A Pastor or A Politician? The Unfolding of Governor Mark Sanford?

June 25, 2009

What’s the difference between a Pastor and a Politician? Both are highly public figures. Both represent something larger than themselves. There are similarities that are eerie and sometimes dangerous, and we could go on and on about them. But there are some important distinctions to make too.

When a Pastor fails morally, he or she most often loses everything, their job, their church, often their support system, kids often lose their friends from church or their school if a move is necessary; sometimes they even lose their marriage and family.

When a Politician fails morally, he or she may take a hit in their approval ratings, but rarely do they lose everything around them. Sometimes they do, but not often.

With this week’s news about the bizarre story of South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford being on a secret trip to Argentina having been about an adulterous affair he was having with a woman who lives there, he joins the ranks of a few politicians who have failed morally.

• Just last week, Nevada Senator John Ensign admitted to an affair with a campaign staffer.
• This generation’s most visible political figure to fail morally is President Bill Clinton, who denied having an affair with a White House staffer for seven months before he finally admitted it, all while he was President
• Presidential hopeful John Edwards admitted to an affair a few months ago and it’s still making news.
• New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was tough on prostitution in his state, and then lost his job when it was discovered he had been hiring them personally.

There are more examples, but that’s enough for now. Please note that this is NOT a post about whether or not Pastors or even Politicians should resign or lose their jobs as a result of adultery. I am not saying here that they should or shouldn’t.

We don’t yet know what will happen with the situation for Mark Sanford. His wife’s statement clearly says she is ready for reconciliation should Mark want it. That’s a good thing, and I hope it happens for the sake of their entire family.

But back to the question … what’s the difference between a Pastor and a Politician? We can mark several differences:

• Pastors “work” for God; Politicians “work” for the constituents who voted for them.
• Pastors represent something sacred; most seem to believe Politicians represent something pretty secular.
• For the sake of “political correctness”, Pastors stand for the Church, while Politicians stand for the State, two institutions in America that have a weird relationship.

Let me boil this down. The point of this post has been primarily about the differences between Pastors and Politicians. But the real answer to the question, “What’s the difference between a Pastor and a Politician?” is, bottom line, NOTHING.

Part of our problem is that we make them out to be MORE THAN HUMAN. Certainly, there is a greater standard for spiritual leaders biblically, but we still make them out to be something more than flawed humans.

The more we can see that we are ALL flawed, imperfect human beings, the greater our ability to actually HELP each other when we fall, and help each other to stand again.

Your thoughts?

I Am Second, Are You?

December 8, 2008

Have you seen the new website creeping up – iamsecond.com? It’s quite insightful.

Anyway, Pete Briscoe, Pastor of Bent Tree Fellowship in Texas, shares a bit of his testimony that I think is great for Pastors to hear. It’s only a few minutes, but may shake you deep inside.

Click here to see it.

“Healer” Author Confesses His Real Need For Healing

August 29, 2008

In no way do I mean for this post to be a judgment or condemnation, nor a condoning, of the sorrowful circumstances that surround the story of Michael Guglielmucci.

He is the author of a song very recently released on the latest Hillsong Worship DVD album, “Hillsong Live: This Is Our God”. There is apparently a documentary on the DVD of how Michael wrote this song right after a diagnosis of aggressive cancer. A popular video on YouTube has now been removed that showed him telling the story at a worship concert just before he would lead the song with an oxygen tank by his side and the tube on his face.

Turns out that he confessed just a couple weeks ago that he was never diagnosed with cancer. He was able to deceive his wife and family as he was apparently suffering physical manifestations of his inner battle with pornography. His father is a Pastor in Australia. You can read his initial statement here.

I do not pretend to know Michael’s torment or make claims of superiority. While my heart is very sad for him and his family, and for the Church at large, I do not pretend to know his torment or make any claims of superiority. But for the grace of God, his story is ours … ALL of ours.

This is another in a long line of stories of lives torn apart by the temptation to live one life in private and another in public. This is not the first and it will not be the last.

There are a couple of keys here about what it takes to be a Pastor For Life.

One is the deep need for safe places to be able to be truly who you are, including the inner battles and struggles we all face. The sooner we get out into the light, the less the damage and the stronger the ability to resist temptation.

Another is the need for us to live in brokenness and vulnerability. The foundation of this relies on us. We must allow for the transparency and consistency in how we live.

Many we lead cannot handle an ounce of weakness we may show as leaders. That’s part of what keeps us from vulnerability. But somewhere, somehow, those who cannot handle our weakness will have to find their strength in Jesus. They may find it in our transparency, but our fear is that they may not. We must become OK with that.

