Book discussion today at the presbytery office—Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church. Many good questions raised; few answers:
BBT’s path of faith and her desire to be authentically herself ultimately led her out of the church and pastoral ministry. Must it be that way? Can this kind of questing and questioning (including a bald admission of great doubt) take place as a pastor? (My answer: Geez, I certainly hope so.)
BBT is a priest; we were a room full of Presbyterians/Methodists. We wondered whether there was a priest/pastor distinction to be made. She always felt she was “on,” wore her collar everywhere, and so on. So is the answer to view ministry solely as a profession, like dentistry? (Is a dentist still a dentist when he’s at home with his family, without his dentist’s drill? And is it strange that I have never met a woman dentist?)
Or if ministry is an “office,” does that mean we’re always on? And if that’s the case, that we are ministers every moment of our lives, isn’t it even more important that we be as genuine as we can possibly be? Otherwise we will be exhausted with the constant “performing.” Genuine and authentic were words thrown out this afternoon—I also like “integrated.”
I don’t know where I am on that question. I’m much more aware of myself as a follower of Jesus every moment of my life, rather than a pastor every moment of my life. The decisions I make regarding how to live are much more informed by “I am called to Christ-like response” rather than “I must reflect well on the pastorate.”
There was some talk about boundaries, not oversharing, and so on. I am all for boundaries around time, but I am somewhat less worried than others seemed to be about boundaries around the sharing of who I am. (hard to tell for sure) There seemed to be a sense that people in the church want their pastor strong and sure. (??) I wonder if this is partially a generational thing. I remember reading some years back about the difference between inspiration and identification in leadership. The book argued that many older folks want an inspirational leader, younger people want someone that they can relate to.
I remembered this a few years ago after I went off on some rant about the mean-spiritedness of much of reality TV and a member of the church (young adult) said, “You’re very easy to listen to on topics like that because I know you really struggle with them in your own life.” (Presumably that is in contrast to Senior Pastor, who really is an amazingly inspirational figure in so many ways—and incidentally, who seems to watch PBS exclusively—so her pop culture commentary definitely takes a different tone.)
At any rate, there was some wondering about whether a certain level of guardedness (is that the word?) is the price of doing business. I may have read the conversation wrong. But if that’s the case, I would respond by saying: for me, while I certainly don’t believe in emotionally vomiting all over a congregation, that’s too high a price to pay. Now, part of the reason I have this blog, for heaven’s sake, is to have a place to explore things with a little more latitude. But my hope is that if a member of the church were to ever stumble on this blog, they might be surprised by a few sharp edges, but they would fundamentally recognize the Me that they knew before. As opposed to, “You are a completely different person. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
One final nugget. One woman, in response to another clergywoman’s dilemma about what to wear to her own wedding next summer that won’t seem inappropriate to the nattering nabobs: “It’s your wedding! Wear what you want! Why do we always make the rules conform to the expectations of the most dysfunctional people?”
That?
Will preach.
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Asides
» I have been remiss in posting SBJ’s latest stats: 23 pounds and 27 inches at six months. Yes, I’ve got the big mama biceps.
» Aaaaaand little she-who-is lost another tooth this week!
» SBJ is four months old, 19 pounds 5 ounces, and 26 inches tall. GIGANTOR!
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Your uncle, who’s the cop, always used to say that it was a conversation stopper at parties when someone would ask him what he did for a living…is that the same with the clergy?
I guess I’d have to actually go to non-clergy parties to find out
I finished reading Leaving Church a few weeks ago and have found myself wondering the same things. In one moment I find her answers immensely freeing, but I’m skeptical of those feelings. In other moments, it seems more likely that she threw the baby out with the bath water, allowed herself to burn out so badly that at this point it’s just too hard to find a way to connect differently to the church. The book does raise important questions, but like you I think these are questions that are being answered differently by younger ministers. May it be so. I don’t want ministry to be the lonely place it has felt at times to me, and apparently was to BBT.
I haven’t read “Leaving Church” - and given the length of my reading list, I probably won’t. I’ve never been a pastor/priest nor even played on on TV. In other words, my comments may be completely off because the conditions may just be different.
But I plunge in after running madly around the pool:
I left the church a few years ago, not as a pastor, but as a lay person, because I simply did not feel that it adequately fed my spiritual needs. It wasn’t just one church - it seemed like every church wanted to stretch me different ways. I come to church so my cup can be filled and instead I found it was just meted out in ways that didn’t fit what I needed.
