The
Axis of Pastoral Life and Ministry.
Pastoral
ministry rotates on the axis of personal wholeness. This calls for us to grow first in our own personal well being as pastor,
spouse, and children. We can gain much by asking God to show us what needs to change in us first. What is our primary focus?
What is hindering my holding to a biblical primary focus?
There
is a close connected between the character of the pastor and his or her family. In developing a healthy church in our day,
the whole pastoral family is called upon to mature into the highest and best Christian black belts by God’s grace.
The Need.
Given the systemic place and impact of the pastor and his or her family upon a local
church, their healthy development is very important to every subsystem within the family of God. The need for developing healthier
pastors and pastoral families was communicated by the information from several sources quoted in
"A Sick Body" and . “Seven Prescriptions
for the Epidemic” The Lutheran research outlines various pastor and parsonage family health needs as does London and Neil Wiseman’s,
Pastors at Risk, Conrad Weiser’s, Healers: Harmed & Harmful, as well
as Rediger’s Fit to be a Pastor. Developing such pastoral and parsonage wholeness
includes physical, mental, emotional, moral, relational, and spiritual fitness. (See "Soul Care and the Caregiver's Soul.")
Both Rediger
and Brewer, in their writings, point clergy to the source of one of our biggest complaints. How many times has a lay person
or older cleric heard a young pastor complain, ‘The church runs too much like a business.’
While the academic and functional aspects
of pastoral ministry are often taught adequately in seminaries of both theological camps, the spiritual/theological formation
and the development of a solid pastoral theology is too often neglected or assumed. Therefore, as the seminaries taught them,
pastors led with a focus on competent functions. To add to the increase of dysfunctional relationships between a pastor, his
or her family and a church, the local congregation measures their pastor’s effectiveness based upon such a bottom line
business model. In my own denomination, United Methodist, such a C.E.O. business model is clearly reflected in the annual
pastoral evaluation.
The
UM General Board of Higher Education and Ministry’s Director of Supervision and Support Systems for the Section on Elders
and Local Pastors, Arthur Gafke, cuts to the quick. His online article, Ministry Assessment: An
Introduction, says the following:
Since
the 1976 Book of Discipline introduced the word, “evaluation,” it has been used to apply to almost any comment
or critique one person makes about another person. Evaluation of pastors has focused on rating how well or how poorly a pastor
performs various functions, and for many churches the pastoral evaluation means telling the superintendent whether the committee
has voted for the pastor to move or stay another year. The congregations rarely apply the same intense examination to the
pastor/staff parish relations committee or other church leaders, and only occasionally do they evaluate the local church and
pastor together.
Quite
distinct from the setting apart of ordination which authorizes a pastor, this evaluative setting has tended to erode authority
and undercut integrity. The result has been a shift in the pastoral office from call, trust, and authority, to professional
service provider. Even while most clergy and churches continue faithful ministry, our systems of assessment have made such
ministry increasingly difficult.
It
is my understanding that other denominations with a stronger and much deeper heritage of a rich pastoral theology, like The
Lutheran Church Missouri-Synod, do not practice such evaluations. However, that by itself does not keep their local church
from operating like a business run by a person or persons whose egos Edge God Out!
Having learned to place a premium on human technique and control
in pastoral ministry, local congregations learn this unhealthy business model from their pastoral leadership. This in turn
creates unhealthy church operating from a functional business based on works of the flesh. It also unhealthy clergy who measure
their professional and personal value entirely upon their functions and the tangible fruit their functions bring them. Surely,
as the seminaries have gone, our local churches tended follow as their pastors have led them. Such a market-driven business
model is unhealthy for not only the pastor’s relationships within the church, but also the pastor’s relationships
within his or her family. Thus, materials written by Warren, Hayford, and others call for us pastors
and our families to grow healthier first. We do so for the sake of developing a healthy congregation with healthy ministries
for a hurting, broken world that is dying to know the truth to set people free.
