5 Joints and Ligaments
CHAPTER FIVE
JOINTS AND LIGAMENTS
Pastor, have you ever asked yourself, who am I, and what do I spiritually need? Or have you ever thought about your pastor and asked, who is my pastor, and what does he need in order to remain spiritually healthy and grow in grace? Does it seem right and healthy that in many churches the functional reality is that no one gets less of the ministry of the body of Christ than the pastor does? Does it seem best that most pastors are allowed to live outside of or up above the body of Christ? If every pastor is, in fact, a man in the middle of his own sanctification, shouldn’t he be receiving the normal range of the essential ministry of the body of Christ that God has ordained for every member of the church to receive? Is there any indication in the New Testament that the pastor is the exception to the normal rules that God has designed for the health and growth of his people? Is it possible that we have constructed a kind of relationship of the pastor to his congregation that cannot work? Could it be that we’re asking something of our pastors that they will be unable to do? Is it biblical to tell pastors that they won’t be able to be friends with anyone, that they must live in an isolation that we would say is unhealthy for anyone else?
THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND
You only need to take seriously what the Bible has to say about the presence and power of remaining sin to know the great danger in allowing anyone to live separate from the essential ministry of the body of Christ, let alone the person who is charged with leading, guiding, and protecting that body as the representative of Christ. If Christ is the head of his body—and he is—then everything else is just body. The most influential pastor or ministry leader is a member of the body of Christ and therefore needs what the other members of the body need. There is no indication in the New Testament that the pastor is the exception to the rule of all that is said about the interconnectivity and necessary ministry of the body of Christ. What is true of the seemingly less significant members of the body is also true of the pastor. An intentional culture of pastoral separation and isolation is neither biblical nor spiritually healthy.
Let me suggest one passage, which I have written about before, that powerfully reinforces this point. It is Hebrews 3:12–13: “Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called ‘today,’ that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” This passage puts before us a critical warning and an essential call that together reinforce the presence and power of remaining sin and the need for the daily ministry of the body of Christ in the life of every member (pastor included) of the body of Christ.
Consider with me the critical warning. I don’t know if you noticed it, but the warning in this passage is progressive. It pictures the progressive steps of the hardening of a believer’s heart. (The greeting, “brothers,” tells us this passage is written to believers.) The warning reads like this: “See to it that none of you has an evil—unbelieving, falling away—hardened heart.” It is a picture of what sin does if undetected, unexposed, and unforsaken. Let me work through the steps with you.
It all begins with me giving way to sin in my life. I let things into my life that are outside the boundaries of what God has called me to be and do, things that God would name as “evil.” Because I am a believer and the heart of stone has been taken out of me and replaced with a heart of flesh, my conscience bothers me when I sin. This is the beautiful, convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit. When my conscience is activated and bothered, I am faced with making one of two choices. The first and best choice is to admit that what I have done is wrong and place myself once again under the justifying mercies of Christ, receiving his forgiveness. Or I can erect some system of self-atonement that essentially argues for the rightness of what I’ve done. What I am doing here is making myself feel good about what God says is not good. I am participating in my own spiritual blindness. Every person still living with sin inside is a very skilled self-swindler. I think we do this way more often than we are aware.
So the pastor who has just become angry during an elders’ meeting will tell himself he wasn’t angry; he was just speaking like one of God’s prophets: “Thus says the Lord!” The husband and wife who are gossiping about someone in their small group all the way home from the meeting will tell themselves that it isn’t gossip; it’s just a very extended and detailed prayer request. The tightfisted businessman who struggles to be giving will tell himself that he is just being a good steward of the resources that God has entrusted to him. We all have a perverse ability to make ourselves feel good about what is in no way good.
This is exactly what the next step in the hardening process is about. “Unbelieving” captures what we do to cover our sin and defend our righteousness. Rather than a simple faith and rest in the accurate diagnosis of the Word of God and the sufficient grace of Christ, we work to tell ourselves that we are not really, in this particular instance, sinners in need of forgiving mercy, because what we have done is not, in fact, wrong. Our self-atoning arguments are acts of pride, rebellion, and unbelief.
This street-level pride, rebellion, and unbelief invariably give sin further room to operate. Because we have not confessed, repented, and sought the forgiving, transforming, empowering, and delivering grace that we need, we have opened ourselves up to more of sin’s ugly work. The third part in this sad progression, “falling away,” captures this well. It is a firm acceptance of the diagnostic of Scripture and a firm rest in the grace of Christ that anchor us against the storms of temptation, and when we cut that anchor rope, we will always end up drifting further.