I’ve become much more spiritual in my apostate years. I’ve wrestled with faith, read widely, and struggled to find a way to make sense of faith in a world of reason and reason in a world of faith. It has worked for me - but I fear it won’t for the rest of my family. I don’t think my example is generalizable.
I’ve also worked as a counselor in several respects. Many of the concerns are common to that profession. I don’t have a good answer, except that everyone finds their own balance or they burn up. It’s different for everyone and one person’s limit is the next person’s warming up spot.
I’ll leave with the words of Carl Rogers, “What I find to be personal in my life is often the most generalizable. What is generally the most general things in my life quite often become the most personal.”
Yeah, that’s enlightening!
God bless,
XT
Oh, and why do we make rules for the most dysfunctional…? Because we love them and think that it is easier to be what they expect than it it to be who we are and force them to deal with it.
That last line? I’d totally buy that on a T-Shirt. (Except that maybe it would make people stare at your chest for far too long…)
My sense of the book? BBT rushed to write a book in order to explain to herself and others why she left church, when in fact she has not finished processing (if we ever do) what happened to her and what she let happen to her. I like your baby/bathwater idea.
I love reading whatever she writes, of course, because she puts words together so beautifully. But where were the peers who could call her on having *no* boundaries? We need that kind of peer support and peer challenge, both for our effectiveness and for our protection.
Wish I’d been there today.
This is my ongoing journey too — figuring out the boundaries. Being real versus emotional vomiting. I appreciating Gayle (Mrs. Ted) Haggard’s comment to her congregation that “nobody will marvel at her perfect marriage anymore.” It sounded like a relief.
Another thought upon reading the book—I became a mother and a minister within four months. They are inextricably linked for me. What that means for me is that from the very beginning of my ministry there has been a little being (now two) keeping me accountable to quitting time. If I’m late picking them up at daycare, I get charged. So, at 4:45 I’m done. I may work again in the evening and frequently do, but there is a fixed quitting time each afternoon.
I don’t advocate parenthood for the purpose of boundary protection, but it has had that effect on me. And I realized, her beautiful writing obscures as it reveals–where was her spouse in all this? Was he happy with the arrangement? Some clergy spouses are introverted and independent enough that they’re OK being second fiddle. On the other hand, others just suffer some dreadful neglect.
After reading the book, part of me is freaked at the thought of being a solo pastor or head of staff someday because my whole way of doing ministry has (for better or worse) relied upon a sense of I work like a dog during work hours, but when it’s pickup time, eh, the buck doesn’t stop with me, and I gotta go. Which doesn’t work at all when the buck DOES stop with me.
Also I wondered whether there are examples of churches that are really thriving and blooming (maybe growing in numbers, but not necessarily) in which the pastor *isn’t* a workaholic. And if there are, what is their secret? And if there aren’t, if the ultra-passionate, driven, visionary (zealous!) person seems to be a requirement, can we/I be content with never being “successful” in that way? (*Big* quotes around that word.)
In my first years of ministry, I was truly astounded by the posturing that happened at local clergy meetings. It seemed everyone around the table couldn’t stop themselves from sharing how many hours a week they had worked, how many weddings they did, how much their church was growing…blah, blah, blah.
Their collective burn-out potential was alarming to a newbie like me. I kept thinking “Where are the boundaries???” I also vowed never to fall into that trap. And then I promptly fell into that trap. Of course I did - I wanted to be a “good” minister. I still struggle with my increasing need to budget my energy carefully.
I think a lot of it comes down to how we define “success” in the church. If it’s just a numbers game, more butts in the pew, then the workaholic pastor will always come out ahead. If success is measured in terms of the pastor’s and the congregation’s healthy functioning, that’s another thing altogether.
when it’s pickup time, eh, the buck doesn’t stop with me, and I gotta go. Which doesn’t work at all when the buck DOES stop with me.
What better way to encourage your subordinates to have home lives?
RM, I would say that a church that we both know, in the Big Southern City, when I interned there, thrived with a pastor who wasn’t a work-a-holic, who had good boundaries, and would almost never do evenign meetings. She’s now moved on, but it seemed to work there.
Mamala, almost everytime I say “I’m a preacher.” The conversation stops.
