This particular blog is extremely personal for me. Feel free, if you don’t want to take a trip down my road, to just read Mary’s blog this week and let it go at that.

From time to time over the years I have been asked about being in the ministry. “You know, I think I might like being in the ministry. What do you think, Pastor?”

My standard answer is, “Don’t be an idiot.”

How can you say such a thing, Pastor??? How can you run down the ministry? How can you advise someone to avoid the calling?

I have an aunt who once said to me, “My, being a pastor would be such a wonderful life, walking and talking with the Lord!” I looked over at my wife and we both rolled our eyes.

Here is the thing. First, I would never advise someone to avoid the calling. But someone who is weighing his options, considering some form of ministry, doesn’t have a calling. They have heartburn. If you have the calling you KNOW you have the calling. It becomes all you can think about. It lays on your soul like a ton of bricks. I have known pastors who made the ministry a career choice. Their pastorates were disasters. I have known others who have fought the calling. They were miserable. So, someone who thinks they might like being in the ministry are heading down a scary and dark path. Second, any Christian can walk and talk with the Lord. In fact, that should be our highest priority. I have wondered about what my aunt was thinking. Do the Lord and I sit down in my kitchen and chat over coffee? Do we go fishing together? Are we both baseball fans? My walk with the Lord is no different than anyone else’s walk. Sometimes it is rocky, sometimes it is smooth and sweet. When I first held my baby son, my walk with the Lord was awesome! When my wife left me, it was pretty rugged. Ups and downs. He is always there, though.

 There are many different avenues of ministry. Mine happens to be the pastorate. Which, by the way, is different from preaching. Many people who are pastors of churches tell their congregation that they do not do hospital, nursing home or home visits for shut ins. They are not really pastors. They are preachers. Nothing wrong with that, it is just a different calling. If you are a pastor, you are compelled to make those visits. Preaching is not my calling. It is kind of funny. Churches will be looking for a pastor and they take resumes and they line someone up to come in and preach and then they call that person largely based on their preaching abilities. Then they complain when their new ‘pastor’ doesn’t make calls.

The seminary I went to required that you be at least 30 years old to go there. They wanted you to have some life experience other than ministry. One day one of our professors asked me what the most important tool had been in my tool box. I thought about it and finally said my pair of channel locks. He laughed and asked why. Well, they can be used for so many things. A wrench. Something to grip with. And they don’t make a bad hammer in a pinch. Then he asked me what the two most important tools were in my ministry tool box. Without hesitation I said my Bible. He nodded and then he asked about the second most important tool. I really thought on that and couldn’t come up with an answer. He asked me then if I felt called to be a pastor or a preacher. Again, no hesitation. A pastor. Then, he said, your second most important tool will be your car. And he was exactly right. Over the years I have driven hundreds of thousands of miles. The only thing I have changed about visitation is I no longer like to go where I am going to be verbally abused. “Pastor, please go see my aging neighbor. He’s not going to like you and he will likely call you every name in the book and he will yell at you, but he needs a visit.” And off I’d go. And I still will. Once or twice. But no one likes to be abused.

The pastorate is something I cannot explain well enough for most people to understand. I was asked once in Ohio why it was that the local Catholic priest and I were such close friends, seeing that our theologies were so different. My answer was that we were both pastors. The person who asked the question didn’t understand, but that priest, his name was Paul, had a deep yearning for his congregation. Paul was a gentle soul, but he would have fought you to the death for his people. We understood each other on a level most never quite grasp.

To a pastor, the congregation is much more than a group of people who show up for church. The congregation is much more than family. The congregation is much more than friends. So hard to explain. Moses in the Wilderness. Exodus 32. While Moses is on the mountain with the Lord the people below implore Aaron, the brother of Moses, to make them a golden calf that they can worship. Aaron does so. Moses is angry, as is God. God tells Moses that he will destroy the ungrateful people and raise up Moses as the beginning of a new nation. Then Moses begins to plead for the people and asks God to spare them. That is what being a pastor is like. They can make you so FRUSTRATED, but you love them so much.

And you cannot turn that love off.

You leave a church and you are supposed to leave the people behind. If it was a good relationship and it is simply time to go based on God’s leading, it is hard to go. But you make a clean break so that the next pastor can be the pastor. It is just the way it is. But you can’t make your heart not care anymore. Especially for the Youth.

I am writing this on Thursday afternoon and I am in the office. I usually write the blog at home as it is sort of an extracurricular activity. But today I can think of nothing else. So here we are.

At 10:12 this morning I got a text message. She was 12 when I first met her. Now she is in her 40s. She is one of the rare former Youth who have made a series of bad judgment calls. But she was, and always will be, one of mine. The text said, “When will you be free? I need to talk to you.” I knew immediately that there was a problem. I don’t know why, but I knew that my day was wrecked. I sent back and told her she could call me any time. I sent the text and laid down my phone and it rang. It was her. I answered. “Hey girl.” The voice on the other end was not that of the twelve year old she had been, but it was close. “You always told us that you wouldn’t judge us.” “Yes, that’s right, but I also told you that I would tell you what I think, too.”  “Right. I remember. Here goes.”

What followed was an hour and a half conversation that has left me broken hearted. I am so sad. My heart feels like it will collapse in on itself. But, while talking to her I had to maintain who I am, particularly who I am to her. Even now, I would do anything for her, but I can’t help her with this. Six weeks ago, maybe. But now…..well, it is out of control.

We read all the time of people who make bad decisions. If they were looking at someone else making that decision, they would think that the person was crazy. But when it comes to them making the same decision, they can rationalize it completely so that they see it as good. Somebody waves a toy gun at someone else and they get shot dead. Stupid decision. Someone jumps into the water fully clothed and tries to swim to a boat a couple of hundred yards off shore. Stupid decision. Someone leans way over a cliff’s edge to get a picture. Stupid decision.

           By the time you read this, I will be back up and running. In forty five years of ministry I have taught myself to set things aside and go on to the next thing. But, folks, at this moment I can hardly stand it. There is a price to pay to be a pastor. But there is nothing else I could ever do. The funeral home was a different kind of ministry, but it just didn’t meet the need that being a pastor does. 
          However, on days like today, I would rather be living in my car under a bridge somewhere.