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Reshifting Pastoral Ministry
An Introduction
Every church has a Dave. In the church my friend Shane pastors, Dave was in his early sixties, was a member of the church for decades and thought he knew everything about everything. Dave was overly involved in any church business. Hearing the need for more consistent stewardship, Dave took it upon himself to corner new members, providing a little muscle to begin or increase their giving. Confidently sure he could fix the broken entryway door, he only made it worse, locking everyone out of church on a Sunday morning. The problem wasnāt that Dave thought he was always right and always needed. The problem was that Dave told everyone so, explaining to parents of small children why they were parenting their kids wrong, or announcing all the reasons why the car you bought was stupid, or asserting why worship needed to happen in a certain way. Dave was exhausting. As my friend Shane explained, when you saw Dave, you walked in the other direction.
On the other end of the continuum was Jodi; every church has or wishes for a Jodi. Jodi was in her early thirties, a petite redhead, bubbly and constantly upbeat. She had come to the church right out of college by happenstance. She had just taken a new (āfirst real,ā as she said) job. The church was in her neighborhood, and feeling lonely one Sunday, and being a real people-person, she showed up. Since then Jodi had been a fixture. In no overstatement, the church simply couldnāt function without her; her energy was infectious, giving new life to this aging congregation. In generosity she made sure things happened, making all the arrangements for the annual outdoor service at the beach and single-handedly hosting a jazz cocktail party to fund the confirmation retreat.
If Dave was the great know-it-all annoyance of the church, Jodi was its young saint, quietly and competently leading. Jodi literally kept the church going as they went through the fourteen-month transition from the previous pastor to my friend Shane. Everyone loved Jodi for her kind, upbeat and selfless leadership.
It was then no surprise to anyone that both Dave and Jodi were elected to the church council. Though in two radically different ways, they were both leaders. Even though most people couldnāt stand Dave, truth be told, it didnāt matter. The church needs people willing to do things, and Dave was more than willing to do so.
As the council met for its annual retreat, there was business to be done, but this business would be intense, and Shane knew it. So he decided to start with an exercise, something he heard from somewhere now forgotten, an exercise that was radical in its simplicity. He knew that in his church, issues so easily became more important than people, so he began by setting chairs facing each other no more than three feet apart. He then passed out notepads and pencils. As the room got heavy with confusion Shane invited the council members to sit facing another person, with just notepad and sharp pencil in hand. They were instructed to say nothing. One half of the pair was to look at the other person, just to see, for a whole minute, and then for two more minutes to sketch the other personās face. The discomfort was palpable; to cope, giggling and funny faces began the process, and a handful of council members kept protesting that they had no artistic skills. But Shane kept reassuring them that it had nothing to do with artistic skill but with seeing, and asked them to please honor the silence. After a few minutes, they switched roles, the sketched becoming the sketcher. Then Shane had them switch seats and repeat the process a couple more times, spending a few silent minutes staring and drawing each other until they had each drawn, and been drawn, three or four times.
As the exercise came to completion, the once uneasy atmosphere in the room became calm, almost relaxed. Then they debriefed their experience, and Shane asked how it felt. People expressed what they sensed in the room as a whole, that after pushing through a level of unease, these short few minutes of silent attention to this other person drew them to the other, looking into their face in order to draw it forced them to really see each other. It was a galvanizing experience for everyoneāwell, everyone but Dave.
As people took their turns stating what it was like to share these few silent minutes with the person across from them, Dave spoke up. He stated, āI felt very comfortable with everyone as I drew them, I mean I really did.ā People nodded, affirming that this was their own experience as well, but Dave wasnāt finished, āI mean, I felt really comfortable with everyone, everyone . . . except Jodi.ā
It was as if the air had been sucked from the room. Dave continued, āYeah, looking at Jodi just made me feel really uncomfortable, I mean, I felt judged just looking at her.ā The tranquil atmosphere turned toxic. People sat shocked. Did he really just say that? Shane thought. Did he really say that Jodi, little, smiley, kind Jodi, made him feel uncomfortable? No one knew what to say; after all, the absurdity of Jodi making anyone, let alone Dave, uncomfortable seemed crazy. But Dave continued to insist, stating again, āI mean truly I felt comfortable and safe looking at everyone, but Jodi, I really have no idea why, she just made me feel uncomfortable, just uncomfortable. She just did.ā
As Dave continued to spew his reactions, the rest of the council, as inconspicuously as possible, looked over at Jodi. Her face was bright red, almost matching her curly hair. And her eyes opened wide, she sat frozen, as if knowing any move would bring a flood of tears. Shane now knew something needed to be said; he regretted ever doing this exercise in the first place, cursing his memory for ever recalling it.
