The Wandering Shepherd

You remember B, right?  He is the famous Sugar Packets (and part 2) elder.  He is also the one who is making the most noise about the church losing its “Family” feel.  He is proving to be quite a micro-manager.

The most recent experience…

My wife was an integral part in making the ladies Bible study work.

When we came, the study would come together at 7:00 have a lecture/reading, prayer requests/information exchange (ie gossip) and then at 8:00, they would shut off the lights and lock the door.  My wife (who gets a bad rep for NOT being friendly) organized the ladies who ran the thing to give a little more thought to the relational aspects of the study as well as making it more applicable.

Fast forward to the end of the quarter and the study is winding up.  Since the women’s ministry lets out for the summer, she and the other leaders decided to have a series of gatherings at their homes for tea and cookies (or whatever ladies eat and drink).  They set the dates, and put up a few posters to remind the ladies.

B is the elder in charge of women’s ministry.  When he found out they were having gatherings in their homes, he sent an email scolding them for doing something without his approval.

Is it any wonder people don’t want to serve here?  When someone serves, this elder and his wife jump on them for something.  Can you say, “Control freak?”

What makes a church feel like family?

Somewhere in the last few weeks, someone has been making the rounds to elders and staff (although, I guess it could be an elder…) saying, “This church just doesn’t feel like family any more.”  I think the “Any more” means, “Since I came.”

One person said that what we need to make church feel more like family is have more announcements.   Apparently at his dinner table someone stands up periodically and makes announcements about upcoming events.

One elder said we need to have people come up and pray after the service.

One of our staff guys said, “We just need to recognize every baby, birthday and burp from the pulpit.”  (my own wording.  :) )

Someone told me I need to be more extroverted, like T___ (another pastor on staff).

I am not the most personable guy on the planet.  I don’t think I ever will be.  I don’t think I can be someone I am not.  I don’t think I have single handedly removed the family spirit from our church.  It was gone a long time ago.

I wonder if anyone considered that feeling like a family might come from real relationships between individual people within the congregation?  I wonder if the fact that the church has been run in an atmosphere of sterile secrecy for years might contribute to the lack of family.

Nope.  Not that.  I am sure it is me.

I talked about legalism today.  The point was that we need to make Jesus our focus.  (I know, pretty bland…) One lady came up to me afterwards to take issue with the fact that I talked about people from her home state (also happens to be mine) storing old appliances in their back yards.  She was angry because she had never seen it.

Sheesh.  Is that all you got out of this message?

It is the plight of all pastors, I am sure.  I spend my time doing what I don’t want to do, and increasingly I wonder if I am not doing what I can’t do.

I deal with a steady trickle of complaints.  “This place doesn’t feel like family.”  “I don’t like the coffee.”  “I am not being fed.”  “It is too loud.”  “Why didn’t you tell us about…”  “I don’t like the bulletin.”  “I don’t have email, why can’t we do a regular newsletter.”  “We need a ______ ministry.  We are going to have to find a church that offers it.”

Closely related to the complaints is the barrage of people who are sure they know how to do my job and that I don’t.  “You need to preach about _____.”  “You are not personal enough.”  “Talk to more people.”  “Send more emails.”  “Send less email.”  “You should have a calling program.”  “You should end your sermons with a prayer time.”  “Why don’t you bring all the prayer requests you know to us?”  “You should circulate among the small groups.”  “You need to ______.”

Add to all of that the constant money pressures, demands at home, etc, etc, etc.

I look at all of this and I wonder, “Do I have what it takes to be a pastor?”  “Is this even what it means to be a pastor?”

I went to a large church to attend a “music” program for one of my kids.  I sat in the auditorium and pitied the guy who had more people making him feel less adequate.

With the sparse (ok, non-existant) updates to this site, I am sure I have lost all my readers.  That is ok.  This is for me.

I have been thinking about what this place should be.

I don’t want it to be a rant–a place where internet road rage is acceptable.  But I do rant.

I don’t want it to be biographical.  Not much point in that.  But there is biographical stuff.

I don’t want it to be theological.  I need to do my theological thinking someplace where I can invite people to come interact.  But theology is a part.

I want this place to be therapeutic.  This is a place where I will write stuff I can’t write anywhere else.  Stuff that makes me scram.  Stuff that makes me sad.  Stuff that if people knew, they wouldn’t know what to do with me as pastor.  Stuff I have to get out.

So, now, do we know what this place is?

……….

Oh…and I don’t know how often it will be updated.  If you want to read the blog and don’t want to check it regularly only to find nothing, just subscribe to the email feed and when it is updated, you will be notified.

Wow.  It has been a long time since my last update.  I guess life has been really busy and not that interesting.

The normal sickness… The elders decided not to meet with the divisive group.  Sadly, they communicated everything through email which means that much of the important aspects of communication have been lost.  We will probably lose some of the people.  Sad.

Something good.  We are currently working on retooling our whole church program.  it means we can make some significant progress.  The danger, of course, is that it will undoubtably bring much turmoil.

Should be interesting.

I will try to update more often…