I commit myself, and encourage you, to pray for Michael. While his confession shocks many, it’s actually the first painful step of real freedom for him, and for his family. While the road to recovery will be long and grinding, he is in the best place he can be, or maybe even has ever been.

What Else Would YOU Do?

August 28, 2008

I enjoyed a lunch appointment today, catching up with a Pastor friend who has just come off of his first Sabbatical that lasted about three months. We got to talking about an aspect of vocational ministry that I have come to believe over time can be unhealthy and disruptive to the full life God intends for even Pastors to live.

The concept is this …. if you were NOT in vocational ministry, what would you do for a living?

There was a time that I couldn’t think of anything else I could do. I didn’t believe I had any transferable or marketable skills. Vocational ministry can become a “trap” in a sense, leaving you to feel as though there is literally nothing else you can do to make a living.

Honestly, not only was there a time I COULDN’T think of something else I could do for a living, but I WOULDN’T. If I talked about it, people would be nervous, wondering how serious I was. If I spoke it out loud, God would hear it, and He would NOT be happy. I am, after all, following HIS call on my life. To talk about doing something else would be an insult to Him, wouldn’t it?

Um, folks ….. that kind of thinking was actually a piece of my burnout experience. Both leading up to it AND recovering from it.

Leading up to burnout, I didn’t realize the importance of being free to talk to someone about how I felt about this. I didn’t need to, and still don’t, talk to anyone and everyone. But you gotta talk to SOMEone. Find a person who is not going to condemn you, judge you, doubt you or rebuke you for thinking that there may actually be other things you could do with your life.

Recovering from burnout, I came face to face with the reality that I just might HAVE TO do something else to make a living. If I didn’t have the courageous leaders around me at our church, who stood beside me and allowed me to recover and get well, I would not be writing this blog to Pastors today! I happen to know that my story of recovery is the minority. MOST Pastors who experience burnout lose their “jobs”.

It was during the long journey back to stability and greater emotional and spiritual health that I began to learn that God’s call on my life is irrevocable, REGARDLESS of what my vocation is! It took a while, but today I can actually talk pretty freely about a handful of jobs I think I would enjoy trying.

I’m too old for my first choice these days. I’d be out patrolling the streets and fighting crime with the finest!

How about you? If you were NOT in vocational ministry, what would YOU do?

Integrity Is ALWAYS An Issue

August 22, 2008

This week, we’ve been inundated with a couple of Christian Leader Integrity issues that seemingly are undermining the plans and purposes of God.

No doubt you’ve heard the story of Todd Bentley, who has ministered in Lakeland, Florida the last several months. Last week, right after announcing the end of his time of ministry there, news broke of the separation he and his wife are experiencing.

Then, just in the last couple of days, news came out about Michael Guglielmucci, the Pastor from Australia who wrote the hit worship song, “Healer”. The story was that he had written the song on deep inspiration from a just diagnosed case of cancer. Turns out there is no cancer.

I am not writing this post to point out what should or shouldn’t have happened in the Lakeland Revival, nor do I write to claim anything less than a great worship song in “Healer.” I am writing to simply declare that integrity – being the same person on the outside as you are on the inside – is ALWAYS an issue.

Your relationship with family, your marriage, your co-workers, your church, your neighbors. Integrity is ALWAYS an issue.

I appreciate The People of the Second Chance! I am glad to be one. But folks, any of us who desire to see God build Pastor For Life material in us have got to realize that transparency, honesty, vulnerability, submission to one another and plain old “doing the right thing”, all of those individual pieces of integrity. It’s ALWAYS an issue. That will ALWAYS remain true.

Thoughts?

When Ministry Is Killing You

August 18, 2008

Who said it? What was meant by it? Did they really even know what they were saying?

Somewhere, somehow, we ‘ve lost sight of the things that truly matter and set our sights on some things that don’t. As a result, the very thing we got into this line of “work” for is the very thing that is sucking the life out of us ….. “reaching people”.

At least that’s what we want to believe. That we are in it to reach people. Somewhere, deep down inside, it really is true. But somewhere, even deeper down inside, it’s also true that the definition of whether or not people are being reached (“How’s the Church? Is it growing? Are people getting saved? Are you building? What’s your budget?”) has side tracked us. It’s putting us in danger of losing who God really has made and is making us to BE for the sake of how much we can DO for Him.

I don’t know about you, but my heart resonates with this article from Out of Ur….

Great is Thy Effectiveness?