A. Spiritual Life (Spirit-Soul-Body)
Our first priority calls us to keep maturing in our intimacy with
God through a growing devotional life (Curtis, Brent and John Eldridge). This helps keep pastors and their families focused
on the Lord of the Church instead of on problems or popularity.
A growing spiritual life leads us to honestly face our dark sides. This includes
our “personal issues that may plague us in the exercise of our leadership” (Gary McIntosh and Sammuel
Rima 9; "Have You Been Broken"; "Have You Been Set"; Oates, Wayne; Pate, C.
Marvin & Sheryl L. Pate; Martyn, Stephen; Semands, Steve; "Turn
Your").
Thus,
we ask ourselves questions, such as:
(1) What drives me?
(2) Why do I want to please God?
(3)
Do I want to please God or do I want God to please me by doing it my way ("Leadership Competency")?
(4)
Am I a leader who operates out of a theology of the fall?
(5) Am I a leader who operates out of a theology of creation ("Theory
X")?
(6)
Do I find my identity primarily in what I do as a pastor or in who I am in Christ ("Great Leaders"; "God's
Mission"; "Staffing")?
(7) Is my daily walk with Christ based on grace or works?
(8)
Is God's love and approval of me enough (Semands)?
Being clear and biblical about what drives us as pastors and sets
our values places us in a better position lead as a pastor. This happens when we find our own sense of identity, significance,
and security in who we are in Christ and not in what we do as pastors (Anderson and Mylander 49-53;
Anderson, Neil; "God's Mission"; "Great Leaders"; "Posture in Leadership"; "Staffing").
The same is true for individual members of a pastor's family.
With the current emphasis on spirituality and given the increase of broken people
in society today, postmodern people hunger for authentic spirituality in those who preach, and lead worship. For the sake
of wholesome ministry leadership relationships, healthy worship, and holistic preaching, pastors might do well to examine
their own inner drives. Our high visibility makes us vulnerable to all sorts of cancerous temptations. If we perform our pastoral
calling only for personal gain, we are as valuable to the leadership team and to the church as a cancer cell is to a human
body. Such diseases enter the body of Christ whenever we fall prey to a spiritual cancers such as winning or losing
acceptance in the applause syndrome, one upmanship or seeking to manipulate God through magical
presumption.
Part
of becoming more whole in Christ means working on pastoral integrity (Peterson, Eugene). Another part of a growing spiritual
life also includes faithful physical exercise and intellectual development (Rediger, G. Lloyd).
Quotes to
ponder:
Pastors
are abandoning their calling for a focus on how to keep the customers happy. No wonder clergy morale is low…Many pastors
are lusting after people’s approval. Today, more than ever, we need a carefully thought out theology of ministry. Either
the path of least resistance or the path of faithfulness has pain. The first leads to burnout or anger and the other to redemptive
pain ("Coping").
If you get caught in the doing mode, you fall into the comparison trap. In the doing
mode, you will never find peace. The comparison game is sin. If you can build a few healthy relationships at the center of
your life, you’ll have the emotional energy to minister to unhealthy people. If you don’t you will have trouble”
("Great Leaders").
Your inner spirit will you to make you or break you in the ministry. Many pressures
try to squeeze us into the negativeness around us. The person who is surrendered to God can be
comfortable, and feel good about him/herself, and can be him/herself (“Staffing and Teaming”).
Success
is offering our best to God, and not being in competition with others. We are not responsible for others actions and attitudes.
We are only responsible for our own actions and attitudes (“Ten Characteristics”).
B. A Solid Christian Faith
Our second priority involves watching
over the wholeness of our spiritual life by making sure it is grounded in the health of our belief system. If a pastor and
family fails to refuses some part of the historic teachings of the Christian faith, they and their congregation
will lack soundness in that and related areas.
The Call Within The Calling.
