ONE HEARTRENDING TELEVISION PROFILE during the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics told of a United States wrestler who for years had dominated meet after meet and now was expected to win a gold medal. Sadly, though, with family, friends, team, and country rooting for him, he lost one of the early rounds.
At the completion of his match, this tough wrestler was so distraught he fell to his knees with his face to the mat and wept like a baby. His teammates tried to lift him from the mat, but he refused to rise. Finally he got up and trudged off, head down, grieving as if he had lost a loved one.
Expectations are powerful. They touch deep emotional currents. They affect our personal dreams and values, our relationships. They can define our work and responsibilities. In short, they can control us.
Usually the power of expectation is beneficial; other times it can put us into a painful realm where no one can live happily. This is the place of unrealistic expectations—the ones we put on ourselves as well as the ones others place on us. Perhaps no group is more susceptible to this position than pastors, and no matter how spiritual we are, it can kill our desire to go on.
I know. I’ve been there. I do not recall, now, the specific criticism leveled against me, but I felt that at the root of it was an unfair expectation and I was smarting from it. As I drove home, I defended myself: How can I do more than I am already doing? I work sixty hours a week. I fast and pray one day a week. I study hard for each sermon. I don’t even have a secretary. When I got home I continued to mull over what had been said to me.
This was not a propitious time for my wife to point out a task I had failed to do at home, but she did. I exploded. I catalogued the demands I was trying to meet and the people I was trying to please—including her and our boys. I moaned about how impossible my responsibilities were, then marched off to another room. Phooey on everyone! I thought. If they don’t like me the way I am, tough.
After I got over the temporary insanity of anger, I apologized to Nancy and put the comments from those at church in perspective. I wish I could say that such an episode has happened only once, but that is not the case. In my first two pastorates, it happened every year or two. The intensity of my explosion varied, but the common ingredient was unrealistic expectations.
And there have been many. At times I have expected myself to excel at every facet of ministry. To read whatever people hand to me. To make my church as fruitful as other churches. To be available at every moment. To be both here and there at the same time. To offer programs for every group in the congregation. To have a perfect church.
One classic video game that gives me fits is Missile Command. On the bottom of the screen, there are six cities and three defensive missile launching sites. From the top of the screen, waves of missiles rain down to destroy them. The object of the game is defense and survival: destroy the falling explosives before they destroy you.
I quickly learned to handle the first level without any challenge. The bombs fall slowly and are few in number. I destroy them with ease, the bombardment ends, and my score is tallied. I can handle this.
Then a jarring alarm sounds. With the second level the difficulty escalates noticeably. More bombs fall—faster. I can beat this level with a sense of control, but by the end I know I have been tested.
With the increasing difficulty of the third and fourth levels, I begin to lose control. There are more bombs. These split halfway down into still more bombs and they plummet at even faster speeds. Soon I cannot deliberately aim and shoot but only fire wildly in the hope of hitting something. One or two bombs get through, taking out a city or missile site and cutting down my defense capabilities.
The annoying alarm sounds at each new level. Then I face the added difficulty of smart bombs, which dodge my missiles—unless I make a direct hit. Soon my strategy is to defend only a few cities and an adjacent missile site. Finally the onslaught is physically impossible to withstand. My cities and missile sites have become craters. The game is over.
Somehow the game reminds me of my life as a pastor.
First, my expectations escalate. If I meet one goal, I set a higher one. I want to preach better; I want to pray more. The more I plan, the more my work multiplies. When I meet the expectations of others, my responsiveness encourages some people to demand even more. Beating level two only brings on level three.
Second, the more I press to meet unrealistic expectations, the less control I feel. During one year, the expectations were so numerous I merely made desperate, heroic efforts in a lost battle. I threw some time and energy at one problem, hoping my sacrifice would remedy the situation; then I swung my attention in another direction, throwing myself at another demand.
Third, the alarm keeps sounding. In Missile Command I concentrate so hard on the screen I am not conscious of the jarring tones. But they amplify the emotional state of the crisis. In ministry when I determine that, live or die, I am going to reach my goals, solve all the problems, or keep everyone happy, my stress multiplies exponentially.
Unrealistic expectations curtail the joy and often the longevity of ministry. They can cause me to give up either in deed or in heart. I don’t have to resign to quit. I can simply decide this job is impossible and it is foolish to try.
In a conversation with a leader about the pastoral role I had, he at one point asked, “Has the church created a job that no one can do?”
I don’t think so. If I have realistic expectations, pastoral ministry is something I can do—do well and do happily (I now enjoy ministry beyond words). The culprit is unrealistic expectations.