Something’s wrong. We pastors are the stewards, the spokespeople, the advocates of a message of hope, life, and peace. And yet so few of us seem to be experiencing these qualities in our own lives. Something’s wrong. In a world saturated with fear, insecurity, and stress, we are to show a different way. And yet those at the center of the church are burning out and leaving ministry at a rate of 1,500 per month. If that’s what’s occurring at the heart of the church, why would anyone on the fringe want to move in closer?

I’ve just read an article by two Christian counselors about the soul-killing impact of church ministry on leaders. (The statistic above comes from them.) They note that the pressure to grow the church is a significant factor leading to pastoral burn out. And some pastors “admitted they promoted growth models that were incongruent with their values because of a desperate need to validate their pastoral leadership.” It seems too many of us have our identities wrapped up in the measurable outcomes of our work rather than in the life-giving love of the Christ we proclaim. Something’s wrong.

I spent last week in western Iowa and met many wonderful pastors and church leaders. These men and women don’t lead megachurches. They’re not in chic urban or suburban communities where new cultural trends are born. In other words, they’re not the people you’re likely to see on the platform at a ministry conference. More than one church leader approached me during the week holding back tears. Each confessed he was on the verge of mental/spiritual/emotional collapse. The cause sited by all: the pressure to perform.

Skye Jethani is the managing editor of Leadership and a teaching pastor at Blanchard Alliance Church in Wheaton, Illinois.

The Secret of Your WHAT?

August 13, 2008

There is a seedy little enemy that has set itself against the soul of every single leader in the Church. It has rung the bell of leaders from the deepest parts of history and the oldest parcels of the Old Testament. It has chased away the courage of the bravest of warriors and eaten the lunches of the strongest and most well-educated diplomats. It has forced the most articulate of preachers and speakers to the floor to grovel and beg for the food from its table.

It’s something we’re all looking for and chasing after. We want it, sometimes too much, and at times at too large a cost.

The enemy? It’s no secret. It’s “success”. Blogger and Leader Rhett Smith has a tremendous post that helps us to be forthright and frank about its elusiveness. I believe it’s something that is the most vague, and yet most crisp, enemy we face in Church leadership.

Read on, and let’s chat …..

Parker Palmer is the author of one of my favorite books, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation.

If you have not read it, then you need to stop what you are doing and get in your car and go pick it up. Or stop what you are doing and order it online. I either suggested it or handed it to a lot of my college students and recommend it to everyone.

All that to say, I came across this interview with him at The High Calling (by the way, they have an amazing assortment of great interviews).

And he just says some powerful things about vocation, work, identity, failure, ego, etc. that we all need to hear. I think that not only do we all need to read it and reflect upon it.

But, I’m concerned for those of us in ministry (we who are supposed to be teachers, leaders, modelers, mentors, etc.) who have our identity so tied up in our vocation and have it validated by success and driven by ego.

Interviewer: You’ve said, “The sense of self is very closely tied to what people do.” How does one bring identity into a profession, without losing oneself to that profession?

Parker Palmer: You’re asking, “How do we live open-heartedly in the world without having our hearts broken?” At 68, I have come to a simple conclusion: I have a choice to make.

Either I live with my heart open, investing in my work and taking the risks that come when the expression of my own truth might get me crosswise with people. Or I exist in my work and in the world in a closed-hearted way. To me this choice is a no brainer, because to be in the world in a closed-hearted way is to risk a kind of spiritual death, a death of integrity really. As Thomas Merton said, most of us live lives of self-impersonation. To be in the world as an impersonator of yourself, when selfhood is your birthright gift from God, is an insult to your Creator and certainly a diminishment of yourself. I have learned to choose to be in the world in an open-hearted way, because pain itself is a sign that I’m alive. Being open-hearted is my only chance at the joy that life can bring.

Interviewer: When we start connecting and bringing our identity to work, suddenly there’s a tremendous pressure to avoid failure, because our egos may be tied to our performance. How do we reconcile that?

Parker Palmer: I think ego is strongest when we are not in touch with our own identity as children of God. My ego, or false identity, is the piece that tells me that I’m something special, that I’m not anybody’s child, that I’m the leader of the pack. That’s the piece of me that doesn’t want to fail. The failures I’ve experienced and the pain brought as a result were because I was working heavily out of ego. When one works out of ego, the aim is not to serve your patients or your children. Instead it becomes about winning, looking good, and not being deprived of one’s perks. Identity and integrity rightly understood are the antidote to ego.

It’s baffling and troubling to me that there is this Christian cult of success that I actually think is very ego driven. So many Christians have embraced this cult of success.

You can find the first part of the whole interview here.