The Apostle Paul included various admonitions
about Timothy’s own well-being as a leader of the Ephesian Church (1 Tim. 4:12-16; 6:11-16,
20; and 2 Tim. 1:6; 2:3-7, 22-26; 3:14-15; 4:2, 5). Paul’s pastoral epistles also demonstrate the Christian character
of a pastor in leading a church contributes to the biblical foundation model for a systemic, ecclesiological approach to church
health. These epistles express great concern for those selected to church leadership in light of their personal character,
relationships at home, reputation outside of the church, and the spouse’s character. The leadership qualities needed
for developing healthy churches involve more than the intellectual knowledge of sound doctrine and the ability to teach it.
The important qualifying criterion rotates on the axis of the integrity and wholeness of the pastor’s faith, life, and
relationships.
The
apostolic nature of the church means pastors preach and teach as those who stand under the apostolic authority of the New
Testament. Such proclamation of Christian doctrine reminds pastors that we all stand under the authority of Scripture. The
proclamation of apostolic doctrine is crucial to building a healthy church. Therefore, many denominations ask both those qualifying
for ordination if they receive and profess the Christian faith as contained in the Bible. Those ordained to such an apostolic
ministry are also expected to proclaim the historic faith of the Church and none other, defending it against all doctrines
contrary to God’s Holy Word (UMBW 675-676). The commitment to proclaim the Word of God is repeated in the “Order
for the Celebration of an Appointment” (UMBW 595).
The
church’s confessional nature expects pastors to have a personal faith in Jesus Christ and be committed to Christ as
savior and Lord. As the Temple of the Holy Spirit, Christ’s Church requires pastors to practice spiritual disciplines;
to testify about God calling them into the ordained ministry; as well as give evidence of God’s gifts for ordained ministry
and of God’s grace in their lives. As those called and given by Christ to the Church for an Office of Ministry, the
Church anticipates pastors to equip the priesthood of believers for their ministry.
Christ’s Holy Church’s concern for holiness of heart
and life within the body of Christ is reflected in the standards for persons qualifying for ordination, and in their ordination
service. For example, since the days of early Methodism, candidates for full connection or ordination in an Annual Conference
of the United Methodist Church and related denominations are asked questions like the following from John Wesley:
1.
Have you faith in Christ?
2. Are you going on to perfection?
3. Do you expect to be made
perfect in love in this life?
4. Are you earnestly seeking after it? (Book of Discipline 214)
The 1981 catalog of Asbury Theological
Seminary highlighted the importance of the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification, which it “believes is essential
to a dynamic and successful Christian ministry (Asbury Seminarian 11, 21). Thus, United Methodist pastors are expected to
completely dedicate themselves to the highest ideals of the Christian life.
“To this end, they agree to exercise responsible self-control by personal habits conducive to
bodily health, mental and emotional maturity, integrity in all personal relationships, fidelity
in marriage and celibacy in singleness, social responsibility, and growth in grace and in the knowledge and love of God. (Book
of Discipline 184)
From
the standpoint of historic Methodist Ecclesiology, a pastor’s maturity or lack of it, in God’s sanctifying grace
will influence the health of a congregation where he or she pastors.
As responsible recipients of God’s grace, the diversity of the Church calls
Christians to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace through Christian love. In the United Methodist Church,
the “Order for the Celebration of an Appointment” focuses on the pastor’s commitment toward sustaining or
equipping a congregation as a people of love (UMBW 595).
The Nicene Creed.
Drawing from the NT teaching as a whole, the Ecumenical Creeds (The Apostles’
Creed and The Nicene Creed) guard us from separating our Christian faith concerning the Church from our beliefs about Christ
and salvation. Whenever pastors and their families have strayed from biblical teaching concerning Jesus Christ and salvation,
some very unhealthy teachings and churches have arisen.
Jesus Christ.
Our
belief about the person of Jesus Christ shapes the health of the pastor and his or her family. Jesus Christ is the cornerstone
and the head of the Church. Whatever we believe about Christ as a person will shape our beliefs and approach to the Church.
The relationship between Jesus Christ and the Church is symbolically illustrated in the marriage of a man and a woman. Thus,
the nuclear family unit is like a little church. What a pastor believes about Jesus Christ and the Church will impact his
or her marital and family relationships.
