Good News for Pastors

Are you a pastor or a church leader? Are things rosy? Church growing, everybody happy? Love what you’re doing? …Honest?

I have news for you… and it’s all good! Many, many pastors out there experience what I will call the Reality Gap. There is a huge gulf fixed between where you’d like to be (individually, spiritually, career-wise, church life) and Reality. It is not very easy to cope with it, huh? "It’s them!” we often say. Then when we are alone with ourselves, we wonder, “Where did I go wrong?” If you’re like me, you have a hard time getting away from your own worst enemy… self. We know about denial, but the pain of the Reality Gap is often nearly unbearable.

We pastor types really do well to dream! We even ask God to direct our dreams! We receive what we consider to be God-given, and off we go to make it into a reality. …It doesn’t happen! The Reality Gap! It’s the difference between my church and Acts 2:42-47!

Here begins the good news. Jesus said to those who would be around after His ascension (and that includes you and me)

“I'm leaving you well and whole. That's my parting gift to you. Peace. I don't leave you the way you're used to being left--feeling abandoned, bereft. So don't be upset. Don't be distraught “(Jn 14:27, The Message).

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid” (Jn 14:27, ESV).

If neither of those renditions is your life verse, help is on the way… help is right here! And, since we live in such a list-driven world (I hate lists!) here’s my list.

1. Stop readin’ books (metaphorically speaking, that is) ! Books are deceptive. For one, they seem to convey the idea that if you do all that is contained within, your ministry will soar! Not so. They also feed on your consumerist bent. “Buyyyy the booook! You NEEEED this book!” Plus, they charge too much for them.
2. Put first things first. A “successful” church (or ministry, or life, for that matter) is not the first thing. Do you see what is missing from this formula: Read book, implement book’s plan for successful church, BOOM - successful church? What is missing is what God wants to do in YOU! You are here first and foremost to become more like Jesus (Romans 8:29). What am I doing to become a Christ-like person is a better question than how can I build a successful church. Finally, success is not something you can do. Success is God’s business, faithfulness is ours.
3. Be faithful by being with Jesus. THAT is the first thing. Ever read John 15:1-11??? Christ is inviting the likes of you and me to make our home in Him! This is freeing! Jesus said in Matthew 11:28 (The Message), “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest.” It is the free and rested soul that is the Kingdom-builder in the crowd. SIMPLY FIND WAYS TO BE ALONE AND STILL WITH JESUS. Hear Him call you His Beloved child. Let Him stroke your hair with His soft comforting Hand. Let His eyes delight in you. This is the truth, the freeing truth. And, oh, by the way, if you “don’t have time” to be alone with Him for any period of time, your fuse is lit. You may not lose your job; worse, you may work for the next 20 years in a ministry only to produce “wood, hay and stubble.” You don’t have time NOT to be still and hear from God.

Be still and know that He is God – it is that simple. What is your SQ, your Stillness Quotient? When you are still in that Sabbath Stillness, you hear of your acceptance, and “the things of earth will grow strangely still, in the light of His glory and grace.” Oh, and the Reality Gap will lose its death-grip on you. Then, others will grow more Christ-like from being with you because they will say of you what they said of Peter and John, “They recognized them as having been with Jesus” (Ac 4:13).

Peace!