Where we finally end is with a “hardened” heart. What once bothered us doesn’t bother us anymore. What once activated our conscience doesn’t seem to anymore. What we knew was outside of God’s boundaries, and therefore was functionally outside of ours, lives inside our boundaries, and it doesn’t matter to us anymore. It is a scary place to be. The hard heart is a stony heart. It’s not malleable anymore. It’s hard and resistant to change, no longer tender and responsive to the squeeze of the hands of the Spirit. There is evil in our hearts and in the acts of our hands, and we’re okay with it. Could there be a more dangerous place for a believer to be?
Let me be candid here. I’ve been in this place as a pastor. I held a bitter list of wrongs against people in my congregation, and I worked to be okay with it. I gossiped about people I was called to care for, and it didn’t bother me. I was envious of the ministry of others, and it did not grieve me. At times I preached to gain the respect of someone in my congregation and did not see that as the idolatry it was. And because I didn’t see these things as the evil that they were, I felt no need for change.
Now, the question that every reader should be asking at this point is how can these scary steps of hardening take place in the life of a believer? It is here where you need the writer of Hebrews’ theology of remaining sin. Essentially he says that this is able to happen because sin is fundamentally deceptive. You will never understand the warning of this passage and the call that follows until you understand the theology of spiritual blindness that is the epicenter of both the warning and the call.
Sin is deceptive, and think with me about who it deceives first. I have no difficulty recognizing the sin of the people around me, but I can be quite unprepared when my sin is pointed out. Sin deceives ten out of ten people reading this book. But it is not enough even to say that; there is more that needs to be said. It needs to be noted that spiritual blindness is not like physical blindness. When you are physically blind, you know that you are blind, and you do things to compensate for this significant physical deficit. But spiritually blind people are not only blind; they are blind to their own blindness. They are blind, but they think that they see well. So the spiritually blind person walks around with the delusion that no one has a more accurate view of him than he does. He thinks he sees and is unaware of the powerfully important things in his heart that he absolutely does not see at all.
This is where the essential call of the passage comes in. The call is to encourage (or exhort) each other daily. Here’s the significant explanation as to why this call is essential: “that none of you be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.” The blinding ability of sin is so powerful and persuasive that you and I literally need daily intervention. What the writer of Hebrews is crushing with this warning and call is any allegiance we might have to an isolated, individualized, “Jesus and me” Christianity. He is arguing for the essentiality of the ministry of others in the life of every believer. Obviously, this includes the pastor. None of us is wired to live this Christian life alone. None of us is safe living separated and unknown. Each of us, whether pastor or congregant, needs the eyes of others in order to see ourselves with clarity and accuracy. And what is this daily ministry of intervention protecting us from? The answer should sober every one of us: the grace of having our private conversations interrupted by the insight-giving ministry of others is protecting us from becoming spiritually blinded to the point of the hardening of our hearts. The author argues here that personal spiritual insight is the product of community. It’s very difficult to get it by yourself. Perhaps every pastor needs to humbly recognize that because of the blinding power of remaining sin, self-examination is a community project. Every pastor needs people in his life in order to see himself with biblical accuracy.
This means that pastors who convince themselves that they are able to live outside of God’s regular system of help and protection are in danger of becoming increasingly blind and hard of heart. This means that in their blindness they begin to think of themselves as more righteous than they actually are, and because they think they are more righteous than they actually are, they are resistant to change. This means they will not hunger for the exhortation and admonition of others. They will not respond well when being reminded of their ongoing need for change. They will not work well with others because they will tend to think that they are right and know best. Thinking that they are right and know best means that they will not listen well and work as well as someone who is convinced that his walk with God is a community project.
It also means that they will struggle to be patient with people who are messing up or have lost their way. Self-righteous people tend not to be patient and understanding in the face of the failure of others. This goes back to the reality that no one gives grace better than a person who knows he desperately needs it himself. This self-righteous blindness also means that they will not deal very well with opposition and accusation. They will not see these things as tools of uncomfortable grace sent by a God who is continuing his work in them. Because they are content with who they are, they will wonder why God has singled them out for this particular difficulty, in moments giving way to questioning the goodness and wisdom of God.
I have talked with many pastors whose real struggle isn’t first with the hardship of ministry, the lack of appreciation and involvement of people, or difficulties with fellow leaders. No, the real struggle they are having, one that is very hard for a pastor to admit, is with God. What has caused ministry to become hard and burdensome is disappointment with and anger at God. It’s hard to represent someone you have come to doubt. It’s hard to encourage others to functionally trust someone you’re not sure you trust. It is nearly impossible in ministry to give away what you yourself do not have.
