SWIMMING AGAINST THE STREAM
You are called by God to offer ministry in this real world. Regardless of your theological perspective, you can resonate with the theological description that we live in a “sin filled world.” To paraphrase Reinhold Niebuhr, one of the few theological doctrines that is immediately verifiable is the “total depravity of humanity.” Even those whose emphasis in their ministry is some version of the Power of Positive Thinking recognize that we are swimming against the tide. For Christians, the central theme of Jesus ministry from beginning to end is a confrontation with the brokenness of the world. It begins in violence when Herod seeks to kill him and ends on the cross. The cross represents the summary of the world’s response to God’s gracious gift of love and grace. Yes, the resurrection demonstrates that no sin, however horrible, can defeat God, but Jesus’ life demonstrates that even the most faithful cannot escape the violence of our broken world.
JESUS’ MODEL OF COMMUNITY
Continuing with the life of Jesus as the model for our ministry, one of Jesus’ first acts of ministry was to call several disciples to accompany him in ministry. There is no justification in the description we have of Jesus’ ministry in the Gospels, for us to attempt to be the proverbial “Lone Ranger” in our ministry. (Even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. ) When we look at the behavior of the disciples, with all of their misunderstandings and mistakes, we cannot even defend our solo act on the basis that others don’t have the proper theology or behavior. While the Genesis creation story is speaking of all humanity when God said “It is not good for the (human) to be alone,” it applies doubly to the vocation of clergy. John Calvin recognized this when he formed a “company of clergy” as part of his development of the church in Geneva.
THE LONELINESS OF MINISTRY
As I have mentioned before, I had a personal phone conversation with every presbytery executive in the Synod of the Mid-Atlantic and with several executives in California. Everyone of them agonized over the issue of clergy isolation. Sometimes by choice, at other times by challenges of geography or other barriers, they repeatedly spoke of the loneliness and/or isolation of the clergy as they exercised their ministry. Many times when a pastor does get in trouble, a contributing factor was the isolation of the pastor from others who could help him or her process what was happening in their lives. They are surrounded by people but very few that truly understand the complexity of ministry and the pressures that they experience.
Among their clergy colleagues, they often lack the bonds of trust that allow them to probe the depth of what they are experiencing. For a variety of reasons ranging from ego, competition, theological differences, jealousy, time constraints, geography, and exhaustion, many clergy rarely have a company of pastors with whom they can truly share.
CLERGY NEED EACH OTHER
Many of the presbytery executives with whom I’ve talked have sought creative ways to offer clergy support groups to counteract the toxic effect of clergy isolation. Over the next several months, I want to develop one more possibility for developing an opportunity for clergy support. I invite your comments and suggestions as I work on this. We need each other as we seek to be faithful to our call to ministry.
