Does Your Church Mission Study Look Like an Embarrassing Christmas Letter?

I read church reports, mission studies and clergy profiles for a living. Lots of them sound like those stereotypical Christmas letters that share all the achievements of the year but fail to mention issues of financial stress, addiction, and family trauma. Sometimes I read a congregation’s description of themselves hoping to call the imaginary “pastor with young children who will help us grow the church.” But there’s no mention of the fact that they had to lay off the Associate Pastor due to financial issues or that several in the congregation are still reeling from the Pastor Emeritus running off with a liturgical dancer.

Some pastors probably want a tidy church with no conflict, expecting that those exist. Other pastors love a challenge (if it will not involve abuse or martyrdom.) A great pastor enters their ministry with a vision that aligns with the vision of God’s people and the knowledge that failure is can be a great learning experience. (Maybe we can discontinue that thing we’ve been doing for years because 1) it has no positive impact on the community and 2) everyone hates doing it.)

Every once in a while, I read a report or a profile that speaks the truth:

• “I served for years as a generalist Associate Pastor and realized that my true calling is to specialize in adult faith formation. I’m not a great preacher. I don’t love youth work. But watching adults of every age experience that spark of inspiration that changes their lives brings me deep joy.”
• “Our congregation spent many years in denial that our neighborhood had changed. We wondered why we were not growing. We wondered what we were missing. Even though we are a white congregation of lifelong Presbyterians, we realized that our campus is in the middle of an international neighborhood with people who care more about feeding their families than reading The Institutes. (We still love John Calvin, but we didn’t love our neighbors as God is calling us to love them.”)
• “Our congregation split ten years ago over ministry to LGBTQ neighbors and it broke our hearts. And yet, because God uses even brokenness, we have arisen to become a congregation sure of our responsibilities to love and serve even those whom we don’t understand. God did this. A great example involves a Bible Study Group of conservative retired men who decided to volunteer to serve dinner at a local Pride Cafe to get to know some of the youth who eat dinner there on Friday nights. Instead of judging those who gathered, they prayerfully entered that space wanting God to help them understand. The men were changed in that they saw these young people through the eyes of Jesus. And the young people were changed in that they had mentors who increasingly heard them. Don’t misunderstand: this took five years and lots of missteps. But God has made us more curious than judgemental, just like in Ted Lasso.”

I would rather serve a congregation – or call a pastor – who is aware of the hot-messiness of life than one who says, “Everything is fine” when asked about staff conflicts when everyone’s threatening to quit. One of the most destructive truths I see today is when a Pastoral Nominating Committee and/or a Pastoral Candidate are not truthful about their reality.

• Churches that overstate their commitment to reaching out to neighbors.
• Pastors who don’t love youth work while applying for a youth position because they want to relocate for family.
• Congregations that declare they want to grow, but have zero intention of doing what it would take “to grow.”
• Pastors who lie about why they left their last position and are about to repeat that lie in a new position.
• Churches that minimize their doubts about a pastoral candidate because they’ve been searching for so long and everyone is tired. (“Who cares if he sounds kind of racist?)

We perpetuate all kinds of issues when we are all happy clappy and fear revealing or facing the truth. The God’s-Honest-Truth is that when we insist on creating a false impression about who we are, we pay for it.

Don’t forget that God is holy and amazing.

When we admit that things are not perfect but God is perfect, then we can begin to become the people we have been created to be. And life is way more fun when we have the confidence to say, “I would love to do ministry with people who know what it’s like to be imperfect.”