However, credit goes to the good old boy type (complete with confederate flag tattoo) guy at the water park in Tulsa, who stopped for a looonnngggg moment, and then carried on with chit-chat conversation.
great post and conversation. havent read the book, but I’m responding to your comment about workaholism among clergy. I wonder if this is a generational issue also? I’m a gen x associate with a baby boomer senior, and we’ve really been helped by some research that she did, and shared with me, about generational differences in the workplace (I think you can google this if you want to know more). According to the research, basically boomers are willing to work harder because they believe that hard work is the way to make the world better (from experiences with women’s issues, civil rights, etc) while x-ers see the downside of working that hard (getting burned out, laid off anyway, etc) and refuse to do it. Great quote: “If you want to motivate a boomer, give her a raise. If you want to motivate a gen xer, give her the day off.” Maybe we’re just experiencing the beginning of a shifting paradigm around balance of work/home life, which will be led by our generation. I certainly hope so! Even if I didn’t have kids, I wouldn’t be working those crazy 60 hour weeks like some. clergy. i. know.
i love your thinking out loud and I too would have loved to have been in on your meeting
for what it’s worth - Jesus promised to build his church - even solo pastors are not to be on call 24/7 - they are there to help build a healthy church, with members who can help each other in crisis and who encourage one another between one sunday and the next.
I heard a GREAT teaching a week or so ago - yeah from willow creek leaders summit - in essense. you cannot and should not give all your time to the church. Give what you promised be it 20, 40 or 45 hours (even as a senior pastor it should not be more) and spend more time with your family. The exact words - if you have to cheat - cheat your church NOT your family.
I think it was a voice from heaven personally. So much damage is done by a pastor or priest who makes their church dependent on them. And too much damage is done to the spouse or kids who are neglected for the church.
We are not called to work 60 hours a week. Any of us. Paid clergy or unpaid laity.
usually before i comment i read all the other comments. no time for that this am, but do want to share that i think pastors who “burn out” and don’t have the good sense to leave the work and find a new way to be employed and useful in the world are the ones who end up having affairs w/ parishoners (or encounters w/ prostitutes) in hopes of being found out so they’ll have to leave the work.
this sort of thing has been in the news of late, but it’s also been something churches of which i’ve been a part have dealt with—very painfully—in recent years.
pastors need to engage in intentional self-care and if they still find themselves burned out, need to intentionally separate themselves from what is burning them out rather than arranging to get caught in self-destructive behavior.
i’m not a pastor. i’m an active lay presbyterian w/ a deaconly nature who wants to be led by folks who live w/ the questions and look for the answers side by side w/ the rest of us. we’ve given pastors “studies” in which to ponder these questions and “pulpits” from which to proclaim their understanding of God’s answers. what pastors need to claim for themselves is something we parishoners can’t give and that is “a room of one’s own” in which to rant and rave—set apart from the life of the parish in which you serve. this might be a small group of folk engaged in ministry or it might be a spiral bound journal tucked away in your home or it might be a blog such as this.
blessings to each of you rev-gals and rev-guys as you find a way to balance your act or as you find a way to serve God and the world in another way.
If we buy into the Pauline notion of the “priesthood of all believers”, then we are all equally “on” at all times. The preacher/priest no more (or less) than the pew sitter. The pew sitter who chides the minister for not living up to certain expectations needs to look at how well s/he meets those same expectations.
Being “on” is so much a stage term anyway. Who, exactly, are we “on” for? God is the primary audience, and I’ve heard suggestions that God is a pretty forgiving audience.
I like Lorna’s comments. I am “unpaid laity” who has taken the same seriousness and devotion to a position on Session that I have taken to my profession. It took me two years to realize that my family is now coming in a distant third. More effort is required to turn this around than you might imagine.
BTW, I enjoyed Barbara Brown Taylor’s book very much. I am a physician and I am in my early fifties. I finished residency, started a private practice, and my husband and I began our family twenty years ago. There really were very few other women doing what I did. I am envious of those I now practice with who are 15 years my junior. You RevGals are lucky to have each other (and computers).
Well, i have a lot to say (at least I think I do)
1) While I almost never agree with my classmate Lillian Daniel, I do agree with her review of this book. Nowhere in the book does BBT acknowledge the huge national reputation she developed during that same time period. Methinks being named one of the 10 best preachers in America while solo pastoring small church is significant and undoubtedly played into her experience as pastor. All of those outside preaching demands, random visitors to hear “great sermon” had to take a toll. Especially in a small church where there is so much to handle on your own.