Could this passage be a more needed and accurate diagnosis, warning, and call to every pastor, no matter how long he’s been in ministry, no matter where he is located, and no matter the size of the church he serves?
LIVING IN THE DANGER ZONE
Joe and Judy entered ministry with a mutual sense of excitement and calling. They could not believe that they were called to the privilege of doing ministry for a living. They loved the church they had attended for years, the place where their gifts and calling had been recognized. They loved being interns and then members of the staff and finally the honor of being chosen as the leaders of the newest church plant. It all seemed like a dream come true. They had lived in vibrant, mutually ministering community. People had spoken into their lives almost daily. They simply were never left to their own view of themselves. They were never expected to make it on their own. It was expected that they would mess up at points or lose their way. Protecting and preventing love was all around—love that was candid, encouraging, confronting, forgiving, and hopeful. Because they had grown so used to it, Joe and Judy left to plant the new church, seriously underestimating the importance of the ministry of personal insight and growth that they were leaving behind. They had no idea that they were stepping into the danger zone where no Christian, let alone a pastor, should attempt to live.
Almost immediately things began to change inside Joe, changes that he neither saw nor was concerned about. As a young pastor with a committed core group and a zeal to bring the gospel to his community, Joe began to deal with heart issues that he hadn’t dealt with before, although he didn’t recognize the significance of these issues. And he surely had no idea that these concerns would lead him into the danger zone and almost become the undoing of his ministry. I first met with Joe and his wife when they were just on the cusp of throwing in the towel. Judy said it this way: “All I long for is the freedom to live with a man who is not in ministry. I can’t stand what it has done to Joe and our family. I’m done. I just can’t do this anymore, and I think Joe is in no condition to lead others.”
How did Joe and Judy get to this disheartening and discouraging place? The journey from ministry excitement to personal danger and ministry discouragement began with changes in Joe’s heart. Perhaps these changes won’t seem very significant or dangerous to you, but they almost led to this gifted man’s undoing. Almost the minute they arrived to plant the church, Joe began to feel burdens that he hadn’t felt before. He shared these burdens with no one, not even Judy. As the leader of this core group of courageous people, who had left a vibrant church to give themselves to this new ministry, Joe felt a huge pressure not to do anything that would disappoint. He felt more pressure than he had ever felt before to be sure to always say and do the right thing. He did not want people to be concerned at those moments when he felt weak, overwhelmed, unable, or afraid. And he surely didn’t want Judy to see those things, because, of all people, she had been willing to leave much and risk much to follow him to this new place of ministry. He felt the need to act encouraged, hopeful, and assured (the operative term here is act), even when he wasn’t. And in doing this, he began to be comfortable with a disharmony between his public ministry persona and the actual realities of his heart and life.
He told himself that this was important because he didn’t want people to begin to question their involvement as a result of questioning his ability to lead. In ways of which he was not aware, Joe began to wall himself off from people. He got good at giving generalized nonanswers to personal questions. He got good at dispensing biblical, theological platitudes instead of talking about what he was really thinking and feeling. Yes, a pastor needs to be wise in what he discloses to whom, but he must not wall himself completely off from the body of Christ and name that as the cost of the ministry to which he has been called. But that is exactly what Joe did and what many, many pastors are doing around the world. Not only are they living in isolation, but also they are convinced that it is what they have been called to do. They name their isolation not as a danger but as a good and mature choice. Many young pastors tell me that they have been counseled by the more senior pastors, who are mentoring them, to live in isolation.
Joe worried about how the knowledge of his struggles would harm people’s hope in the power of the gospel. He didn’t want people to question the gospel because it didn’t look as though the gospel was working in the life of their pastor. He wondered how they could trust God’s help if it didn’t look as if God was helping their pastor. So without there being one conscious moment of decision, Joe went into hiding. It seemed natural to him, the cost of his calling. Sure, he would say theological things about his need for grace, but never in a way that would lead others to seriously think that their pastor was a spiritually needy man.
Yet being the man that he thought he needed to be, working to be more publicly righteous than he actually was, was exhausting and burdensome. Even in more informal gatherings, Joe didn’t relax. So he didn’t enjoy these gatherings and would look for reasons not to participate. He had looked forward to the freedom and joy of being able to use and express his gifts as a senior pastor, but he didn’t feel free, and he wasn’t experiencing the joy that he thought he would experience. Joe was convinced of something that I have had many pastors say to me as well: he was convinced that everyone else in the body of Christ could confess sin, but he could not and must not.
