Monday Morning Insights

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    Sometimes Ministry Stinks!

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    Bryant Kirkland had spent over fifty years as pastor to congregations of a variety of sizes and locations. When I was in seminary, he taught my preaching courses, and he continued to be my mentor till his quiet death on Easter a few years ago. I loved going to Bryant for counsel because he had such a gift for offering wisdom that was truly spiritual?precisely because it never sounded spiritual.



    He reminded me of the way Jesus made a theological point by cursing fig trees, eating with sinners, or presenting over a hundred gallons of wine as a wedding present. Jesus would have certainly used Bryant's line about bedpans if they had been around in the first century.



    Read the rest of this article now at Leadership Journal.

    What are some areas and tasks in your current job or ministry that you think stink? How do you deal and react with them? How do you carry your bedpan like a queen? I'd love to hear your input! Please read more of Craig Barnes' thoughts at our daily blog today and be sure to leave your comment or input before you leave!



    You can read Craig's article in full at the Leadership Journal website now...


    There are all part of our jobs that we just don’t like… and it’s no different for pastors and church staff members. In the most recent edition of Leadership Journal, Craig Barnes writes about this subject:  It had been a hard year of ministry, and I was feeling discouraged. So I went to an older, wiser, veteran pastor to seek godly wisdom. This is what he told me: "If you get stuck holding the bedpan, carry it like a queen."


    ministry stinks


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    Comments

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    1. AG on Mon, October 04, 2004

      Dealing with whiny, baby Christians who have been Christians long enough to know better stinks.  Many have become selfish and self-centered, wanting to be ministered to rather than to minister to the lost and hurting.

    2. Gary Sweeten on Mon, October 04, 2004

      Unlike the previous comments, I do not blame the problems of whiney babies on the babies. Babies and children are SUPPOSED to cry, whine, beg, fight and rebel. That is their nature.When I was a school teacher I learned about developmental stages of children and youth and what to expect at each stage. Do pastoral leaders not know this and what to do at each stage to foster growth?


      The key to successful nurses in that hospital was the fact that they trained their own people. The current model of “schoolization” of clergy rather than the"socialization” model of Jesus has led us overemphasize talking (preaching) and set up unrealistic ideals in ministry rather than expose potential leaders to the reality of work in the church. Every congregation must prepare and train its own leadership.


      Can you imagine any nurse graduating and entering a hospital without first having two or three years watching, following and helping veteran nurses? Yet, I meet many “clergy” who have never assisted in Sunday school, helped in the nursery, prayed with the sick and infirm at a hospital or nursing home, let alone dealt with a warring family or tried to untangle that warfare while planning a wedding or funeral. Yet, this is ministry today. To paraphrase Harry Truman, “if you can’t stand the stink in the bedpan, get out of nursing.

      Those getting a D. Min may want to sit and discuss lofty theology with other visionaries. If so they need a job teaching other visionaries who can’t do the job either. This may be the reason that research indicates an inverse relationship in America between church growth and the growth of seminaries and clergy who graduate from seminary.


      I feel badly that graduate schools of Christian leadership fail so miserably yet that is the nature of almost all grad schools. It takes the graduates of most counseling programs about five years to get over their advanced studies and really know how to counsel.


      Learning to barely read a dead language and give messages with three points hardly prepares one for what Peter Drucker says is the hardest job of leadership in the world: shepherding a church full of cats.


      I have trained numerous lay people in pastoral care, counseling, organizational leadership, small groups, etc and almost without exception they are superior to most clergy. They have mastered the basic theories and practical skills needed to influence human beings rather than mastered ways to write and talk about religion.

       

    3. SGG on Mon, October 04, 2004

      I’m a midlife career-changer, two years into ministry (the calling I should have obeyed before).  It seems to me the hard part is that if you are called to ministry you tend to choose to spend time with other people who are called to ministry (even before you know it).  When you obey the call, you are sent to people who aren’t like you at all:  and it’s easy to blame them for not being like you!

      I’m trying to pay attention to what Jesus expected of “regular” people - not The Twelve - but the ones he healed and sent home.  Maybe we have such a hard time with the babies in the church because we are expecting the wrong things of them.  Just thinking.

       

    4. Tim Bistline on Mon, October 04, 2004

      I am 38 and have been serving in ministry either parttime or fulltime, paid and unpaid for nearly 20 years now.  There have been many instances when the “stink-o-meter” has registered beyong the maximum #10.  What I have recently come to understand is that the human condition and the sin that is to prevalent in the world are the things that stink; shepherding is stinky business!  I have been called to be God’s earthly shepherd to His children, and that is a stinky job.  I have also come to appreciate those wonderful saints in my early years of faith who were my shepherds and I really stunk up the joint for them; I still stink pretty bad.  If I had time today, I could list the specific things that stink about my job and calling.  But today, I do not have the time.  Today, I have it right… it’s not all about me!  It’s about God and what He is doing in my life and in the lives of those I am called to shepherd and serve.  Don’t hear me wrong… there will be those days when I need to vent, cry on someone’s shoulder, and ask for a piggy-back ride.  Today is not that kind of day… blessings to each of you who are struggling!  God’s mercy is new everday; His strength is sufficient for you today

      Peace,


      Tim

       

    5. Richard Wollard on Mon, October 04, 2004

      The day I originally read the article, Sometimes Ministry Stinks in Leadership Journal, we had a plumbing break that backed up our septic tank at the church office and flooded the basement.