He took a breath, hoping to repress the response his flabbergasted anger desired, like, āHey, Dave, why are you being such a jerk?ā Shane imagined such a response receiving a standing ovation from the rest of the group. But he resisted. Instead, to his own shock, he turned to Dave and asked, āOK, we definitely hear that she made you feel uncomfortable, but that is only a reaction to a feeling. Why do you think you are reacting with discomfort?ā
Dave responded without as much as a beat between Shaneās question and his answer, āI donāt know, she just does. Jodi just makes me uncomfortable.ā Shane tried again, āI know, Dave, youāve told us your reaction and reactions are important, but tell us more about what youāre feeling.ā
Jodi still sat frozen and Shaneās pushing of Dave only seemed to amp up the tension in the room. It was clear that people couldnāt take much more. Dave folded his arms across his chest and stared at the floor. Shane watched him, not sure if he was reflective or shut down, searching for an answer or ready to explode.
Finally, Dave broke the silence. He stated, āWell . . .ā and then stopped. His voice cracked and the muscles in his cheeks twitched. He sat silent another long few seconds before mustering the strength to continue, āWell,ā he started again, āyou all know my daughter Donna. She grew up in this church, and I told many of you that she just moved back in with us. When she was thirteen she kind of stopped coming often to church, and now that sheās back with us, she has only made it to church once every month or two. Iāve said it is because she works late on Saturday. Well, she does work Saturdays, but sheās done by four. And she is done with that job now anyhow; she was just fired for not going. Iām sure a few of you know this, but Donna suffers from severe depression and she canāt come to church because she canāt get out of bed, and now she canāt get out of bed to go to work. She lost her job, her apartment and even her car, because of the depression.ā
Now, everyoneās attention shifted from Jodi and rested squarely on Dave. The tension in the room evaporated and in its place was only attention, attention to Dave. Where tension tends to thrust us into ourselves to be concerned with how we are feeling, attention to another person and their story pushes us through ourselves into the otherās experience.
The council sat hanging on Daveās every word. Dave breathed another deep breath, his eyes filling with tears, and then he continued. āAnd I guess, thatās it. Yeah, no, that is it, thatās why Jodi makes me feel so uncomfortable.ā
āWhat is?ā Shane added quickly.
āWell, I guess I feel so defensive and uncomfortable looking at Jodi because when I see her, I see who Donna could be if she didnāt suffer from depression. I see my little girl in Jodi. It just reminds me of my sweet Donna, and all that she could have been.ā
Something had just changed, something holy. Something transformational had just occurred. Dave was seen, and seen in the fragility of his humanity. As my friend explained to me later, āIt was from that moment that everything changed; Dave was no longer an annoying know-it-all hindrance, but a person. He became someone we shared not just leadership, but life with.ā
Persons and Relationships
And this is what this book you hold is about. This book is about seeing ministry as the encounter of human person to human person, sharing deeply in relationship as the way to encounter the presence of Jesus Christ. But who would deny this? Who would think that ministry isnāt about relationship? I can imagine that there are few.
While we in the church frequently discuss the importance of relationships for our ministry, we have often failed to recognize that relationships, or something called relational ministry, is dependent on persons. It is dependent on personhood, on seeing those in our churches and communities as persons, not as consumers of programs, not as āgiving unitsā or volunteers, nor as rational calculators that decided that they and their families can get the most out of their involvement at this church over another. And we have done this too often. We have deeply wanted our ministry to be relational, but not for the sake of persons, for the sake of the ministry, for the sake of bringing success to our initiatives. In other words, weāve wanted people to feel relationally connected so that they might come to what we are offering or believe what we are preaching or teaching.