Here is the irony: For years, whenever I suffered a stressed-out episode, I assumed others were forcing impossible demands on me. But I finally realized that I was the one putting on the pressure: I assumed it was my job to keep so-and-so happy; I had to read so many books a year; I had to invest a minimum of so many hours in every sermon; I had to reach goals set arbitrarily months before. The impossible situations were of my own making.
When I simply could not keep going, however, and occasionally gave up on an expectation—behold, the world did not end. Ministry continued—often better than before. My state of alarm was a self-induced emergency I could turn off as easily as a computer game. Perhaps the easiest thing to do in pastoral ministry is to give up our unrealistic expectations!
So why have I not always done so?
Caving in
The last term I would use to describe my preaching is prophetic. I assume most Christians need understanding and encouragement more often than a kick in the pants. I recall preaching one sermon, though—in my first church—in which I really let the congregation have it. Afterward a woman thirty years my senior approached me with an enthusiastic smile on her face. “Great sermon!” she said. “I love that kind of preaching.”
I wish she had not told me that. For the next several weeks I tried to preach more scorching messages. This is what’s been missing, I thought. Preaching that way felt macho and, consciously or not, I wanted to please this woman and others like her. If I preached in a manner hearers “enjoyed,” I figured the church would grow. As it turned out, my first scorcher may have been a necessary wake-up call, but the ones that followed did not wear well, and I soon reverted to my natural style.
Red-faced, I must admit this story typifies my first few years as a pastor. To a large extent, I wanted to please people and to be liked. I yearned for church growth and thought keeping people happy was the secret. With a philosophy of ministry based largely on the principle of attraction, I was an easy mark for the unrealistic expectations of others.
I don’t think I wanted to please people more than the Lord, but I thought pleasing them was a way to please him. Unselfishness meant, more often than not, yielding to others. Having good feelings in church felt more Christian to me than saying no to people.
Someone has said Christians fall into two groups: the love camp and the truth camp. The latter value right and wrong, living the truth and telling the truth. The love camp, on the other hand, majors in feelings between people. It seems logical to me that this group is more likely to bend to unrealistic expectations. Granted, this is an oversimplification, but I think there is some truth to it. Apparently I have leaned toward the love camp. I didn’t know there was any other way to function. It was who I was.
But I am learning. My hiatus from the pastorate as an editor made me aware of this tendency and its downfalls. I saw other leadership styles and the benefits of balancing my desire for good feelings between people with the need for truth-telling and occasional confrontation. Also, living for a few years without the expectations of a church, I realized how beholden I had become to the expectations of others. For the first time in over a decade I felt free to be myself. I began to care less about what others thought of me and more about what I felt was right. If others did not like me, that was the price I had to pay for being true to what I felt God wanted me to do or be.
In addition, God has been speaking to me about this issue. Over the last two years, as I have waited upon God, listening for his voice in Scripture and in prayer, the word most frequently impressed upon my heart has been “truth.” I am putting this new emphasis into action in the church. Several times in my present pastorate I have made it a point to confront people when necessary.
I have also come to the realization that trying to build a church largely by pleasing people and seeking to attract them to the church—catering to the consumer mentality—is in the long-run spiritually destructive. While this is true for many transcendent reasons, pragmatically it is so because if we try to please someone who is not aligned with the firm vision and values of our fellowship, we only set ourselves up for conflict later. If new people are not drawn by what we truly are and believe, it is better if they do not remain with us.
Another culprit in my tendency to bend to unrealistic expectations has been the nature of my relationship with God. I know my salvation is based on grace alone, but my daily relationship with the Lord has often been focused on performance. I have been compelled to work for him. Is this zeal, bad theology, or a distortion in my personality?
Probably all of the above. I know I am saved by grace, but various truths sometimes overshadow that, and I unconsciously feel as though God will not smile on how I live by grace. For example, the New Testament abounds with references to both grace and responsibility—actions that please and actions that displease God. I am a steward of much and accountable for it all. If I love as Christ loved, I don’t merely say nice words, I give my life to others. I will be judged and rewarded for my works. Faith without works is dead. What this all means is that I sometimes confuse the basis of my relationship with God—his love and grace and the work of Christ—with the responsibility I have for how I live. But they are two different things.
My orientation toward performance in my relationship with God finds expression in numerous ways. In prayer, I may spend more time in confession of sinful attitudes and petition for what I want to see accomplished than I do in the enjoyment of intimacy with God. Regarding the values that drive me, I have always worked to lay up treasures in heaven. In ministry, when the church goes poorly, I can feel that God is unhappy with what I am doing, and when the church goes well, I feel he is pleased with me. In short, I can live as though the harder I work, the more blessed I will be.
The problem also stems from my personality. No matter what some say about unconditional love and acceptance from God or others, in the depths of my soul I don’t always buy it. Besides the fact that performance makes me feel good about myself, I also think performance makes others feel good about me. It seems that people most respect, value, and love those who perform well.
