Had you been on a New York subway recently, you would have been doing what most other riders were doing, namely, avoiding eye contact and reading the ads on the walls. You would have noticed—right next to the Finlandia vodka ad—one with this large, in-your-face headline: BECOME A LOSER!
Then in smaller print: “If you’re looking for the courage to give up the things in this world that keep you from being the best you can be, give us a call. We’ll help you lose your life and build a new one. After all, Jesus Christ lost everything, and he gained the whole world.”
You had to read the even finer print at the bottom to discover who dared to sponsor an ad like that. It was part of a $12,000-a-month campaign sponsored by the Episcopal Church of the Heavenly Rest, Fifth Avenue, Manhattan.
I give them credit. “Become a Loser” is a tough message to sell today. I don’t know if it has ever been especially easy.
Not long ago I prepared a message for my congregation on this topic, and I found myself becoming uncomfortable. “What would it look like for me to become a loser?” I wondered. After all, my vocation is pastoral ministry, and much of my life is already about choosing the way of self-denial, about earning less—for example, than I could. And yet, the trajectory of my life certainly has not been one of losing. By most standards my life has been very successful.
After almost 20 years, I still clearly remember what a beloved seminary professor once said to a class full of eager, soon-to-be-graduating pastors.
Start out, he said, on the staff of a large church. “If you go to a small church, people will always think of you as a small church pastor.” Once you get to the large church, “learn the ropes” from a mentor.
After a few years (“Don’t stay too long or get too comfortable,” he said, “or people might get the idea that you like being an associate pastor”) you should look for “your own church,” preferably a large one.
And then, after a few years of hard work, the payoff, he said, would be the call to become pastor of Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City. In my tradition at the time, Fifth Avenue was the top of the heap in terms of membership and prestige. That was the prize for success in ministry.
Most of my classmates, as I recall, simply absorbed this bit of wisdom in silence. In hindsight I wish I had asked a question: “With all due respect, what does that career path have to do with my particular gifts for ministry or the demands of the gospel?” But I see now that I was already on that career path and afraid to ask questions that might jeopardize my chances for success.
Much of my ministry has existed in this tension—between the call to lose my life for Christ’s sake and my desire for success. The tension has never been easy to live with, but in recent years I have found it increasingly difficult. The stakes seem higher, and the pull feels stronger.
How do I develop my gifts for ministry without giving in to my own naked ambition or to the standards of success that others set for me?
Theologically, what’s at stake is “sanctification,” an old word that deserves a fresh hearing. God has claimed my life and equipped me for a life of service. I believe that, but now what? How exactly do I live the new life to which I’ve been called? How do I develop the gifts for ministry God has given me? How do I do all of this without giving in to my own naked ambition or to the standards of success that other people set for me?
A partner in my own holiness
“Sanctification” is an important word for pastors to reclaim, for our own ministries. Literally of course the word means “to be made holy.” Sometimes we think that justification is what God does for us, while sanctification is what we do for God. But the truth is, sanctification is every bit as much God’s work as justification. God is re-making all of us. But what does “being made holy” look like for the pastor?
The word “holy,” of course, means “separate” or “different.” Simply put, my standard for success is going to be separate or different from the standards by which other people operate. For success, I must learn not to conform but, as Paul puts it in Romans 12:2, to be “transformed.”
Each day, ever so slowly, God is changing me, renewing me, making me into something different—holy.
Sanctification may be God’s work in me, but—and this gets tricky—I’m not off the hook. God expects me to be a partner in the process. I make this point because of the complacency and self-satisfaction that I sometimes see both in myself and in my colleagues in ministry.
Not all pastors wrestle with ambition and standards for success set by the surrounding culture. Some pastors seem to reach a plateau and a level of contentedness with themselves that I find disturbing, especially when I see it in myself. When I stop trying to learn something new, or when I haven’t added a new skill in a long time, I know my overall effectiveness actually declines. Unless I constantly challenge myself to further develop my gifts, they get stale very quickly.
Take preaching, for example. I’m an okay preacher. I can get by with the skills I currently have. Most people at my church are satisfied with what I say and how I say it. Invitations to preach in other churches tell me that other people like my preaching, too.
But I know I’m capable of more. Some days, in fact, I feel overcome with the sense that there’s a whole new level for me to reach in preaching. And it’s on those days that I go to work all over again—I study the videotapes, I enlist the help of preaching coaches, I read one more book.
How will I know if I’ve fully developed my preaching gifts? I don’t have a clue. All I know is that I have this call to tell the good news as effectively as I possibly can.
The great cellist Pablo Cassal was once heard practicing when he was well into his 80s, and someone asked him why at his age and level of accomplishment he was still practicing. He said, “I think I’m noticing some improvement.”
If I make it to my 80s, I suspect God will be nudging me to notice improvement, too.
So our growth is not an option. Raising the standards for ourselves is critical to our effectiveness in ministry. Ultimately, that’s a matter of faithfulness to our call. It’s partly what Paul had in mind when he wrote, “I forget what is behind me and do my best to reach what lies ahead. So I press on toward the goal” (Phil. 3:13-14). We don’t do it for ourselves, but for the God who called us.
Faithfulness by degrees?
But there’s more. How do you know, for example, that the path of continuing education you’ve chosen is the right one for you—and not merely the one that satisfies your over-reaching ego? How can you tell the difference between a degree program that will look good on your resume and one that will enhance your effectiveness in ministry?
In the last 15 years, the Doctor of Ministry degree has become a new and desirable goal for many pastors. A Master of Divinity used to be the basic credential for ministry, but today it rarely seems to be enough. The D.Min. has become a new standard. But how do you choose? Is the D.Min. right for everybody?
One of my classmates accepted a call to a tiny rural congregation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. One day the church received an unexpectedly large bequest that the giver wanted the church to invest for future ministry. Though there were many fine people in the congregation, no one had seemed to have the requisite financial skills to handle the bequest. And so my friend, who had an interest in finance before seminary, started taking courses toward an MBA.
One day he called to tell me that he had just graduated. I expected to hear about his D.Min., when to my surprise I heard about his MBA. When he told me his story, however, the choice made sense. The degree developed his gifts, gave him some much-needed skills, and made him more versatile in ministry.
But I wonder. How many pastors are listening for the call of God in their lives when they decided to do continuing education? When I first started thinking about the D.Min. for myself, a trusted friend told me that the degree would be “my ticket” to a larger church.
For a long time, I found it difficult to shake that thought. Why am I doing this? I thought. Is the time I am devoting to this degree making me better at what I do? Am I doing this for God or (more likely) for me?
In the end, I decided it was worth every minute. The program I completed was the right one for me. But the path I chose wouldn’t be right for everyone. The key is spiritual discernment, asking questions such as, “What does God have in mind for my life?” Or, “What do I need to be more effective—and more faithful—in my ministry?”
Out of step? Good!
Seldom during the course of my ministry have I consciously thought about “becoming a loser.” The thought is still as jarring to me as that subway ad.
And yet, as I focus my energies on becoming like Christ, on making myself fit for ministry, I find that more and more of my decisions are out of step, even odd, compared to the decisions most people make for themselves.
That’s okay. Maybe I am becoming holy, becoming a loser for the sake of Christ. I am not being conformed to this world, but ever so slowly I am being transformed into something wonderfully new.
Letting God do that is the hardest work I’ve ever done.
Doug Brouwer is pastor of First Presbyterian Church 715 N. Carlton Avenue Wheaton IL 60187 dbrouwer@mcs.net
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