Leadership Journal

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But sometimes we feel insecure about all there is to do. How does a pastor unlearn running out to do the urgent?

Foster: I was told in seminary that if I preached from the Old Testament, I should study the Hebrew text. If I preached from the New Testament, I should study the Greek text. I was told to spend time each week working on my sermon delivery. Pastoral counseling, they told me, is crucial to my ministry.

I added up the time it takes to do all these things; the total was staggering. Once in the ministry, I found out quickly that those things might build churches, but they don't necessarily help people. I had to go back to square one and ask, "What am I to do?"
The answer that came was "Love God and walk with him." Once the pastor is settled and centered on that, the guilt feelings are gone.
Nouwen: It may well be that many pastors are insecure people, but that can be an asset as well as a liability. Insecure people need social contact. Many people with that kind of personality might choose the ministry because that is a way of dealing with their need. I don't think that's bad.

One of the most beautiful ways for spiritual formation to take place is to let your insecurity lead you closer to the Lord. Natural hypersensitivity can become an asset; it makes you aware of your need to be with people and it allows you to be more willing to look at their needs. In a sense, you let your psychological trembling become trembling for the Lord; and you use the insecurity of human relationships to develop a firm relationship with God.
Foster: The disciples are some of the best examples of that.

Nouwen: Your insecurity may be neurotic, but it may also lead to a very deep spiritual life. Instead of telling clergy, "You're insecure; that's why you became pastors," we should tell them, "Your insecurity is a vocation; it's an invitation to really live the spiritual life."

How can ministers accept their insecurity that way?

Nouwen: You need a person with whom you feel free to be insecure. Let me paint a picture. You're in a big room with a six-inch-wide balance beam in the center. Now the balance beam is only twelve inches off the fully carpeted floor. Most of us act as if we were blindfolded and trying to walk on that balance beam; we're afraid we'll fall off. But we don't realize we're only twelve inches off the floor.

The spiritual director is someone who can push you off that balance beam and say, "See? It's okay. God still loves you." Take that nervousness about whether you're going to succeed and whether you have enough money-take the whole thing up on that narrow beam and just fall off.
Foster: That's one of the great values of reading the saints. They had this utter vulnerability to fail by human standards.

We've talked a lot about prayer. How do you look at prayer?

Nouwen: Prayer is first of all listening to God. It's openness. God is always speaking; he's always doing something. ...