A
fanatical stress on Jesus’ divinity first would lead to an otherworldly mystical or super-spiritual approach to personal
and family health. It would not involve our participation very much at all beyond a solo focus on the individual’s relationship
with God, gaining more biblical information or religious experiences, attending religious services, and constant spiritual
naval gazing. It would also easily lead to holding to a Gospel of all promises, no conditions. It would lead a person to focus
on what God accomplishes without us, rather than with us in response to God’s grace. Thus, pastor and his or her family
would adopt the mistaken assumption that God only works through the intangible, invisible, and mystical realm of spiritual
relationships. Often such a spiritual elitism develops into a super-spiritual view of the family that can be either anti-intellectual
or anti-emotional.
Some
become enthralled with religious experiences while others fall into bibliolatry. Both miss the biblical call to grow in our
relationship with God so that we bear the fruit of good works in relationships with others. While oftentimes obese with spiritual
nurture, their not being doers of the Word, but hearers only leads them to complain about not being fed. To often their individualistic
view of salvation leads them not only to ignore the corporate nature of the family, but also to a simplistic view of sin and
evil that fails to address its corporate nature as well.
A
radical over emphasis on Jesus’ humanity would focus totally on our role in developing a healthy personal and family
life. However, it would totally leave God out by ignoring or paying lip service to biblical formation and vital spirituality.
It would easily lead to holding to a Gospel of the conditions related to the promises of God and the importance of our accomplishing
great works for God. Such a focus would be motivated more by law than being empowered by God’s free grace. Thus, the
pastor and his or her family would come to adopt the mistaken assumption that somewhere in the Bible it says ‘God helps
them that help themselves.’ Very often such an overemphasis on human works develops into a secular view of the family
that claims all marital and family problems are best treated by human insights solely from business, sociology, and psychology--like
systems theory. Such families usually become hotels where people feel driven to do the Lord’s work while forgetting
a vital relationship with the Lord of the work and with each other.
The biblical approach as reflected in the Nicene Creed recognizes the unity Jesus’
divinity and humanity. This would lead people to hold together both the divine side and the human side of a pastor’s
personal and family health. God’s grace, the motivation of Christian love, the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and the
involvement of our response by God’s grace help us hold together the natural and the supernatural aspects of pastor’s
personal and parsonage life.
Salvation.
Biblical
principles of pastoral and parsonage health are reflected in our beliefs concerning salvation, which emerge from our beliefs
concerning Jesus’ mission. Whatever we believe about Christ’s mission will shape our beliefs and approach not
only to the Church but also to the family.
Simply
and profoundly, the Nicene Creed summarizes the Bible’s teaching concerning salvation. The Creed says that our salvation
is in and through Jesus Christ who died and rose for us. As Ephesians 2:8,9 says as well, we are saved by grace through faith
which itself is a gift of God’s grace and not by works lest we boast that somehow we earned salvation.
Therefore, how pastor and family members
view the doctrine of salvation will influence their approach to personal and parsonage health. A biblical, grace based understanding
of salvation and our response empowered by God’s free grace leads the pastor and family members to both seek God and
trust God in following biblical principles of personal and family health.
A view of salvation that does not involve our response at all would
lead to a passive waiting for God to make them individually or their family as a whole healthy by a sovereign act of grace
alone.
A view of
salvation emphasizing human free will more than God’s free grace would lead a pastor and parsonage family to work as
if it all depended on them. Yet they would also pray as if personal and family health all depended on God. In this view, the
pastor and others family members try to do too much. A view of salvation focusing on human free will alone would lead a pastor
and or parsonage family into doing and encouraging church activities without any prayer or biblical/theological discernment.
Thus, the spiritual dynamic of the pastor’s and parson family’s health is lost as people build marriage and family
life in fleshly strength, will power, and insight.
The
Nicene Creed also summarizes the doctrine of the Church for us by speaking of “one holy catholic and apostolic church.”
