So, not to get
a. all dramatic
or
b. all whiny,
but...

Honestly, sometimes the weight of this thing feels like it's going to crush me.

"This thing" being pastoral ministry, "crush" meaning metaphorically weigh me down until I'm a quivering mass of existential angst, and "me" meaning... well, me.

Here's what's getting me down (or maybe "up" would be a more apt word to use here... "up" as in 2:30am) lately. One of the absolute hardest things to come to grips with in my role is the weight people put on my words.

Now, now... Careful there. Bob isn't thinking of Bob as more than Bob ought...

This has more to do with the fact that if someone in our community feels slighted by someone else in our community, they'll generally do one of two things: forgive them/work it out (good) or just give the other person a wide berth (not nearly as good, but still...). When someone in our community feels slighted by me? Well, the options often seem to narrow down to one: leave.

I got an email recently that said something like "I'd really like to have coffee sometime soon and talk about where you and Evergreen stand on certain issues. They are really important to me and so are really influencing my decision as to where to commit."

The issues? What I think about prayer and spiritual warfare?

My answer?

Why does it matter to you what I think about those things?!? Either this is a welcoming community where you feel comfortable in worshiping, seeking God and serving others or its not. My views on important, yet ultimately peripheral issues doesn't... shouldn't matter. Prayer is very important to me, but you and me seeing eye-to-eye on prayer, or on anything other than first level Who Is Jesus/What Is The Gospel kinds of things is not.

I just wonder... how did we get to a point where what I think about non-fundamentals like spiritual warfare could possibly determine someone's connection to our community? I mean, if what I think and what I say about things is that much of a determining factor, we're seriously in trouble.

But that's the way it works, though, isn't it?

I mean, when someone in our community says something dumb about something important? Others generally: laugh, say "hey! That was dumb! Duh!" or just ignore it. When I say something dumb about something important? Two things generally happen: words like "concerns" and "issues" start getting dropped or... people just leave.

I say dumb things all the time. Just ask my wife. I'm so glad every time I do so it doesn't result in a flurry of emails, coffee meetings and someone choosing to leave our family, generally without telling anyone.

I just wish it worked differently on a church level, you know?

 

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Bob Hyatt is the lead pastor of the evergreen community, an emerging church community in Portland, OR. More importantly he is the husband of Amy and the father of Jack and Jane. He's also the editor of Next-Wave.