Your Personal Pace, Part 2

July 17, 2008

In this post, I’d like to chat a bit about the different components and stages of your life that ought to play into the determination of what your pace is. By the way, I am not a proponent of breaking this thing down so far or so “catchy” that we come up with a handful of different paces.

John the Baptist put it this way in John 3: “A man can only receive what is given him from heaven.” He was being told by his followers that Jesus was kind of the guy in town these days.

You know, that church down the street that’s just started, but is already bigger than yours (did I just say that?). We’re talking about the Pastor across town that’s a couple decades younger than you and has already written 3 books in comparison your nasty, ol’ goose egg of a library.

Well, John’s answer? “I am John, not Jesus. I will always be John and I will never be Jesus. He’s gonna WALK on water; I’m gonna swim. A man can only receive what is given him from heaven.”

I think you have to start with this one supposition – God has given us all everything we need to accomplish for Him. What we don’t already have, He will give when we need it. Some of those things He will give us as lifelong abilities. Other of those things He will give us just when we need them, and only for a specific time or season.

My experience is, if we don’t start here, we get lost. Fast. Before you know it. Good intentions and all, but lost is lost, isn’t it?

It begs the question …. what are you doing right now that is spinning your wheels for your own cause instead of His? What are you doing or who are you now that He never gave you to do or to be?

Mad Church Disease

July 11, 2008

Enjoy this excerpt from Mad Church Disease and read on after it…

As much as we may want to, we can never rid ourselves from our past – the good or the bad. And regardless of how normal or even how terrible your past might be, you have experienced those things for a reason. The successes, the failures, the joy and the pain are all beautifully woven together to make you who you are at this moment.

We should look at our past like a gift and not a burden. And as such, we should steward it like any other gift we have been given. We need to be grateful for our unique circumstances, not resentful. Once we accept our God given past, we can find out what about it makes us extraordinary.

By taking our focus off of the dysfunctions of our past, and changing it to how God can work through us using our journey as a whole – our history, our present, and our future – we are less likely to burn out. Any time we become less and He becomes more, it’s His power being perfected in us.

You can now preorder the book from Amazon here.

**A Few Facts About the Book**

• It includes questions and a study guide to help you walk through your own personal journey of healing from (or preventing) burnout.
• Several leaders contributed “Second Opinions” to the book (their own thoughts on aspects of burning out and restoration) including Bill Hybels, Wayne Cordeiro, Perry Noble, Mike Foster, Gary Kinnaman, Brandi Wilson, Matt Carter, Shawn Wood, and Craig Groeschel wrote the foreword.
• It will be somewhere right around 200 pages.
• It will be chock-full of creative artwork and design on the inside.

So all that AND more for $16.99!

Just a little over a year ago, the website for Mad Church Disease launched and people began sharing their stories..thousands of people!

If you preorder Mad Church Disease now, with Amazon, if the price goes any lower after you order it today, you will lock in the lower price (because…correct me if I’m wrong…but I don’t think it charges you until it ships, which will be February 1, 2009).

The Mad Church Disease website will be completely relaunched later this year, and will include a forum for pastors, church leaders, their families, and volunteers to dialogue and encourage each other to pursue a holy, healthy ministry.

**CASE ORDERS**

If you would like to purchase a case (40 or more books) there is a 30% discount! Please email Anne and she will get you hooked up.

Giddy up!

Loose Ends

July 9, 2008

Tonight, I am working on my notes for a memorial service I will officiate in the morning for a man I have never had the pleasure to meet. Maybe you feel like I do about what we Pastors get to do: it is a deep and awesome privilege to be invited into some of life’s most sacred moments because of Who and what we represent.

I’ll talk about that more here someday …. but for now, ….

You’ve met with families like this. They’re one of those that I rarely come by, in terms of this man (again, I never knew him) and his legacy truly oozing out of his wife and daughter.

While I am putting my notes together, a friend (who is also a Pastor) calls me. He says, “I couldn’t sleep tonight until I called to say I’ve been thinking about you all day. I couldn’t live with myself until you knew that not only was I thinking about you, but that God’s heart smiles when He thinks of you, and you are a real asset to the Kingdom of God.”

I was blown away! The man whose memorial service I will lead …. he died on the 4th of July of a sudden heart attack, leaving too many things undone and unspoken. A good man with too many loose ends.

My friend didn’t want to leave any loose ends, and reminded me that neither do I. What are the loose ends for you?

Bad end to a difficult conversation with a loved one? Unfinished business between you and a friend? Unresolved conflict between you and a neighbor? Words you know ought to be spoken or written before it’s too late?

I got ‘em, you got ‘em, we all got ‘em. Dare to say what some of yours are?

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