Each of these traits of Christ’s Church informs us about some aspect of pastoral and parsonage family health.
Christ’s Church is both apostolic
and confessional. When Peter confessed Jesus Christ as the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus replied, “on this
rock, I will build my church” (Mtt. 16:18). Following Jesus’ death and resurrection,
he told his disciples to wait in Jerusalem for the Holy Spirit to endow them with power in order for them to be his witnesses
and make disciples of all nations. God builds the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit upon the witness of the apostles
to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ along with people’s confession of Christ as the risen Lord and Savior.
Another reason the Church is called apostolic is due to its being under the apostolic authority dwelling in the New Testament.
Thus, a pastor’s Christian wedding ceremony and the baptism of his or her children reminds the parsonage family of standing
under the authority of Scripture.
Although
the Church is composed of a wide range of people, it is one in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit. The constitutions of many
denominations state its openness to people of all ages, nations, and races. Such statements reflect both the diverse unity
and catholic nature of the Church worldwide as well as locally. The Communion service reminds a congregation of its foundation—the
love of God displayed in Jesus’ suffering, death and resurrection. The service also reminds congregations of their mission—to
be the body of Christ for the world. Some Communion service asks for the Holy Spirit to make the congregation one with Christ,
one with each other, and one in ministry to all the world. Very often, as a church participates in a communion service, a
deeper love for God and each other develops. A pastor and family who really believe this will relate with a wide range of
people as Jesus did. They will related both personally and as representatives of Christ’s
church to people of all ages, nations, races, and Christian denominations.
As the temple of the Holy Spirit, the body of Christ—the Church
was founded upon the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who is her ascended and returning head. Given the spiritual and
organic relationship of the Church with Jesus Christ, many membership rituals ask for a commitment from a new member to faithfully
participate in the church’s ministries by their prayers, their presence, their gifts and their service. Keeping these
commitments is seen as a means of spiritual growth in faithful Christian discipleship and participation in the priesthood
of believers. Pastors and their families will do well if they remember that they are called to be Christians first and their
roles second. They will understand Christian baptism as symbolizing one’s ordination into the ministry or priesthood
of all believers.
Within
the unity of the Spirit and the diversity of the Church, each Christian congregation is blessed with various spiritual gifts
by the Holy Spirit to continue Christ’s ministry in the world. To accomplish such a ministry through various ministries,
God not only gives individual spiritual gifts to the church, but he also calls persons into various offices of full time ministry
to equip others for their ministry. As a body of Christ --the priesthood of believers, we do not minister in our own strength,
but by the empowering of the Holy Spirit. The pastor and family will recognize not only their unity in Christ but also their
diversity in terms of both gifts and calling. Such callings are fulfilled by God’s grace through the power of the Holy
Spirit. If the pastor and his or her family is going to be an effective witness today, we must recapture what the Bible means
to live in the Spirit.
H.
Orton Wiley states in volume 3 of his Christian Theology that “another aspect of catholicity is that which regards the
church as militant and triumphant. The church militant is the one body waging war with principalities and powers” (115).
Although the Church on earth is militant, Richard Taylor states in his Beacon Dictionary of Theology,
The church is also both impregnable and vulnerable.
While the “gates of Hades” cannot prevail against the Church, it can be contaminated and compromised from within—by
sin, by false doctrine, by worldly alliances. (114)
The
vulnerability of the Church is also true of the parsonage family as it is every Christian home. It constantly calls for Christians
to watch over one another in love as family members struggle with imperfect moral behavior and imperfect personal character.
Closely related to
the diverse unity of the Church is its holy nature and calling. While set apart by God’s grace as disciples of Jesus
Christ, the New Testament also calls for the Church to be a holy people. Thus, the not only is the body of Christ justification-based
but also sanctification-directed. Jesus’ Great Commission instructs us first to seek to bring all people to faith in
Christ and then to life of obeying all Christ taught. Holiness or sanctification to church health for those whom God calls
and the church ordains to an Office of Ministry. The biblical call to holiness applies to all Christian families as well as
to the pastor and his or her family.
