Casual curiosity suddenly became a preoccupation. Nearing graduation from seminary, I had come upon statistics on the duration of the first pastorate for recent graduates. The average had been just over two years. And that included a few who had stayed much longer.
Why were these pastors, so full of excitement and so well trained, hitting a wall after only a couple of years in their first parish? Was their inexperience the culprit? Or was it the fault of all those churches ripping unsuspecting graduates to shreds?
My “just about to graduate with only one church casually looking at me” anxiety was increased by my finding. What if my first church is a scarring experience? When that one-and-only call came, I accepted. After all, that church was rather lonely in its interest in me, so how hard did I have to search for God’s will? I did resolve, however, that I would not make my contribution to the brief-tenure statistics.
After all, I reasoned, I’m a man of good training, high energy, excellent background, supportive family, strong will, pretty fair ability, solid conviction, and straight teeth. I will do all right. Besides, I have a lot of courage and am not afraid to stand alone.
Had I also had a touch of humility with even a modicum of self-analysis, I would have seen I was on my way to a short career in that church. Maybe in every church I would serve. What I saw as ego strength coupled with courage was interpreted by others as ego fragility and bullheadedness.
The breaking of a pastor: it has happened before and it was bound to happen again. This time it happened to me.
Headstrong pastors, like frisky colts, often need breaking. My breaking happened in a way that moved me through the succeeding years with more grace. At times, I still need reminding of those long-ago lessons, but I am deeply indebted to the grace of God, who disciplines through his people.
God used three major experiences to set me on a better path for ministry. They were neither easy nor pleasant, and even now, putting the specifics on paper is difficult. But let me try, for I have discovered I am not alone in the lessons I needed to add to my formal training.
A Lesson in Forgiveness
My first shaping episode involved a counseling situation. The newly married couple was special to me since I had married them and saw in them great leadership potential.
One evening my wife and I were enjoying a long-overdue, romantic dinner date. We had just been served the salad when the young husband walked in. As soon as he spotted us in the dim light, he made a mad rush in our direction. The urgency in his voice and the frightened look in his eyes compelled me to follow him outside, leaving my wife to eat alone-again.
There I found his wife in a near panic. She had befriended an older man at work, who obviously had a variety of problems. The man had responded to her sweet, Christian concern with gratitude bordering on hunger. She meant only to help a fellow employee, but the more care she lavished, the more interested he became in her. Young and a bit naive, she never noticed. She didn’t seem to realize his calls at her home always coincided with her husband’s absence. She simply responded in what she felt to be Christian love.
Earlier that evening he had called again, and they had gone for a drive and conversation. In an inopportune and desolate area, he suddenly pulled the car to the side of the road and slumped against the steering wheel-dead of a massive heart attack.
Now the terrified couple asked me, “What is going to happen?” I had no idea, but I was soon going to learn.
Sheriff, coroner, media people, and later, hearings and inquests all made the next hours and days a maelstrom. When at last it was legally and formally wrapped up, I was both spent and relieved.
Then my telephone began to ring. The messages assumed a wide variety of approaches but a sickening consistency:
“What is wrong with your church to allow that woman to keep singing in the choir?”
“Don’t you know what’s going on in our church?”
“Don’t we have any standards anymore?”
By the third or fourth call, I began to realize the sort of ugly rumors that had been created by the circumstances surrounding the death.
I reacted with hot anger. Their eager judgment certainly doesn’t communicate any Christian love or compassion, I fumed. And since the calls were anonymous, there was nothing productive I could do. So I stewed.
About ten days later, with the rumor mills still in full operation, we celebrated Communion in the morning worship service. My sermon focused on forgiveness and restoration. Following the sermon and the invitation to Communion, I said, “One of our sisters has something that needs to be said.” My young friend stood at my side, still wearing her choir robe. In her hand she nervously clutched an index card with a prayerfully and laboriously written statement we had worked out together with her husband.
Three times she tried to read the card, only to be blocked by her emotion. I finally took the card and read it on her behalf. In essence, it stated the simple facts without responding to the rumors. She then asked the church family to forgive her for the shadows her lack of wisdom had cast over the fellowship and its witness.
