Tag Archives: Pastors

On Presbyterians and Potato Chips

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“And the word of the Lord will be to them:
precept upon precept, precept upon precept,
line upon line, line upon line,
here a little, there a little,
that they may go, and fall backward,
and be broken, and snared, and taken.”
Isaiah 28:13 (ESV)

 The old joke goes:

Roman Catholics open a bag of potato chips and find the Virgin Mary (what a blessing).
Evangelicals open the same bag of chips and find Satan (he’s always lurking around the corner).

After spending time at a gathering of Presbyterians, I have observed the following:

Progressive Presbyterian Scholars open the bag, and seeing that all the chips are of different size and shape, determine that they could not have come from the same potato and therefore the chips cannot be trusted.  Then, realizing that many of the chips are broken, they repent of ever having bought a bag of chips and supporting such cruelty and oppression.  Finally, they would hold a symposium declaring that all chips (ruffled, flat, baked, or fried) are essentially the same, leading us all, ultimately, to the one, true Spud.

Yes, I just spent nearly a week in the presence of other Presbyterian pastors, and while that is not an altogether unpleasant experience, there are some things that can be very disturbing.  Sometimes, the ribaldry around the dinner table drips with arrogance and condescension.  “Can you believe those rubes who still hold to a literal belief in the Bible?  It’s full of errors; you can’t really trust what you read there.  It must be nuanced; you must see it from an enlightened perspective.”  One pastor railed over the idea that some people still think that the animals entered the Ark two by two, or that there was even an Ark.  How unsophisticated.  “Don’t they see the contradiction.  Genesis elsewhere says, ‘there were seven pairs of all the animals.’  Can’t they see that it’s all just a myth?  And why do they get offended when I say myth?”  (That last bit is a fairly close quote.)

(Just to clarify, there were seven pairs of the clean animals, for the sacrifice.  The rest of the animals, clean and unclean, came on two by two.)

The conversation then turned to one Pastor’s experience when a couple from a “fundamentalist” church came by her house to do an interview.  One might think, judging by her attitude, that these pollsters were buck-toothed viper handlers, for they had the audacity to ask, “Do you believe in heaven?” and “Where did you learn your faith as a child?”  What un-nuanced simpletons!

I have a knee-jerk reaction when it comes to vain-glory and arrogance, especially in the pastorate.  I know the sin all too well; it is one that I have to give over to the Lord every day.  But to see it celebrated as enlightened superiority – it made my stomach turn.  There was no love for those whose view of the Bible differed from theirs, no possibility of learning from someone who was passionate about their beliefs.  We were gathered to evaluate ordination exams to determine the readiness of candidates for ordained ministry, and this was the attitude of the readers.

For me, this was an opportunity to exercise the gift of silence.  I knew I was sorely outnumbered, my mind was already fatigued from reading exams all day, and any debate would be an exercise in futility.  I sat quietly, politely sipping my tea, watching the trees sway outside the window, wondering if they were driven by the hot air coming from our table.

The conversation also reminded me of the pernicious peril of Pride.  Pride is dangerous for the Pastor, deadly for the church.  When a Pastor is full of himself, arrogant and boisterous, there’s no room for Jesus, no time for the gospel.  Of course the prideful Pastor won’t tell you that, but you’ll see it.  The Jesus he preaches will begin to look a lot like himself.  And that’s just fine for him.

We need, each of us, pastor and layman, to submit our stubborn will to Christ.  We have wild, rebellious hearts of stone that would rather dive head first into the blazing fires of hell (and yes, I do believe there is a Hell) by our own choice than to give up one iota of independence through submission to someone else.  Oh how we need for God to give us new hearts; hearts that beat for Him alone, hearts that can break for our sin, hearts that are tender and strong to love, hearts that will bow to the Savior and Lord.

May God bless His Church.  May God speak to His Church through the faithful preaching and hearing of His Word.  May God reform His pastors by that same Word.

Now, will someone please pass the chips?

