My favorite time was after a round of 18 holes of golf with a friend, and his co-worker that I just met. The times, that is, when people find out that I'm a pastor. And, it tends to be people who barely connected to church (the Easter and Christmas thing), or who may have no religious background. This has been changing in the past 10 years, but with my generation and older, many people were uncomfortable around pastors and would act differently once they knew this.
I didn't want people to know I was a pastor because I didn't want them to act or try to be different around me. So, this beautiful summer day in Ohio I am with Larry, who is a member of our church, and his co-worker who never asked me about my vocation. This guy was funny. He was telling jokes the entire round- some pretty funny ones, then he would drop in a crude joke, and he was dropping the F-bomb and some other colorful language the entire round. I enjoyed being with him.
After the round of golf, we had a drink and something to eat. As we were eating, the co-worker dude asks me, "So, what do you do?" When I told him I was the pastor at Larry's church, he about choked on his burrito, gulped, and then said, "Thanks, Larry; why didn't you tell me earlier! Holy cow; I'm sorry for all the jokes...." Which is why I often don't tell people what I do so they don't try and be something they are not.
Which leads to another "pastor" conversation. Whether it is the person sitting next to me on a plane, or a neighbor I meet for the first time, or any stranger I meet- do you want to guess what the first question I am asked after I tell them I'm a pastor of a church? Almost always it is: "So, how big is your church?" Based on some of the comments and body language, I can often sense the question, and my answer, is the grid that is used to measure success. Big= successful. Small= unsuccessful.
You should see the looks now when my answer, over the past year, has been 15, 20 or 25!
Which then leads me to a comment Brad Cecil of Axxess church made about how they are measuring success. It was in the context of this newer, emerging church that has a deep commitment to community and relationships. "...we want to be a community of people committed to sharing life together...We don't measure our success by numeric growth. We have decided to measure by other means, such as, How long do relationships last? Are members of the community at peace with one another? Are relationships reconciled?" (p. 99, Emerging Churches by E. Gibbs and R. Bolger).
I track with that focus on community as it is part of our core values at The Bridge. I would also add other means by which we might measure our success related to our core values: What are we doing to serve the poor? How are we seeking social justice in our city/world? What is the nature of the conversations like in our community? etc.
It's a different way of defining success, which, ultimately, is the wrong question. Not to be cliche: but, it is about faithfulness in our lives personally, and in our communities of faith. I admit the ways in which I have succumbed to the voices and judgments of others about who we are. As Henri Nouwen has written succinctly and prophetically: the way we often answer this is, "We are our success, we are our popularity, we are our power." (p. 134, Here and Now) The deeper voice, however, keeps prodding me.
Being a community, in a network of relationships, is a central component of what we aspire to be at The Bridge. How and what this will look like specifically, as we journey forward, is unknown; but it will be community. Even as we have it anchored in the very nature of God in community/relationship as Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
"So, how big is your church?" My neighbor down the street might now get it. I do.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment