necessary skills to do something successfully
Impotent: Helpless or powerless

Yay! I'm both. I'm not saying that in a self-deprecating way. When I admit I'm inept at passing out the children's bulletins, I'm being self-deprecating. That really is just because I'm an idiot and slightly scattered after all the zombie questions.

I feel great freedom in admitting that I am incompetent and impotent. It's the freedom that comes with humility in its truest sense. I am not God and I'm at my most faithful when I admit such a thing.

I'm not even sure what success looks like in the church. Is it increased attendance, stunning sermons, children pouring out of every orifice, everyone happy and healthy? That kind of success has made for fabulous idolatry for at least the last fifty years in the church. I'm incompetent in church growth and happiness. I do not have the skills to manipulate that successfully.

Churches ebb and flow; I don't take any of it personally. Now, if success is about death and resurrection, then I am relatively competent in that arena. I can fail, sin, and die as well as anyone and trust that God will somehow bring forgiveness and new life out of it.

I suppose that goes hand and hand with the impotency. I have nothing to fix anything. I can't mend broken marriages, cure cancer, or rehabilitate addicts. I can sit awkwardly with folks in the face of the big stuff in life, but I have no magic words, balms, or plans to make the pain subside. I apologize for all the times I pretended I did.

So, here's what I do as a pastor. I show up. I pay attention to what is going on around me and how God's spirit might be at work. I try to give words to what I observe. It doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot and maybe you should reconsider paying me.

There are obviously things that I do and do well. But my primary mission is to stand in the mystery of humanity and divinity and try to make connections when possible or stand in awe when not. I am incompetent and impotent in the midst of the eternal and that's okay by me; I just wish I had admitted it earlier.