The pain of ‘church hurt’ is all around, Dear Pastor

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Updated: November 28, 2011 10:08AM

This is the second in a series, “Letters to a Pastor.” It began with an essay John wrote years ago critical of the church in the black community. A pastor offered a spirited defense. Now John responds.

Dear Pastor,

First, please accept my apology for taking years to respond to your kind, thoughtful letter. It arrived at a time when I was overwhelmed by the outpouring of letters in response to my essay, some not nearly as kind as yours.

Some of them, from “good” church folk, all but wished a brother to hell for my public criticism of the church. So hate-filled, venomous or downright nasty were some who wrote that if I had been — metaphorically speaking — on the edge of a cliff, they would, without apology, have pushed me over. Thank God for His grace, mercy and everlasting love.

Sadly, a good number of the letters came from people who share my experience of “church hurt,” disillusionment and disconnection from the institutional church. We are folks who still deeply love God, still stand on our faith, still long to see the church collectively moving mightily in purpose, passion and power to affect humankind.

Thank you for your understanding, for your thoughtful, nonjudgmental words, your insight and even your transparency.

Would that “the church” could engage in a dialogue over how more effectively to minister to the community and in far too many cases regain relevance in the daily lives of those who now feel abandoned, forsaken or overlooked. This even as the church on Sunday mornings basks in the glory of praise and worship ringing inside grand cathedrals and megachurches while so many beyond its walls suffer, mourn.

I do not blame pastors. Blame is too strong a word and a judgment that I cannot afford to make as one who is but a man himself. And therein lies the other reason for my delay in responding.

Who am I to speak to pastors such as you? I am not myself a pastor but a writer — a man with his own share of struggles and demons. A man who, in the face of theologians and world-renowned preachers, can offer no grand dissertation on the challenges of being a pastor. Who am I to speak to those whom the Lord himself has called to feed His sheep? God is the judge, not man.

My essay was not written as a criticism but as catharsis, not initially for publication but as self-exploration. Any notion that my painful and hard-to-admit musings might resonate more largely wasn’t something I anticipated, nor sought, but merely my soul’s cry.

Your letter spoke to me similarly — as being deeply resonant of the silent cries of another group within the church, often misunderstood and traversing this journey of faith and life often painfully alone: pastors. Too many of them muted by the knowledge that revealing the chinks in their armor — their own fears, struggles or doubts — would threaten their status as pastor, their livelihood, families and future.

Pastors who are painfully aware that there are those among you who lie in wait to take your place, to betray you, or to cast aspersions, expose your human failings, as character assassination motivated by envy. Pastors who suffer the residue of some in the pastorate who have compromised their true calling and exchanged their integrity for celebrity status, prosperity elixirs, feel-good prophecies, holy handkerchiefs, fortune and fame — all supposedly in the name of Christ.

But what has become clear to me, Dear Pastor, is that neither you nor I can afford to lose this fight that finds one of us on the “inside” and the other on the “outside.”

So, on the chance that God might in any remote sense use our discourse to draw you and I — and perhaps others — closer to Him, I’ll give you my best two cents in another dispatch next week, brother to brother. But this much I’ll say now: God hasn’t called pastors to be our everything, our savior. Those are Christ’s shoes. And His words to pastors: “Feed my sheep . . .” (No excuses!)

These sheep — no matter how great in number — are not yours, but His. And He has called you not to be served but to serve.

Be encouraged, I need you too, my brother.

John

P.S. Some of my best friends are pastors — really. (smile)

Next: The Good Shepherd