Why I Failed in Church Ministry

I had a conversation yesterday with a few of my co-workers as we drove back from a meeting in Denton. We were talking about leadership and dealing with difficult people and I found myself once again thinking back to my days in full-time church ministry.

I’ve not worked in full-time church ministry for six years now, but I still think about it almost every day. You see, I still miss it (or at least parts of it). And at one level, I was very, very good at it.

I miss studying for and crafting messages that educated and encouraged people in the deep places of their hearts, helping them imagine a deeper, richer future with God and each other.

I miss being a vibrant part of a body of believers working toward a common goal.

But perhaps most of all, I miss helping hurting, broken people untangle the twisted places within them and learn to rest in the love of the Father. This was my strong suit.

And that, you see, is why I failed. I failed because I have a tender, sensitive heart. I, like many others, bruise easily. I failed because I suck at being ganged up on by church leaders. I’ve often been told in my life that I needed to grow thicker skin. I’ve decided that’s stupid advice. The truth is that I don’t have thick skin. I never have and never will. God didn’t make me, as he does some people, with thick skin. My skin is thin and my soul is sensitive. It’s how he made me, and, it’s what makes me so good at helping hurting, broken people.

Telling someone to grow thicker skin is like telling a fish he needs to learn to breathe on land. No, I will never have thick skin.

And that probably means I’ll never work in church ministry again. And that makes me sad. But since most churches, at least in my experience, seem to require Timex ministers – you know, guys who can take a licking and keep on ticking – and since that’s clearly not me, I’ve little choice but to find other ways to use my gifts . . . and other ways to earn a living.

I’m learning to be okay with that. Still.

And God is helping me.

Examining Examen

“Discernment in its fullest takes a practiced heart, fine-tuned to hear the Word of God and the single-mindedness to follow that word in love. It is truly a gift from God, but not one dropped from the skies fully formed. It is a gift cultivated by a prayerful life and the search for self-knowledge.” – Ernest Larkin

Among the things I love about this quote by Ernest Larkin is that he pictures discernment as a gift of God, but one that is cultivated by prayer and the search for self-knowledge. There is something about the way each of us were made that must play into the discernment process.

According to St. Ignatius, God directs us in three ways:

1) Direct revelation
2) Through the practice of examen
3) Through the use of our intellect

I want to talk in this post about examen. This is perhaps a new word for many. It’s most likely pronounced with a long “a” sound – like “exAmen.”

Examen helps us pay attention to our hearts, which is something we’ve been talking about here for a few weeks. Examen is the art of paying attention to what is giving us life and what is taking life from us. What is giving life, and what is sucking life. Ignatius called these two categories consolation and desolation.

Generally speaking, God wants you to do more of the things that give you life and less of the things that don’t. There are some qualifications to this, which we’ll get to in a bit, but this is generally true.

We can learn a lot about ourselves by learning to pay attention to the things that are life-giving (consolations) and life-sucking (desolations) for us.

Let’s do consolation first. The way this works is to get quiet and still (just like the last exercise), and to ask yourself these kinds of questions: “What has been life-giving for me this week? Where have I found blessing? What am I thankful for this week? What’s been the high point of my week this week?”

And here’s the most important question: “Why? What, specifically, was life-giving about that? Why was a this such a blessing to me?” Take your time here. Don’t rush this reflection time. Probe this deeply. And write down your answers in a journal, and reflect on that.

After you’ve spent a bit of time on consolations, do the same with the desolations. What is taking life from me this week? With what have I struggled most this week? What is sucking me dry?

And again, ask yourself “why.” Why is this so draining for me? What about this is so life-sucking? This is really important, so again, don’t rush this process. Sometimes we need to invite God into the desolation, because sometimes the reason it’s taking life from me is because I need to address something.

This is a great exercise to do weekly, but it’s also good to do monthly and even yearly in addition to doing it weekly. Identifying these patterns over time is what really helps us with discernment.

It’s also helpful occasionally to do what some have called a “final examen.” Imagine what you’d do if you only had a month to live. What would give you life? What would take life from you?

Now, let’s talk a bit about some of the dangers of this. It’s not really that examen is dangerous, but that we tend to be a bit dangerous with it. You may have a tendency to want to interpret “what gives you life” as whatever gives you the most pleasure or the most fun (like “having an affair with this woman sure is life-giving to me, so I should do more of it.”). Similarly, you may want to interpret “what takes life from you” as whatever is difficult or not enjoyable (like, “working on our marriage challenges with my wife sure is draining; therefore I shouldn’t do it.). In America, we’re all about half-narcissistic, and so we tend to think fun and pleasure are the highest goals, and that discomfort and difficulty should always be avoided. This is not what examen is about. Something may be difficult for you because you’re being selfish. God may want to transform this part of you. The point here is to keep your motivations in check. Be honest with what you’re feeling and why.

Examen is a powerful tool that can really help you connect you with what is most authentic about you; what has been placed within you by God.

I don’t remember where this quote comes from, but I’ve always liked it:

In the process of living life faithfully, lovingly, and freely, we create meaning with God. It is a question of “being” rather than “doing.”

God has placed a bit of himself within each of us; a bit of his heart in our hearts. Learning to pay attention to that part of us, responding to its promptings, is what gives our lives meaning, purpose, and hope.

Try this next week and let me know how it goes.

Shalom

Identity and Expectations

When does trying to meet the expectations of others become unhealthy? Most of us have found ourselves on a wicked treadmill of being driven or consumed by the expectations of others.

I’d like to suggest that the only way to not be constantly blown around by the expectations of others (or by the ridiculous expectations we sometimes place on ourselves) is to live in a state of confidence in your own identity. Who you truly are. Who God has made you to be.

Ah, but where do we acquire such confidence? Most people I know have only the vaguest sense of who they really are. If you ask them who they are, they’ll start telling you what they do. Push them a bit farther and they quickly grow quiet. Only God can give you such confidence because only God can give you your identity. Only your Creator can tell you – accurately – who you were created to be.

Furthermore, only knowing who we really are – at a heart level – can direct us toward what we are to do (our calling or vocation), and by extension, away from what we’re not to do.

Sadly, many (most?) people are deaf to God’s “still, small voice.” Many (most?) people cannot hear God speak into their Iives his message of peace, love, healing, and identity. This is so because they have not created any space in their lives in which they could hear God.

Intimacy with God is the cultivated space in which God can do the work of deep healing and identity formation in the heart of the disciple.

We will never move beyond the warped sense of self we all possess until we create the space in our lives in which God can begin to work on our hearts – shredding the false self and all its attachments, props, and masks – breathing life into the shell that remains, and recreating a new person – redeemed and transformed into his image, and thus confident in their identity.

Shalom