I heard Bill was upset, so our breakfast meeting came at my initiative. Pushing aside my cleaned plate, I finally said, “Bill, I understand you’ve got some concerns and I want to hear them personally. You have been part of this church since it was started, and I value your insights.”
Tactful to the extreme, he affirmed my ministry, saying the church had grown since my arrival five years earlier. He said he appreciated me as a person. Then he blurted, “Pastor, we’re trying as hard as we can, and nothing seems to please you. You seem to be out of touch with how we live.”
Other words followed, but my mind began to race. My immediate thoughts obsessed on lowering standards, carnality, lack of zeal. Then an echo of a mentor reminded me that a direct confrontation can be one’s best friend. I drifted back into listening.
Bill went on about time pressures and job demands and family finances, his struggles for godliness and the heartache he felt about his child’s congenital illness. He told me about the lawsuit at work, the hours of depositions. He spoke of life as a church member who loved Jesus, juggled many balls in life, and whose pastor seemed intent on driving the sheep into exhaustion.
I left breakfast numb and remained so for days.
True reflection
I was a 35-year-old pastor in a reasonably successful church. I truly loved the people, and I fully intended to be faithful to God and the Bible. Apparently, though, I was not helping Bill grow in Christ. To him, I projected such demands for his spirituality that he felt discouraged. Then I thought of other comments, some from my staff, that confirmed Bill’s assessment. I wondered how many others saw me this way. I wondered if I needed to resign or at least make a public apology.
I felt despondent for several days, but then I had to conclude Bill was probably right: I did not understand the world that most in my church inhabited. I had never worked a year in the secular world. My work world and church world were one. I had never known severe stress or financial worry. My wife and children were healthy.
I also began to analyze more honestly my motives for ministry and concluded that many derived from naked ambition. I come from a family of successes. Dad crawled his way to success from his beginnings as an immigrant’s son. Mom exercised incredible self-mastery, excelling in all her tasks. The failures of others were dinner-table and bed-time lessons in foolishness and laziness.
In weakness I was met with mercy and compassion.
Somewhere along the line I chose to be ambitious, to strive for success. When I was converted I simply transferred my ambition into religion. I was called to serve a church as its senior pastor at 31. I loved the people, but I also saw my work as a great opportunity to become the next megachurch pastor. I had a plan and a schedule, and I was going to make it happen. Instead of a leading shepherd, I became a driving rancher.
I projected my expectations in a hundred ways—and not just in sermons. In board meetings and hallway conversations, I raised my eyebrows in a disapproving manner. I sighed with impatience. I thought, What’s wrong with these people?
Spiritual conversations
Fortunately, the next few years I had a number of enlightening encounters with mature and godly people, whom I respected and wanted to imitate. They had experienced my unreasonable demands. Each one told me something about my expectations and the limitations of the people I serve.
Unreasonable time demands
Our board meeting had just finished, and several of us were making casual conversation. One board member, a father of two, moaned, “I have to go back to work now. I have a project due and have worked sixty hours the last four days.”
We prayed for him, but as I drove home I remembered that I had been angry with him that evening because he had not completed an assignment from the previous meeting. The assignment was important; his failure delayed my plans a month.
It had not occurred to me that his time was not his own.
Unreasonable performance demands
The church was in the process of hiring a new secretary. I asked that a certain woman be considered because she had performed with merit in the business world. She was hired and became a strong assistant. One day she confided in me that she had feared coming to work for me: “I wasn’t sure I could measure up to your standards.”
I was stunned.
Unreasonable energy demands
While my wife has always been a great encourager, she often sleeps through my sermons. She explained that Sunday was the one day of the week she could sit for more than five minutes without caring for the kids.
“When I sit for long I get so drowsy,” she said. “I just can’t stay awake.”
“Honey, you just need to pinch yourself and wake up,” I replied. Upset, I felt she should come to church fresh and alive for worship. Now I see I was making unreasonable energy demands on her.
Unreasonable holiness demands
A deeply distressed woman came to see me. I considered her a godly woman in the church.
“Pastor, I am finding this series on sin to be really hard for me,” she said. “Don’t take it personally; it’s not you. But I feel like I need to get away for awhile. Would I have your permission to attend another church until you finish this material?”
I almost gasped—my messages were weakening, not renewing, her faith. Somehow I was sending out the message, “Sin is never acceptable here.” She did not need to be reminded of her sin. She needed assurance that Jesus was able to present her spotless in his presence some day.
These experiences began to reshape my attitude toward the people of my church. But one more experience was needed: I had to experience weakness myself.
New company
When I was younger, I had the energy to drive hard, to keep ridiculous standards, to force myself higher. I labored over sermons because I did not want to displease myself. I refused to let mistakes be made in public. I commonly felt anger at myself and rarely felt grateful.
A few years ago, the church faced a series of crises. Two staff members moved. A conflict among the leadership simmered. A variety of people failed to live up to my expectations in a short period of time. Angry and frustrated, I determined to dig in and work longer and harder.
Soon I began to have chest pains, then insomnia. I was preoccupied; my memory lapsed. I could hardly focus on anything for more than ten minutes. Sometimes I would weep uncontrollably.
I had run headlong into weakness and limitation. Out of energy and motivation and health, I saw in myself all that I had begun to see in others: weakness, pressure, limitations, good intentions gone bad. Yet I was not met with harsh expectations from leaders or others in the church.
One Sunday evening, the board gathered around me and prayed. Then they asked, “Pastor, you have taken care of us. Would you let us take care of you?”
They did. They gave me time off, complete relief from my responsibilities. No demands were placed upon me. In the weeks that followed, I received more than 150 cards and notes. In weakness I was met with mercy and compassion.
When I came back, many took hold of my hand or gave me a hug with tears in their eyes. One man could hardly speak as he looked into my eyes. Finally he garbled out, “Pastor, I’ve been there twice.”
I learned an incredible lesson in human frailty. I saw that my driving demands, which brought me down, also brought down others.
I have come to feel grateful. I now sometimes walk around on a Sunday and watch people serve. Or I look at the list of what people do, without pay. I know their stories. I know their lives and pressures and limited finances, and I am truly amazed. Not all of the time, of course. Sometimes I am still angry with poor performance, but I am also filled with wonder at how love for God can move one to such sacrifice.
In my first eight years in the church, one man always seemed to keep me at “pastoral distance.” We had many conversations but never connected. One Sunday after my experience with weakness, he came to me and grabbed my hand with both of his. There were tears in his eyes. He told me of his own nervous breakdown years before. Then he said, “Pastor, welcome to the human race.”
I took those words as a high honor.
Mark Lauterbach is pastor of First Baptist Church of Los Altos, California. ibid. In weakness I was met with mercy and compassion.
1998 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. For reprint information call 630-260-6200 or contact us.