I also think there are other factors at play.
2)One of the myths of ministry that I personally, would like to debunk is the idea of being an associate as being a “starter” job….that you “move up” to solo or senior pastor. I wonder what it would be like if all clergy were paid the same (for denomination/region) whether senior or associate? It seems like creative programmatice folks (not unlike BBT) should be able to be associates for their whole lives, and not seem “less than.” Some people are just gifted at administration and some are gifted as programmers/counselors/work with youth, etc. It seems like the church is creating a corporate model that just doesn’t need to be there.
3) I can’t articulate my third point, so I guess I’ll let it go.
Wait…
There are Best Preacher contests?
PPB: I want to hear more about how you never agree with Lilian Daniel. I’ve only read about her/heard her preach once, but I thought she was kind of rock star.
And your associate comments are RIGHT ON!
Keith, I believe PPB was referring to Newsweek (?) magazine which many years back had an article, “12 most effective preachers in America” or somesuch. Barbara Brown Taylor was among them.
Sorta like Time’s Person of the Year, or 100 most influential business leaders–lists like that.
So no, not a contest per se.
And amen on the associate thing.
So what happens to somebody when they’re named one of the most effective preachers in America? Talk shows and party invitations? Increased email from nut jobs? More leverage at the job?
In the case of BBT I think it meant book deals and invitations to the conference/lecture circuit.
I’m sure she has her share of nutjobs too. And I think people flocked to her tiny little church afterward. Kinda like the people who go to Plains GA to visit Jimmy Carter’s Sunday School class.
Oh, and as for the public/common response to being a pastor…try being a pastor in the Gay Men’s Chorus….talk about a situation when your mere existence baffles people…a complete conversation killer…at least at first.
I’d think a smartass answer would help, not just “I’m a preacher.”
Along the lines of “I’m a preacher.” (Beat.) “I DAMN PEOPLE TO HELL!”
Maybe it’s good I’m not a preacher.
PPB - The United Church of Canada did away with the labels “Senior” and “Associate” several years ago in order to attain the kind of work equity you mentioned. One is either order of ministry personnel (ordained or diaconal) or Lay Designated ministry personnel. Period. The expectation is that all clergy will be treated equitably under this policy.
However, in practice, this is not always the case. I was a part-time freshly ordained minister working with a near-retirement male clergy who was full time. No matter what we did or said, I was always perceived as his “little helper.” ~sigh~
On BBT’s book - one observation I made after I read it was that her description of “everyday” ministry included activities that I simply don’t encounter. she spoke of very dramatic things like posting bail, visiting on death row, closing the eyes on a deceased person and other really intense experiences. Maybe ministry in Georgia is that much different from the Middle of Nowhere, Canada, but I doubt it. It just struck me as a bit overstated.
The public attention is just what I was referring to—-she was asked, for example, to deliver the Beecher Lectures while pastoring a little tiny church, she was invited to preach all over the country (and imagine getting a pulpit supply at that location.) She was facing book deals, and dealing with all that correspondence. She got so many visitors at her tiny country church (from people who had heard her at one of these events) that they had to go to 2 services. I’m not saying it was a bad thing, but imagine handling all of those things while still covering a little parish that has people in the hospital and a recalcitrant furnace.
Well…my little church is doing pretty okay.
And…I’m not a workaholic. I’m just not.
I agree with PPB that she didn’t reflect sufficiently on the impact that becoming a “rock star” of the preaching world had on her faith, identity and ministry. I heard a second or third hand story of her over-hearing a couple who had come to Clarksville specifically to hear The Great Preacher muttering to each other on their way out to the car, “Well I didn’t think she was all that great . . .” That’s gotta do a number on you for sure.
And of course, she hasn’t completely left church, either. She’s still a priest, she’s still a highly sought after preacher; she just isn’t in parish ministry anymore–and hasn’t been for several years now.
I was a bit sad when I read her book. Reading in “Preaching Life” about her struggling with her call to priesthood was important to me when I was discerning my own call. I think that she expected too much; others have said that she had a “messiah complex”. I might more simply say that she burned out by (possibly) overextending herself.
Well written post on the book. And good insights on your part too. I think like you do in terms of sharing myself with the congregation. I think there is a price to pay by being different one way and another.
I agree with Songbird that she rushed to write a book about this part of her life.
Great discussion to what you wrote. I think it is food for thought for our own ministries.