Turning to her, I voiced the unconditional forgiveness and love of the church, which could also be read in the faces of the hushed congregation. I then asked her forgiveness for any part of her pain we had caused. When she returned to her seat, the congregation was given the opportunity to speak. Several people spoke, and we experienced a time of repentance and restoration.
Perhaps beginning to melt the pastor’s heart is one of the works of the Holy Spirit. I had seen the pain and separation that harsh, ready judgment could inflict, even on the innocent. I had also witnessed the power of forgiveness and love that replaces judgment and anger. I determined right then which direction to lean when the opportunity next arose.
Perhaps I was being prepared for my next, much more difficult, lesson.
A Lesson in Style
A few months later it arrived. I had been gone a week, preaching at another church, and upon my return, I was greeted warmly by the chairman of the deacon board. After the exchange of pleasantries, he asked me about the special diaconate meeting held the previous week. I knew nothing about such a meeting! An alarm bell went off in my mind. They held a special meeting when both the chairman and I were out of town; it must have been about me!
My conclusion was not unreasonable. For several weeks all the indicators had been discouraging. Attendance, offerings, morale were all noticeably down. The honeymoon, such as it had been, was decidedly over. Maybe I’m about to make my contribution to the statistics on brief first pastorates, I thought. My emotions ran the gamut from Poor me to I’ll show them real strength!
The next regularly scheduled meeting of the diaconate was set for the following week. I waited all through the meeting for someone to mention the unscheduled meeting. None did. Just as the chairman was about to adjourn the meeting, I gathered my gumption and asked for the minutes of the last meeting to be read. When he told me they had already been read, I replied, “I was referring to the one held during my absence.” Embarrassed silence. The deacons evidenced a noticeable interest in cuticles and shoe shines.
I took the offensive, speaking with sarcasm and demanding “full disclosure.” I noticed with pleasure that “they” were squirming uncomfortably. Obviously, “they” were “under conviction.”
Then one of the older deacons spoke quietly. Because Gilbert had frequently demonstrated his concern for me, I listened carefully, thinking he would be my ally. I wasn’t prepared for what he said.
“Pastor,” he said gently, “you please me that you want to be called pastor rather than reverend; pastor suggests the word shepherd to me. I think you really want to be our shepherd. Maybe it’s your western upbringing, but you feel more like a western-type shepherd than the biblical figure. In the Bible, the shepherd knows his sheep by name. He leads them into pastures and by quiet waters. He seeks until he finds the straying and then rejoices with his neighbors.
“Yet, sometimes I feel you send the dogs after us like a western shepherd would. The missis and I often find it difficult to eat our Sunday lunch because we feel we have been barked at and harassed.
“Pastor, we know we are sinners. The Holy Spirit is faithful in probing our darkness with light. But I come to Sunday worship with a hope and hunger for healing. Forgiveness-that’s what I need, the gospel, the Good News.
“Forgive me, Pastor, but you insist on knowing my heart, and I’m trying to be honest, though it frightens me to touch the Lord’s anointed. Please tell us the Good News of his love and reconciliation. Heal. Don’t hurt … “
He said more in that soft, gentle voice. But I didn’t hear it. I only heard the sound of my brittle ego shattering. I only felt my tears.
I heard my Shepherd’s good news in those words. My deacon friend hadn’t spoken harshly. He didn’t want to hurt me. His tenderly piercing words were for my benefit, my breaking. Gentle was the fracturing of this pastor’s false role expectations. Never again would I see myself as a harrying sheep dog.
I experienced the love and healing of Jesus-from the hands of those I had accused of scheming in my absence.
Much more took place that late night and early morning, events too sacred to share. I hardly slept afterwards. Somehow in the painful breaking, I was being set free from hardness and performance. I was accepted and loved anyway. I still am. Amazing grace!
The next day I went through my sermon file with new insight. How could I have thought I was preaching the gospel while delivering such bad news to God’s people? Where did I get the idea that the conviction of sin was my job? How had I come to equate preaching the Good News with making hearers miserable? Had I not been called to carry out the work of my Lord? Then his burden is mine: “He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed . . .” (Luke 4:18).
That good news began to burn inside of me. I had good news to share that we all needed to hear. I was recovering my sight. I was being released.