So when we speak of ārelational,ā we usually mean it as another strategy, another buzzword, to get people to do what we want them to do. Relationship becomes a kind of glue that keeps individuals involved or coming. The point of our ministry isnāt the relationships between persons, but how the relationship wins us influence. In other words, the relationship in ministry becomes something we use for influencing individuals, for the purpose of winning some leverage to get individuals to commit. And this makes sense if we view human beings as individual, rational calculating wills. Then relationships are simply the repetitive choices that people willfully and rationally make, which influence them to give their resources like time, money and energy. Individuals decide to be in relationship with Skippy Peanut Butter, buying it every week, in relationship with Central Methodist Church, attending three times a month, and in relationship with Joe from work, joining his fantasy football league.
In this way of thinking, relationship becomes a generic term used to signal what people are loyal to. People can be in relationship with things as much as people, with ideologies as much as fellow human beings. So the churchās relational ministry becomes about using relationships to win such loyalty from individuals. It becomes about using a relationship to get them to become loyal to the idea of Jesus, as opposed to encountering the person of Jesus Christ. Again, as I said earlier, the relationship is never the point but is the tool used to get individuals to decide to give their resources (time, money and energy) to the church. Relationship becomes more about loyalty to a brand.
I realize that this sounds harsh, and truth be told, Iām confident that no one is seeking to use relationship intentionally as the candy coating that wins loyaltyāI donāt think! But, I do think we have tended to use relationships this very way. I think weāve done this because this is the very water we contextually swim in; our American context is constructed to mistakenly see people as individuals and not as persons, pitting the church in a battle for peopleās resources and making Jesus into an idea (ideology) that Iām individually loyal to. The church has adopted this cultural reality at the expense of the central Christian commitment to personhood.
These words (individual and person) may seem to be synonymous, but they are fundamentally different (a difference we will explore later on). But for now it is enough to say that personhood, as opposed to individualism, sees relationship with others as the very ontological structure of humanity. Or to say it in a less jargon-y way, personhood claims that we are our relationships. Relationships are not what we decide to be loyal to, not devices that bring loyalty to ideologies, but what give us our very selves. We are our relationships; they are the very core of our existence, the source of life. As Jewish thinker Martin Buber said, āIn the beginning was the relationship.ā[1]
In the journey of this book we will seek to shake pastoral ministry free of individualism, to place it again on the Christian confession of personhood.[2] We will explore relationships as the mysterious core of what it means to be alive and human, as the very confession that God becomes person in Jesus Christ and therefore personhood becomes the form in which human beings encounter the God who becomes human.[3] Iāll claim that relationships of persons encountering persons are the very way that we encounter Jesus Christ. Drawing on what the church fathers called āthe hypostatic unionā (the relationship between the divine and human natures in the person of Jesus), Iāll claim that relationships in ministry are an end. Relationships are the very point of ministry; in and through relationships people encounter the person of Jesus Christ and are therefore given their own personhoodāa true personhood free from sin and death.
But all this is easier said than done. Making a distinction between individualism and personhood works through theological musings on paper, but what concretely signals that we are doing ministry in the logic of the personal and not bound to individualism? What gives witness that our relationships are ends and not means? Iāll contend that there are two concrete realities that signal this, two realities we saw in the story of Dave and Jodi; these realities are empathy and sharing as transformation.
When Dave confessed why Jodi made him uncomfortable, when he revealed Donnaās depression and his own broken heart, the group reacted with empathy. They felt Daveās pain and opened their own person to his. Through his expressed suffering, like a reflex, the rest of the group opened their person to Daveās, because through his expressed suffering they saw not an individual, but a person. It is no coincidence that his suffering was the yearning and pain of stressed relationship. We are our relationships, and for Dave to express the burden of this relationship was to open his very being to the being of others.
Empathy is a personal reality. We find it hard to be empathic for someone whose car is broken, this is the loss of individual resources. But we find empathy spilling from our pores when we hear that someoneās car is broken, and therefore theyāll be unable to get their daughter to physical therapy. As persons we empathize with the personhood of the daughter who yearns and suffers, and with the parent who struggles. The car is at issue because of what it means to persons. It is only stuff, but material becomes important (even sacred) when it becomes the material of personal, relational existence. It becomes the material of personal place.
Individualism has no room for empathy, no room to feel the otherās place as your own. The popular phrase āIt sucks to be you!ā...
