i am a very fallen saint who is asked every week to share with hundreds of people as their spiritual leader and pastor. For many years i felt like a hypocrite who had to pretend to be something he was not.
i've been trying to be real, but it's hard. We've all been burned. i am told often that i am not very pastoral. i don't act, look or dress according to the caricature of a pastor. For many years i wore this mantle like a badge of honor, secretly relishing my status as a maverick. But it is no longer something i am proud of. i have had to come to peace with my personality and not use it as an excuse any longer. it is who i am.
For years i stood up on Sundays and lied. i pretended i was something i was not. i think many of us play socially prescribed roles that we feel society, especially religious society, expects of us.
The result was that little by little i built up walls of frustration and fear. i knew that if people really knew me they would not want to have me as a friend. it was a crippling feeling.
i am wounded and chances are that you are too. For years i have tried to hide this from my friends and church, but no more. Though it pains me to admit it, i still struggle with many of the same issues, though with a bit more maturity and hopefully some level of grace.
Over the years i have come to realize that i am not alone in my feelings. Though in varying degrees, many of our leaders and front runners picture themselves as unworthy, temperamental, or marginalized. As a minister of religion i often run into these individuals selling cars or real estate. They are ordained ministers who, when pressed, admit they never 'fit the mould' and eventually the pressure was too substantive. Eventually they caved to peer pressure and criticism, leaving the ministry for less accountable environs. The damage to their psyche, however, was harder to flee from. Lingering doubts about their value and future remain.
and not just leaders. nearly all of us battle feelings of unworthiness. we have been dressed by a society that frowns on self confidence... the self confident individual is the arrogant individual. humility, humility, humility. this pressure towards such an unbalanced view of oneself has destroyed most of our confidence levels and relegated us to a life of insecurity and lingering doubts.
Within the church many of these individuals are relegated to the role of "youth pastors". A little known fact is that most youth pastors have a shelf life of only 2-3 years before leaving for good. Why is this? in extensive interviews they have admitted to me that they never "fit in", that the pressure to conform was overwhelming, and that most of their creativity was shot down by established mores and hierarchical power brokers within the church culture. They expressed a emerging frustration and heightening awareness of their own worthlessness brought on by repeated rejection and character assassination.
we have been dressed by a society that has repeatedly told us to be humble, contrite and never sound boastful or proud. self confident individuals are labeled as arrogant. the name of the game is conformity. those who seek a different path are largely misunderstood, marginalized and ridiculed.
and many of us have a very deep seated sick view of our own worth...
i've been trying to be real, but it's hard. We've all been burned. i am told often that i am not very pastoral. i don't act, look or dress according to the caricature of a pastor. For many years i wore this mantle like a badge of honor, secretly relishing my status as a maverick. But it is no longer something i am proud of. i have had to come to peace with my personality and not use it as an excuse any longer. it is who i am.
For years i stood up on Sundays and lied. i pretended i was something i was not. i think many of us play socially prescribed roles that we feel society, especially religious society, expects of us.
The result was that little by little i built up walls of frustration and fear. i knew that if people really knew me they would not want to have me as a friend. it was a crippling feeling.
i am wounded and chances are that you are too. For years i have tried to hide this from my friends and church, but no more. Though it pains me to admit it, i still struggle with many of the same issues, though with a bit more maturity and hopefully some level of grace.
Over the years i have come to realize that i am not alone in my feelings. Though in varying degrees, many of our leaders and front runners picture themselves as unworthy, temperamental, or marginalized. As a minister of religion i often run into these individuals selling cars or real estate. They are ordained ministers who, when pressed, admit they never 'fit the mould' and eventually the pressure was too substantive. Eventually they caved to peer pressure and criticism, leaving the ministry for less accountable environs. The damage to their psyche, however, was harder to flee from. Lingering doubts about their value and future remain.
and not just leaders. nearly all of us battle feelings of unworthiness. we have been dressed by a society that frowns on self confidence... the self confident individual is the arrogant individual. humility, humility, humility. this pressure towards such an unbalanced view of oneself has destroyed most of our confidence levels and relegated us to a life of insecurity and lingering doubts.
Within the church many of these individuals are relegated to the role of "youth pastors". A little known fact is that most youth pastors have a shelf life of only 2-3 years before leaving for good. Why is this? in extensive interviews they have admitted to me that they never "fit in", that the pressure to conform was overwhelming, and that most of their creativity was shot down by established mores and hierarchical power brokers within the church culture. They expressed a emerging frustration and heightening awareness of their own worthlessness brought on by repeated rejection and character assassination.
we have been dressed by a society that has repeatedly told us to be humble, contrite and never sound boastful or proud. self confident individuals are labeled as arrogant. the name of the game is conformity. those who seek a different path are largely misunderstood, marginalized and ridiculed.
and many of us have a very deep seated sick view of our own worth...
posted by Scott at 8/31/2004
0 comments
links to this post
The journey is not intended to be the same for each people group, worldview, or culture... For each culture, the misperceptions and reasons for rejection are different. The only thing that remains constant is the journey.