SDG

“Cat-Herding” & “Whack-A-Mole” Ministry

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“Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season… do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”
(2 Timothy 4:1-5 (ESV))

There are a lot of ways to describe pastoral ministry.  Even the Presbyterian Church has spilled a lot of ink to describe this job.  we are “teaching elders” as opposed to “ruling elders.”  The Book of Order for the Presbyterian Church, restoring the language of the 1789 Presbyterian Government, described the role of minister in its various capacities saying:

As he or she has the oversight of the flock of Christ, he or she is termed bishop. As he or she feeds them with spiritual food, he or she is termed pastor.  As a servant of Christ in the Church, the term minister is given. As it is his or her duty to be grave and prudent, and an example to the flock, and to govern well in the house and Kingdom of Christ, he or she is termed presbyter or elder.  As he or she is sent to declare the will of God to sinners, and to beseech them to be reconciled to God, through Christ, he or she is termed ambassador.  And as he or she dispenses the manifold grace of God and the ordinances instituted by Christ, he or she is termed steward of the mysteries of God.

Beautiful, right?!

I, in my 10 years of ministry experience, have come up with two more analogies that I think are helpful in getting sharing the idea of what it’s like be a pastor:

As he is called to reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching, he is called “Cat-herder.”  As he is called to confront heresy, he is called “Whack-A-Moler.” (I’m sure these were also considered back in 1789, but accidentally omitted in the final record.)

The greatest exercise in futility is the attempt to train a cat.  People don’t own cats, they share houses with them, they are tolerated by them, they may even call their cats cute names, but they certainly don’t own them.  So the idea of actually training a cat to do anything that it didn’t already want to do is ridiculous. 

Are we the same way with church?  Please know, I do not have the church I’m currently serving in mind, but I think we all have this attitude toward the church now and then.  We come to church with our established ideas about what church should be, what God expects of us, and how long the service should last.  The pastor shares the church, and may even be tolerated for a while, but watch out if he should try to lead in a direction that we don’t already want to go.  The pastor may exhort and encourage in the life of discipleship, but only if we are already inclined to go down that path.

As the pastor is called to “teach what accords with sound doctrine” (Titus 2:1), he is called the “whack-a-moler.”  You know the game; there you stand, soft mallet in hand, beating down the moles as they keep popping up all over the board.

For a pastor, this seems to be a daily routine.  I have to admit, there are times when you wish the office of minister came with a padded mallet for moments of gentle rebuke and correction – but alas – it’s not to be.  But the moles are definitely there.  One heresy rears its ugly head and you smack it back down, only to have two more spring up elsewhere.  Either it’s a theologically vapid book that captures the attention of your congregation, undoing 5 years of preaching in 2 days reading, or it’s the pastor of the church your congregation member has attended who taught on Sunday that it really doesn’t matter what you believe about Jesus as long as you have a relationship with him. 

Sigh.  There are days when truck driving school seems really enticing.  Then we come across Paul’s encouragement to Timothy.  This is Paul and Timothy here.  These were the All-Stars of Pastoral Ministry, the trailblazers who set the standard; and Paul says, “Listen, Tim, you’ve got to just keep on preaching on.  People aren’t going to listen to you, just like they wouldn’t listen to me, just like they wouldn’t listen to our Lord.  They will keep looking around until they find someone who teaches them what they already know, who says what they like to hear.  You can’t help that.  But you can keep preaching.  Keep teaching.  Keep doing the work that God has called you to, keep doing what the Spirit has given you.”

I don’t know, I guess it’s kind of encouraging.  This struggle against stiff necks and recalcitrant hearts has been going on for a while now.  There are no new heresies under the sun, just a repackaging of the same old stuff.  If Paul and Timothy, Peter and James, and all the rest had to struggle against these things, I’m not alone in the fight.  Even the sin I struggle against in my own life, that old creeper who keeps dragging me down, isn’t that what Romans 7 is all about? 

I don’t have to wage the good warfare or stand firm in my own strength, neither do you.  Rather, we can rest in the power of God’s Spirit, rely on His truth to prevail.  And so we do not lose heart (2 Cor 4:1).  It may be that you’ve begged your husband to come to worship with you, and he just won’t budge; keep praying, be encouraged, stand firm.  It may be that you’ve wrestled with that sin before, and it’s frustrating that it keeps coming back to haunt you; keep praying, be encouraged, stand firm.  It may be that you’re tired of teaching again and again about how freedom in Christ is not freedom to sin and you want to throw in the towel; keep praying, be encouraged, stand firm.

In the famous words of uncle Mordecai, “who knows, but that you were born for such a time as this.”  This is your calling, fulfill your ministry. 

The Lord be with your spirit.  Grace be with you.