I was asked recently what advice I would give about the ministry to a 20 year old version of myself. Here is my answer:
ADVICE TO MY 20 YEAR OLD SELF
Being a pastor will repeatedly challenge your faith. People will continually want to have their faith reinforced even at times when it needs to be seriously challenged. You will want to believe that you have insight that if you can just explain it to them will help them be more faithful. The truth is, it is painful to have to change and many will resist you. Sometimes it will be individuals and sometimes a whole group in the church.
Three things may happen at such times. One, not liking conflict, you will cease trying to advance that part of the faith. That causes you to struggle with integrity. Two, as a result of their resistance, you may actually change what you believe. Sometimes that may cause you to grow in your faith. Three, you may begin to doubt that you are meant for the ministry. While that may be right, too often it has more to do with ego. It’s a time to listen deeply and pray you can hear God’s whisper.
What I have learned from fifty years in the ministry is that God chooses to work through imperfect churches with imperfect clergy to effect Divine purposes. While there are churches that fail miserably to be faithful to the Gospel, God is not defeated and actually reveals both mercy and hope when people least expect it.
I’m not suggesting that you just passively hang around and wait for God to act, but that it is worth continuing the journey, even when it is most discouraging because God is faithful even when members aren’t. When you hit roadblocks, face conflict, and grow very discouraged, which you will, that is a time to listen deeply. God doesn’t promise us success in the ministry. God promises to never leave us. And even when it is far from obvious, God does not cease to work through us and our church to reveal the Grace that the world desperately needs.
Ministry is not for the faint of heart. It can be very painful, discouraging, and lonely in our journey. Therefore, make sure you have a good support system, integrate a rhythm of breaks and prayer time into your life, and wrestle with but don’t give up on trusting God to be with and lead you. I’ve always been amazed at how frequently when I have been down, God worked through sometimes even little events to lift me up and restore me. A major source of refreshment has been someone coming to me and telling me that what I did or said at the right moment changed their life. Once a prominent figure in the community came by my office to bring some information. As he sat down, he said, “I want to tell you how powerfully that opening illustration in your sermon affected me.” Then for the next fifteen minutes, with lots of tears, he poured out his story. I sat there in wonder because for me at the time, the illustration was just a way of easing into what I thought was the important part of the sermon. Never doubt that if you will let it, you are a channel to something far larger than you can imagine.
While it is important for a pastor to continually seek to present the faith with integrity in not only the sermons but in the ministry of the church, it is even more important to realize that it is God’s church and not yours. If you can keep your integrity as you both speak and live the Gospel, then successes are to be celebrated and pain and discouragement are to be opportunities for growth. You are called by God to be pastor, and God doesn’t make mistakes—although we make plenty of them. Even Jesus experienced times of discouragement and wondered if God had abandoned him. Yet it was by Jesus’ trust that God’s will was what was important, that God was able to offer the world a transforming hope. If you strive to remain faithful to God in the ministry, you will experience your share of deaths, both personally and corporately, but you will also experience resurrection which repeatedly affirms that God, not death, has the final word.