Not only did Joe’s isolation significantly add to the burden of pastoral ministry, but it also did something that was even more dangerous. It left Joe to his own blindness. It left him to his rationalizations, excuses, defenses, and self-atoning arguments. I’m not being hard on Joe here. These things are the tendencies of every sinner, because one of the most powerful components of spiritual blindness is self-deception. There is no one we swindle more than we swindle ourselves. There is no one we run to defend more than we do ourselves. And like every other spiritually blind person, Joe was blind to his blindness. In fact, Joe’s blindness was even harder for him to acknowledge because his ministry gifts, skill, and discipline made it look to him that he was doing okay. But he wasn’t okay.
Increasingly Joe was allowing himself to be okay with things that he should not be okay with: a hurtful poke at another person, gossip about a fellow leader, impatience in the middle of a meeting, walking away angry from a conversation, harboring bitterness against certain people in the church, infrequency in his time of personal worship and devotion, and growing impatience, irritation, and isolation at home. Judy began to notice what she would now characterize as a changed Joe, but the changes didn’t happen in an instant. It was a process of Joe’s doing and saying things that he once wouldn’t have done; but what concerned Judy was that this no longer seemed to bother Joe. When Joe had given in to these temptations in the past, his pattern had always been to confess and make right what needed to be made right.
Not only was Judy concerned that Joe wasn’t confessing, but he would also get angry quickly when Judy would try to point out the problems. He would tell her that so much of his ministry was about being scrutinized and criticized by people that he didn’t need to come home and have it happen there as well. Judy also noticed Joe separating himself from the family. He spent way too much time Facebooking the world and a scary amount of time numbing himself with television. And there seemed to be no way Judy could talk to him about it, and if the kids disturbed him, Joe responded with anything but parental patience and grace.
The separation between Joe’s public ministry persona and his private life became too much for Judy to bear. She began to feel that ministry was destroying Joe and her family. Quietly she began to hope and pray that Joe would come to the end of himself and want to get out of ministry. Joe was in pastoral isolation and survival mode. He was cranking out his duties, but the joy was gone. When Judy looked at Joe and watched him struggle through another week, it really did look as if Jesus had left the building. She could take it no more. She loved Joe too much. She thought his calling was too holy. So, she gave that fateful ultimatum to Joe: “It’s me or the ministry.”
I wish I could say that Joe’s story is unique, but it is not. The details are individual, but I have heard the contours of this story again and again. The problem is bigger than the sin of an individual pastor. There are changes needed in the shape of pastoral culture. How can we realistically expect anyone in the middle of the sanctification process to live outside of one of God’s most important means of personal insight and growth and be spiritually healthy at the same time? How can we ask pastors to confess what they, because of their isolation, don’t see? How can we ask them to confess when they are convinced that honest confession would cost them not only respect but also their jobs? And how can we expect them to repent and turn from what they have not confessed? How is it that in many situations we have come to expect that the one leading the body of Christ can do well spiritually while getting less of the ministry of the body of Christ than everyone he has been called to lead? Why would we be surprised that pastors struggle with sin? Why would we think that pastors do not need to be lovingly confronted and rebuked? Why would it surprise us to know that pastors too fall into identity amnesia and begin to seek horizontally what they have already been given in Christ? Why would we conclude that pastors are protected from self-righteousness and defensiveness just because they are in full-time ministry? Why would we assume that pastors who have not been educated in the ways of grace would rest in the righteousness of Christ and not defend and parade their own?
Is it safe to assume that your pastor is loving his wife, children, and extended family well? Is it safe to assume that he is using his time and money well? Is it safe to assume that he is honoring God with what he does in his most private moments? Is it safe to assume that he is as committed to the opportunities and responsibilities of his calling as he should be? Is it safe to assume that he works to make sure that there is living agreement between his public proclamations and his private life? Doesn’t every member of the body of Christ need the ministry of the body of Christ, including the pastor?
A BETTER, MORE HEALTHY WAY
Let me suggest several steps that can work to bring pastors out of isolation and into more regular contact with the essential and normal ministries of the body of Christ. These are written to pastors and those who care for them.
1) REQUIRE YOUR PASTOR TO ATTEND A SMALL GROUP HE DOESN’T LEAD.