In anticipation, the Lord’s Day took on a happy cast. Freed to be accepting as I had been accepted, I looked forward to standing with my people instead of over and against them.
Perhaps, I thought, this second lesson completes my initiation. I could barely wait for the next Sunday. Had I known it would bring my third breaking, I would not have been as eager.
A Lesson in Weakness
I decided to preach on the love of God. The decision was as much for myself as for the church. I was having such a great time with the Good News, and the best part is his love for us. I chose 1 John 3:1 for my text: “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” Now that was good news worth preaching. My people would revel in a new preacher this week.
That Lord’s Day the sermon I had prepared was a wonder. Today I am ready to preach with power, I thought on my way into church. The rehearsing choir sounded great. All was prepared. I was pumped.
The hymn before the sermon seemed to take so long that morning. I wanted to get on with the message. At last it ended, and the organ modulated to the soft music that signaled time to preach. I stepped confidently into the pulpit and announced my text. I would read it twice, I had decided; it must be clearly heard. So I heralded that fabulous announcement from John: “How great is the love the Father has lavished . . . children of God . . . what we are!”
As I read those words, they burrowed straight to my heart. Warmth. Balm. Wonder. For some reason, as never before, the reality of God’s sumptuous love overwhelmed me.
I remember few details of what happened next. I think I tried to say, “This morning I have some wonderful news about who we are,” or something like that. But that was all I could force out before words simply refused to bypass the medicine ball in my throat. I must have tried more than once-I am not one to give up easily-but I physically could make no sound. How could I talk when I was finally seeing myself immersed in God’s lavish love?
The silent, swallowing seconds felt like hours. I must have looked like a fool, fumbling in the pulpit and choking on my words. Finally, when it became obvious there would be no sermon, somebody mercifully announced the closing hymn, and this would-be preacher fled in confused and embarrassed retreat.
How can I face them after such an unseemly loss of control? Where will I go now? Will they still want me as their pastor? These thoughts flooded my mind as I slipped out the back door and quickly drove away from the church. The thoughts wouldn’t sit still in my mind long enough to be processed before rushing on. That was just as well; I had no answers. So I drove aimlessly in quiet tears and flushed embarrassment. This pastor sure made a mess of it today.
But I also sensed a growing warmth in my spirit as my heart pulsed with the continuing echo of the Good News: “Loved . . . children of God . . . that is what we are.” After a few miles I turned toward home.
Meanwhile, the church family surprisingly had not focused on me, the departed buffoon of a pastor. Afterwards I learned they were centered on the wonder of the Father’s love. It was a love that drew them-some to the front of the church for prayer, some to the quiet of their homes for thoughtful meditation, some to subdued conversation. But most of all, it drew them to him.
I can’t explain the outcome. I had done nothing-but perhaps that itself is the explanation.
When I returned to the church for the evening service, I felt awkward, to say the least. I discovered, however, that God’s encircling hand had drawn people and pastor together. We who were so loved could love in return.
Ministry went on in that congregation. I regained my voice. I preached and taught and married and buried, yet with a new sense of the love of God burning in my heart-my pastor’s heart. In time we could even laugh together about “the best sermon Bud never preached.”
This colt was broken. But it’s not as if I’ve become a swaybacked nag without any kick. I’m still learning some lessons-maybe less monumental-but that’s what still qualifies me as a disciple. Yet since my breaking I am not the same. We do not remain untamed; we become conformed to his image.
True, I still tend to compensate for my weaknesses and failures by grumbling to myself about the same foibles in others. I still lean toward cynicism and ego maintenance. But the Good News attenuates my foibles and accentuates the Lord’s strengths.
My wife and I are beginning our twentieth year in our present parish. God’s love clearly must make a difference. The “wild” Bud would never have made it this far. The “being broken” Bud experiences God’s love daily.
At the risk of mixing metaphors, let me quote another source on breaking. “So I went down to the potter’s house, and I saw him working at the wheel. But the pot he was shaping from the clay was marred in his hands; so the potter formed it into another pot, shaping it as seemed best to him” (Jer. 18:3-4). Whether as a broken pot or a broken colt, this pastor is better for the breaking.
Bud Palmberg is pastor of Mercer Island (Washington) Covenant Church.
Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