There have been periods in my life when I have fallen prey to the Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer syndrome. In the reindeer pecking order, Rudolph was a nobody. Then came that foggy Christmas Eve, when Rudolph had an ability that others valued—a nose that glowed in the dark. After he saved Christmas, the song says, “Then all the reindeer loved him. …”
I thought that if “my nose glowed in the dark,” I would be accepted and loved. This mentality seems to be driven by the real world. The world revolves around performance: do what others value to earn money and pay the bills; express love to family and friends to have healthy relationships. On occasion, that assumption has even affected my relationship with God. With so much at stake in how I viewed performance at these times of imbalance, I easily became a slave to unrealistic expectations of myself on a spiritual level.
When I brought things back into perspective, I realized that performance is important, but it is only part of what defines me and only a portion of what brings me into loving relationships with others.
A final reason why I have been swayed by high expectations in the past has been a sense of insecurity as a pastor: I have feared losing people from our church. I have felt that if I bungle ministry to individuals in even minor ways, they will go elsewhere. I have frequently resembled the self-employed person who never says no to work—no matter how much is on his plate—for fear that in three weeks he will not have work to do.
In my first pastorate, for example, I did not have a secretary, nor did I have a answering machine. If I left the office, the phone was not answered. As time went on this thought bothered me more and more. While on hospital calls, church errands, or home visitation, I would think about members calling the office and, not getting an answer, assuming I was at home with my feet up, sipping coffee.
For several months this concern was exacerbated by one woman who, it seemed to me, had concluded I was not working hard enough. I would receive several pointless phone calls from her at the office in the morning and then again late in the afternoon. Occasionally she would mention that she had tried to reach me at another time and no one had answered. Sometimes, with her in mind, I would be almost driven to hurry to the office in the morning so as not to miss her call and be found truant. But even though she brought me such anxiety, I did not want her to leave the church. To me, the worst thing that could happen would be for someone to leave the church.
I have a greater sense of security now. And though our church is small in number and therefore keenly feels the negative effect of a lost attendee, if people move on I can trust God to replace them. This is God’s church, not my church. My reputation and my financial needs are also God’s responsibility. Jesus said he would build his church. So even if our church were to suffer a temporary downswing, I refuse to worry about it. My life and our church are in God’s hands.
Distinctions that bring joy
Dealing with exaggerated expectations, I have learned to make a few key distinctions:
There is a difference between slavishly pleasing people and doing what is worthy of respect. The latter is valid and necessary. For instance, my office day begins at 8:15 in the morning.
There is a difference between realistic and unrealistic expectations. I must take seriously the legitimate demands of my role and not merely please myself. Recently, because of my part-time status, a man in our church asked me to publish in the bulletin each week what my hours would be for that week. I decided this was a legitimate request and began doing it.
There is a difference between the expectations others put on me and the ones I imagine they have put on me. For example, I preached every Sunday in 1996 (because I serve the church half-time, I do not have any vacation days). No one said I had to preach every Sunday, but I don’t want anyone to get the feeling they are not getting their “money’s worth.”
Several months ago I was writing at home shortly after lunch, when one of the men from church called. “I hate to do this,” he said, “but I need to ask if you can do me a favor. If you say no, I will understand and will find another way.”
“Go ahead,” I said.
“I had surgery yesterday on my sinuses,” he said, “and I am having some problems. It’s not an emergency, but I need to go to the hospital where I had the surgery and have them take a look at me. But I can’t drive. I’m wondering if you can take me. If you can’t, I’ll take a taxi.”
“Let me think a moment,” I replied.
Although the hospital was an hour’s drive away, I wanted to help Joe if I could. Besides my desire to help someone I care about, I had been preaching about building community for months, and this would be a great opportunity to teach by example. However, this situation was an interruption to my work. What I was doing was urgent, and if I were to drive Joe to the hospital, my wife would have to leave work early to be with the children.
As I weighed my decision, I consciously told myself something I don’t think I’ve ever said before: I am free to go either way with this. If helping Joe will put too much hardship on me and my family, I am willing to turn him down and face the repercussions in the unlikely event he is offended (I knew him to be a mature person). If I choose to help, I will do so because I want to, not because I have to.
I decided I wanted to do it. My wife was able to cover the bases at home, and I left to get Joe by midafternoon. I returned home around ten at night but I did not feel upset about it. I was glad to be able to help a brother in need.
Managing unrealistic expectations does not necessarily mean doing less. It means doing the extras willingly—with freedom and joy rather than because I must do them. When I minister like this, I feel I can pastor this church for the rest of my life.
Copyright © 1998 Craig Brian Larson