      I called our buildings & ground guy, who was unavailable, and ended up wading through the mess myself.


      Realizing that my day was now a bust, I was reminded of Dr. Lynn Anderson’s book, They Smell Like Sheep. If you have never read it, order it today - it is a MUST read.

      The thought of shepherding always sounds like fun until you realize you are going to get some stink on you. To quote C. Gene Wiiles,


      “You must decide whether or not your will design your life after the pattern of Jesus, or design you life around the best thinking the world has to offer.”


      God gave us this day; let’s enjoy it!

       

    6. Melissa on Mon, October 04, 2004

      I am finding myself living the article in many ways. I have a MA in Christian Education and a heart for Children’s Ministry. I had a job for three months until the church I was working for ran out of money. Now I am looking again. Right now for me ministry does indeed stink. However I am not giving up on my God given passion for children.


      Another reason ministry stinks for me is that I am very new to the field and this is not my second career but the first. Churches are looking for experience that I just don’t have and quite frankly it stinks!

    7. Phillip on Mon, October 04, 2004

      Since I am called to ministry I would much rather do the stinky stuff now then when I owned a thriving business but never satisfied with what I was doing…


      The only time the stink reaches my nose is when I am in a place that does not fit my DNA

    8. Brian on Mon, October 04, 2004

      Wonderful article.   Wish I’d had that perspective in the past.   I’m definitely keeping this article in the file for the next time the bedpans get full.

    9. Tom Zanutto on Mon, October 04, 2004

      Lord,  Help me remember the basin & towel.

    10. Bridget Ellwood on Mon, October 04, 2004

      I am a “wife” of an elder in full-time ministry, who, 6 years ago, thought ALL sheep smelled like Elizabeth Arden, and ALL leaders were mirror images of Jesus (?)


      Now…well I have this golden peg that hangs precariously off my flared nostrils ... invisible to most (even me sometimes)!   A helpful comment was made to me as we plan our re-location from South Africa to Canada early 2005… “Bridgi… the darling sheep are the same the world over… they just have different faces!!!”  I am going to love, love, love them… that’s my choice!!!  Lots of love, the female sheep-tender!

    11. Gary Sweeten on Tue, October 05, 2004

      As Walt kelly had Pogo the Possum say many years ago, “We have met the enemy and it is us.” Not only does ministry sometimes stink (eth) and not only do the sheep sometimes stink (eth) but I am struck by the fact that the shepherds also sometimes stink (eth).


      I spend most of my time working with shepherds and the pain, left over trauma, emerging dysfunction rise to the sky not as sweet incense but as ripe flesh.


      “I have met the enemy and it is…..ME!

    12. Michael on Tue, October 05, 2004

      Sometimes being a Pastor feels like nothing but hard work and sometimes that hard work does stink, but having lost my orders recently after 11 years as a Pastor…now that really stinks.  I lost everything…a place to live, medical insurance, a salary…all because my peers thought my ministry was causing me health problems.  But most of all I lost the opportunity to serve God as a Preacher, Chaplain and as a friend.  I realized recently that it wasn’t the church I served which caused my health, the denomination I served caused my health problems.  So now I “fight” with God everyday as I seek a new ministry in which to serve him.  I realize that God’s will and all of that, but sometimes God, I wish your will and mine coincided.

    13. Michael Heart on Thu, October 07, 2004

      Ok, maybe ministry doesn’t stink after all.  Maybe it’s not the ministry that is a problem, maybe it’s just the attitudes of those who are in a “Leadership Role” within one’s denomination.  Maybe it’s just the “I know better than you do attitude” that so many clergy seem to reflect when speaking out about their own beliefs.

      Being a Pastor is a wonderful occupation as well as a realistic calling for many.  But I think we need to look at what ministry is suppose to mean for each of us and how we can make that ministry work in light of all the “landmines” we run into daily.


      No, Ministry doesn’t stink, there are just some elements of the “job” that have a rather foul aroma.

       

      God Bless the Women and Men who entire Ministry with all of the zeal and verve of a Prophet and my prayers to those who burn out or are cast aside by unthinking, unfeeling and uncaring authority figures within the church.

       

    14. Rick Sams on Fri, October 08, 2004

      We in the ministry need to realize that “everywhere we go, there we are.” We can’t just drop the bedpan. Bedpans splash when dropped. WE can’t just run from bedpans. There are bedpans everywhere because we all have use them.

    15. mike on Fri, October 15, 2004

      Praise God life stinks sometimes.


      If it didn’t, would we be needing God’s grace?

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