As
pastor and family cooperate with God’s grace in developing a whole family system in Christ, they will base it upon sound
Christian teaching. If a family member refuses biblical teaching, the family will lack soundness to that degree. This lack
of soundness will show itself in either unloving relationships, lack of harmonious teamwork, underdeveloped personal and family
ministries, or deficient individual wholeness. Working on unresolved personal pastoral and parsonage family health issue will
involve both small group meetings as well as one on one discipleship.
The Church like the Christian home of the pastor as well as all Christians belongs
to Jesus Christ. It does not exist for itself or by its own resources. Since Jesus Christ died on the cross for everyone,
the invitation of the Church to salvation and Christian discipleship is open to all people. Many times such an invitation
to whosoever will comes through our Christian families. We don’t work on our own health to become whole for ourselves.
We seek God’s grace to help us get ourselves together so God can work through us to help others come to wholeness in
Christ.
C.
Intimate Marriage and Family Life
Our
third priority includes growing more intimate with our spouses and families. Therefore, strive for a healthy marriage which
is a priceless asset to one’s pastoral ministry ("An Action Plan"; God's Mission"; "Great Leaders";
Hayford, Jack 108; Walmsley, Roberta and Adair Lummis).
Quotes to ponder:
"A
pastor's marriage needs to be number one and then function out of there” (“Influencing the Influencers”).
Take
vacation time with kids and with just your wife. Sometimes couples need to get away from the church and the kids every couple
of months to do something fun.
Pastors need to always be accessible to one's spouse and kids.
Money
cannot make ministry. Money only frees people up to do ministry (“Staffing and Teaming”).
Plan
times with your spouse when your emotional tank is not empty.
If the congregation sees their pastor and wife
loving each other, they feel secure” (“An Action Plan”).
Too many pastors find themselves drained either
by unhealthy churches or by unhealthy overfunctioning. Unless you build a solid
relationship
with your spouse, family and close friends, you will not have the strength to minister to broken people or to unhealthy
churches.
As
a recent study of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod commented,
Settling divisiveness in a fighting congregation
takes a minimum of five years of “living hell.” Only a very few, strong, mature pastors can endure that much misery
and turn the situation around (Klaas, Alan C. 59).
See also
DEAR CHURCH! WE QUIT! Marriage
and Ministry Depression
Review. of Healthy Clergy, Wounded Healers: Their Families, Their Ministries
, by Roberta Chapin Walmsley and Adair Lummis (from the "Ministry
Health Newsletter" MH Article No. 334. )
D. Social Life.
A
fourth priority includes growing more intimate with our friends (Hayford 108). Having at least
one Pauline-type friend who challenges our growth, some Barnabus type friends who encourage us,
and several Timothy-type relationships with people who need our encouragement and mentoring forms a healthy dynamic. We dare
not neglect their humanness as persons for our lasting effectiveness “will only be proportionate to [our] effectiveness
in learning to live” (Hayford 27). After this priority follows the unique call within the
call that God gives each pastor and member of the pastoral family.
Quotes to ponder:
“Some pastors need to get a life. Pastors need to live a balanced life" (“Staffing
and Teaming Together”).
"Pastors
need close friends " (“An Action Plan”).
E. Pastoral family-parish relationships.
A fifth priority involves healthy pastor, pastoral family-parish
relationships. This includes both Christ like love and healthy boundaries.
Healthy pastors answer yes to David Hansen’s, “Do I really
love the church I serve?” (33). An inner attitude of ambivalence will hinder an unhealthy pastor’s leadership
of a church. Regardless of the source of such an inability to give oneself in love, be it selfishness, inner pain, or fear,
such ambivalence will preclude bonding with their congregation. Such a sin of the spirit also weakens their bond with one’s
family and increases the likelihood of falling into some sin of the flesh.
Hansen comments about pastor-church bonding that brings a new perspective
to the relationship.