It is a simple but very effective way for a small group of people to get to know their pastor, to see him in a more normal setting, and to learn the places where he needs ministry and prayer. The pastors I have talked to who are doing this have all reported how spiritually beneficial it has been.
2) PASTOR, SEEK OUT A SPIRITUALLY MATURE PERSON TO MENTOR YOU AT ALL TIMES.
Pastor, make sure you are being pastored the entire time you are pastoring others. Seek out a mature and reliable person with whom you can share your heart. Work to build with that person a sturdy bond of trust. Refuse to live without this kind of person in your life. Meet with this individual as frequently as possible. Share your struggles with him and be humble enough to listen when pastorally spoken to.
3) ESTABLISH A PASTORS’ WIVES’ SMALL GROUP.
At Tenth Presbyterian Church, where I served for the last several years, there is a beautiful monthly gathering of all the pastors’ wives. It is a “what is said here stays here” gathering. The main part of this gathering is extended sharing by each of the pastors’ wives, followed by an extensive time of prayer for each. Not only has this been an amazing help and protection for each of the wives, but also it has stimulated and directed each to minister to her husband more boldly and more wisely. This may be the most effective small group in the church. If your church is small and does not have multiple pastors, try to establish something similar between several churches.
4) PASTOR, BE COMMITTED TO APPROPRIATE SELF-DISCLOSURE IN YOUR PREACHING.
There are surely struggles that you should not share in a public ministry setting, but there are many that you can. Not only do these often become the most effective illustrations of the importance and practicality of the truths you exegete, but also they remind people that, like them, you too need rescuing, forgiving, empowering grace. When you do this, people quit looking at you and saying, “If only I could be like my pastor.” No, they look through you and see the glory of an ever-present Christ. You quit being a painting that they gaze at, and you start being a window to the One who is your and their hope. It has impressed me, when I share personally in preaching, how many people let me know later that they have prayed for me.
5) BE SURE THAT YOUR PASTOR AND HIS FAMILY ARE REGULARLY INVITED INTO THE HOMES OF FAMILIES IN YOUR CHURCH.
Determine that you will not let your pastor and his family live in isolation. Encourage the people in your church to invite him and his family over for a summer barbeque or a swim in the backyard pool. Invite them over to watch a game during the playoffs or to enjoy the meal that has been passed down in the family for generations. Take the pastor and his wife out to eat. Invite him to go golfing or fishing with the group of guys who do that regularly. Get them out of hiding and invite them into situations where they can relax and just be as ordinary as possible.
6) MAKE SURE THERE IS SOMEONE WHO IS REGULARLY MENTORING YOUR PASTOR’S WIFE.
Every pastor’s wife needs a “go to” person that she can call spontaneously in a moment of need and be sure that a listening ear and help will be on the other end. Such an individual can be trusted with the delicate things that the pastor’s wife may need to discuss and will need to be willing to be available, as much as anyone could, 24/7.
7) MAKE SURE YOUR PASTOR AND HIS WIFE HAVE THE MEANS TO BE REGULARLY OUT OF THE HOUSE AND AWAY FOR WEEKENDS WITH ONE ANOTHER.
Make sure that the busyness of family and the endless demands of ministry don’t combine to cause the pastor and his wife to fail to give their marriage the attention and maintenance it needs. Do everything you can to give your pastor and his wife the help, time, and resources they need to get out of the house on a regular basis and away for the weekend as frequently as is feasible. Don’t allow your pastor and his wife to assume that tensions between family and ministry are acceptable and unavoidable. Help your pastor and his wife to have all the resources possible to give their relationship the focus and investment that it needs, to be a place of unity, understanding, and love.
8) MAKE SURE COUNSELING HELP IS ALWAYS AVAILABLE TO THE PASTOR, HIS WIFE, AND THEIR FAMILY.
Assure your pastor from day one that there is counseling help available whenever it is needed. Pastors, be honest about the condition of your heart and seek help quickly and willingly when needed. Pastor, are you telling yourself that it is okay, the duty of your calling, to live in isolation? Who knows you well enough to speak truth to you when you need it? Who works to protect you from you? How accurate is the view of the body of Christ as to who you really are? Is the culture of your church such that you can be comfortable there confessing your sin? Are you fearful of any self-disclosure in public ministry settings? Does your wife live with the pain of the differences between the public and private man?
May fewer and fewer of those who are called to lead us live in isolation and separation from the body of Christ, and may that lead to more and more pastors who are tender and humble examples, in both their private and public lives, of both the need for and the transforming power of the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.