The other night I was playing "Words with Friends," a Scrabble-like game for the iPhone. I have several games going at once, and I was playing with a guy from our church. There is a chat feature in the game, and I noticed that I had a message from him. He was asking if he and I could sit down and talk at some point. He is going through some hard times in his life, and he needs someone to talk to.
Would he have sought me out otherwise? Maybe. But the reality is, it happened in Words with Friends. It is another place that I have made myself available.
Availability though seems to be a sticky issue. How available do we want to be as pastors? How available SHOULD a pastor be? We're pastors, but we're human. We value privacy and sometimes need to be able to "turn it off." The more you are available in the public realm, the more you have to be "on."
Truthfully, I need time when I can be "off." Even Jesus would take time away and go be on his own for a while. I need to refresh my batteries. I need to recharge. I need to be able to step out of the pulpit and into real life for a while.
I've only been a pastor for the last 6 years, but I have begun to realize something. The more my "off" life looks like my "on" life, the less energy it takes for me to be "on."
I remember in college when I began to realize my call for ministry, I noticed something about the pastors that I got to know. Some of them have a "preacher voice." You know what I'm talking about. Outside of church they talk just like everyone else, and then they get behind the pulpit or put on a robe, and their voice turns into a mixture of Billy Graham, the King James Bible, and hymn lyrics. The tone changes. Their persona changes. They turn it on and it is something totally different than their regular, day to day life.
I've done no studies to prove this, but I have a theory. I'm going to guess these people are tired. I'm going to guess they are intensely private when it comes to revealing their everyday lives to their congregants. I'm going to guess that they hate Facebook.
I understand that we all have different gifts and strengths and personalities. I'm very relational. I'm not an avid reader (most books are over 140 characters, so I immediately rule them out). People are going to connect with others in different ways. However, I have seen a trend that I believe is only gaining strength. People are interested in what is transparent. People are interested in what is real. People don't want to be told how to live, they want to be shown.
Things haven't always been this way. This is a paradigm shift that has really only seen significant growth in the last decade. My parents and other previous generations grew up in an age where they believed "If it is true, then it works." Importance was placed primarily in figuring out theories on how to live life. Books were written with suggestions of how to live, how to raise your children, and how to be a Christian. If you had a valid, logical argument, it would be accepted at face value. The things said were true, so it must work.
Today, the belief has shifted to "if it works, then it is true." I can make a great argument for something, but if people don't see evidence of it being lived out, they don't care. In fact, many have moved past even looking for an argument that has been proved. They instead look for their desired outcome, and then try to figure out how someone got there. Obviously they did it right. Finding the path to living a Christ-like life is no longer the goal. Instead, people are seeking out those who are living a Christ-like life, and asking them what path they took.
What that means for the Christian faith is that our greatest arguments can no longer be made in books and tracts and pamphlets. Our greatest arguments can only be made with the evidence of our lives. We have to live lives that are worth living. Lives that are compelling. People must want what we have.
The result is this: if we are unwilling to share our lives, then we are unwilling to preach the Gospel in the way that people hear it best.
So in this reality, we can no longer afford to have a "preacher voice." We can't be someone different in the pulpit then we are when we are home by ourselves.
Our kneejerk reaction is to try to force our pastor-selves into our day to day. We imagine wearing our robes everywhere. Maybe we break Red Lobster cheddar biscuits like communion bread. We pray lengthy, well thought out prayers over everyone we come into contact with, laying hands on them and speaking in tongues. When we order a coffee, we say "Wouldst thou pourest unto me a venti decaf mocha?"
If not these things, we at least are always quoting scripture to others. Anyone who talks to us for even a short amount of time knows we are pastors. We constantly espouse wisdom, have a twinkle in our eye, and walk with an air of grace about us.
In other words, we are perfect.
Maybe more perfect than Jesus.
I would suggest that this approach just doesn't work. Instead of trying to force our pastor-selves into our real selves, maybe our real-selves should be what our pastor-selves look like.
I am not trying to force high-level, idealistic preaching into my every day life. I'm instead forcing my every day life into my preaching.
I'm not the most theologically savvy pastor you will ever meet. Other pastors will likely know more than me. But the one thing that people tell me they appreciate time and time again is that I am genuine. What you see is what you get. I'm not afraid to show my imperfections.
Imperfections. In the past, pastors weren't allowed to let their imperfections show. If they did, it was either something that happened way in the past before they were saved, or it was something like, "I forgot to pray over my club sandwich at lunch. See? I'm human just like the rest of you."
Times have radically changed. If people don't see imperfections from their pastors, they are immediately suspect. What they preach becomes unattainable. To reach a generation that is no longer looking for the path, but instead is looking for someone they can relate to who has walked it, our preaching must change. Theological ideals and three main points will move no one apart from evidence that this has been lived out in the lives of the preachers themselves. It must be shown as messy and real and worthwhile and attainable.
It's a delicate balance though. How do you present a life that is flawed while also presenting a life that is desirable to attain? I believe it is fear of this balancing act that keeps many pastors from being vulnerable and transparent in their preaching and their interactions with congregants.
This fear may also reveal another dark truth: we don't believe our lives are
desirable to attain. We are depressed. Our self confidence is low. We aren't seeing the results now that we were used to seeing. We feel father away from the collective consciousness than we used to be. Maybe we're in the wrong profession. The struggles are getting harder and harder. Is it really all worth it?
I'm wondering if these issues could be connected. If there is not a realization of the importance of transparency and vulnerability, I believe that your ministry will begin to struggle. As your ministry begins to struggle, you begin to question yourself. As you question yourself, your self esteem is lowered and you want fewer and fewer people to see the real you.
If you believe this, you have forgotten the truth of who you are in Christ.
What you are is a beautiful, loved child of God. Your life is compelling because the presence of Christ is within you. As we grow closer to Christ and seek to live more like him, our lives continue to gain intrigue. Not because of who we are, but because of who we are in Christ.
This is the truth I am trying to live into. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just saying it has worked for me (see what I did there?).
No realm in our society amplifies our transparency and vulnerability like social media. The extent to which we are ok with that says a lot about the role our private life plays in our pastoring.
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