We
don’t like to have to bond. I wonder if when in our frustration we say we dislike our congregation, what we are really
saying is that we dislike the bond we have with them, or more particularly, the covenant bond God has called us to. When we
think we are grumbling about our church, maybe we are grumbling against God
When a church and a pastor do not
bond, the church cannot grow—in numbers, in commitment to one another and to God, to mission, to worship, and to a deeper
spirituality. (61)
Jesus does not call pastors to bond with killer churches that have a long history
of lifting their hand against God’s anointed and despise the lordship of Christ (Hansen 112-123).
Quotes to ponder:
Hurts
in the ministry call for tougher skin. People are really not doing this to us, but they are taking their own stuff all out
on us. We have to see beyond this and pay attention to our own inner spirit and such times. You can't afford self-pity
in the ministry. Like a cut that needs to be kept clean from infection to heal, our emotional hurts and ministry must be kept
clean to heal. As long as you blame others or have resentment, ill feelings, self-pity, you will not be healed. Take responsibility
for your attitudes and actions. Stop rehearsing the hurt -- face it and let go of it.
Everyone with a very
deep level of ministry to people has gone through much pain. Overcome negative happenings in ministry by taking positive actions.
No emotional health or relationship can exist without forgiveness. Dealing with hurts in ministry will either break you or
make you.
Do
not write or call people when you are upset with them or when your emotional tank is low. What renews your emotional tank?
When your emotions are down, you are more susceptible to temptations. People get into trouble when their adrenaline is down.
Stop looking for ways to get an emotional fix (“An Action Plan”).
Boundaries.
We have more dysfunctional people than ever before.
Thus, be confident in who you are. Your self-esteem does not depend upon them. Don't allow yourself to overreact. Don't
play their games. Set boundaries and limits. When you need to confront, do so immediately. Have realistic expectations of
that person. Stop trying to change the difficult person in your lifetime. Don't take on responsibility for such sick people.
Keep yourself from becoming the difficult person's slave. No is ok. If you allow such people to beat up on your emotional
life, then let God lead you through your struggle with these difficult people so that you don't loose peace ("How
to Handle").
Pastors
who have an overly extensive and exhausting schedule can conquer the tyranny of the urgent by setting boundaries on their
use of time. Along with at least one day off a week, pastors may find it beneficial to go on a monthly twenty-four hour retreat.
Pastors and others having difficulties with boundaries may find the insights of Family Systems theory helpful in growing more
whole psychologically and interpersonally.
Pastors
with a spouse or family member who has some chronic physical or mental illness or disability will find the insights of Family
Systems theory useful in maintaining their focus for life and ministry. Often these are tragic problems that the pastor did
not create, cannot fix and is not able to control. Such tragedy oftentimes opens new doors of ministry to those who are living
with tragic pain in their lives. This is only possible through increased inner focus upon Jesus Christ as well as the fruit
of self-control for the purpose of differentiation. As a result, the pastor’s ministry to others will increase.
Therapists such as the late Murray Bowen
popularized the application of the systems thinking to family systems therapy. The key concept in this theory is the differentiation
of self. This concept means “to be in emotional contact with others yet still autonomous in one’s emotional functioning“
(Kerr, Michael and Murray Bowen 145). Without a mature differentiation of self, pastors can easily deceive themselves about
being in better contact with the problems of others than is realistic. Pastors and others who lack it will experience difficulty
in thinking, feeling and acting as individuals who are in contact but not controlled by others.
Such persons can maintain a high level of functioning
even under great stress without focusing on others. Thus, they are not easily "infected" by the anxiety of others.
This is possible because they have a high level of basic differentiation from their family of origin. Such emotional neutrality
gives them the ability to be in emotional contact with difficult, emotionally charged parish problems but not feel compelled
to control others, to "fix" the problem, or pretend neutrality by emotionally insulating themselves.
Self-differentiated persons can adapt
to change without much alteration of their functional level. This is not true of poorly differentiated pastors or family members.
Healthy pastors and others realize the danger of trying to control, rescue or "fix" the problems of poorly differentiated
congregations who may murderously strike out against the pastor or family member. Such congregations do this when their anxiety
level gets high enough.
A
former student of Bowen, Edwin Friedman, pioneered the application of family systems theory to broader ecclesiastic “families”
such as a synagogues and churches. He believed that all clergy work within three interacting emotional systems of the families
within the church, the church as a family, and their own (Friedman 195). Given the similarity of each system, any unresolved
problems in one can produce symptoms in the others.
Grasping
this concept can contribute to a less stressful approach to pastoral leadership. The key to leadership, Friedman indicated,
“is not knowledge of technique or even of pathology, but rather, the capacity of the family leader to define their own
goals and values while trying to maintain a non-anxious presence within the system” (Friedman 3). By understanding the
application of family systems theory to the church, pastors can better “recognize how they may be unwittingly ‘snookered’
into unresolved problems in their parishioners’ personal families, or between factions in the congregational family
itself, or into issues that could have been passed down in that emotional system for generations” (Friedman 196).
From this point of view, a pastor’s
self-differentiation contributes more to church health than expertise or empathy (Friedman 3). This idea comes from the belief
in the organic relationship between leading a family system to wholeness and the leaders’ ability to get themselves
together (Friedman 221-222). Unfortunately, during times of anxiety, pastors will often find this difficult to accomplish
because family systems work against the goal of differentiation. How? The more dependent leaders and church members will put
forth much effort to triangulate the pastor away from differentiation.
As pastor and family members gain spiritual maturity or wholeness in Christ in both
their attitudes and relationships, much fruit will blossom.
Any pastor who seeks by God’s grace to equip a church is called to love the
local church as a family system and not just as individuals (Hansen 19). Such love should receive guidance by the internal
boundaries of a clear theology of pastoral ministry.
Those
lacking such boundaries live out the expectations of others. Rather than being proactive they become reactive. In addition,
neurotic pastors tend to blame themselves and think that if they are good persons everything will improve. My colleague, Dr.
Milton Lowe, once called this the battered pastor syndrome.
Overall, pastors can harness the fire of their calling by achieving balance in ministry
(Headley). Furthermore pastoral and family wholeness definitely influences the impact of other aspects of a pastor’s
ministry as well. Therefore, for the pastor and family to stay healthy and have the best opportunity for seeing a church to
become healthy, let us head Christ's call to mature by his grace to the highest and best he calls us to.
The Pastoral Family In Ministry
and Martial Arts
Following
the events of September 11th, the interest in martial arts increased. I say this because of the increase in orders from martial
arts catalogues since that date made Christmas shopping even more difficult. Our boys and I have been learning Taekwondo since
November of 2000. Learning this new sport inspired me to write some reflections upon TKD and Christianity. Like a pastoral
family and a church our first Sabum Nim 's (instructor’s)
whole family was involved in helping students at our Do Jang.
All beginners in TKD receive a white belt. Like salvation, it is a gift. Like baptism,
it identifies you as a martial artist. The journey to the first-degree black belt and beyond is very much like maturing as
a disciple of Jesus Christ. Just like the first three belts in TKD, a person who is the elementary level of Christian discipleship
feeds on milk. As one grows through the remaining intermediate and advanced belts, he/she matures in both personal character
and ability as a martial artist. Similarly, as a disciple of Jesus Christ feeds on meat they grow closer to Christian adulthood
and are able to teach others. The key ingredient in both Christian discipleship and taekwondo is the character of the Sabum Nim (instructor).
During his earthly ministry, Jesus spent three
years training his future apostles. In Taekwondo, it takes about three years to produce a black belt that is also a leader.
Likewise, seminary’s hope there graduates are black belts upon graduation. Even more so, they also desire for
their graduates to mature by God’s grace beyond being first degree black belts. Thus, the image of the pastor as a church’s
Sabum-Nim highlights the importance of his or her character.
