It had been a hard year of ministry, and I was feeling discouraged. So I went to an older, wiser, veteran pastor to seek godly wisdom. This is what he told me: “If you get stuck holding the bedpan, carry it like a queen.”
Bryant Kirkland had spent over fifty years as pastor to congregations of a variety of sizes and locations. When I was in seminary, he taught my preaching courses, and he continued to be my mentor till his quiet death on Easter a few years ago. I loved going to Bryant for counsel because he had such a gift for offering wisdom that was truly spiritual—precisely because it never sounded spiritual.
He reminded me of the way Jesus made a theological point by cursing fig trees, eating with sinners, or presenting over a hundred gallons of wine as a wedding present. Jesus would have certainly used Bryant’s line about bedpans if they had been around in the first century.
When one of his daughters was born, Bryant was impressed by the quality of the nurses who cared for his wife and new baby. When he complimented a supervisor, she explained that the hospital trained all of its own nurses. “We tell our nurses that there are a lot of smelly jobs in our profession, but every job can be conducted with dignity. Our motto: If you get stuck holding the bedpan, carry it like a queen. Then the focus isn’t on the bedpan but on the graciousness of the one who is holding it.” I got the point.
There are also a lot of smelly jobs in the pastoral ministry. For example, churches attract odd people. That’s our business. As another of my teachers once said, “If you want to be the light of the world, you have to expect to attract a few bugs.” Eventually the members and elders of the congregation get bugged by the problem parishioner, but it usually falls to the pastor to “do something about it.”
The pastor also has to fire unproductive staff, meet with chronic complainers, wade into conflicts between leaders, and represent the unpopular changes being proposed by the church board. These are all smelly jobs, but someone has to do them and often that someone is the person who is being paid to come to church.
Most seminaries don’t explain to their students how much time pastors spend carrying bedpans, and even fewer offer guidance on how to do it. Many of the Doctor of Ministry students in the seminary I serve are fed up with this part of their jobs.
“It just stinks!” they lament.
“Yes,” I agree. “Now the question is how do you respond?”
Nothing in the ministry has the power to determine the pastor’s countenance. In the words of Viktor Frankl, “The last of the human freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances.” So why would you hand over that freedom to a bedpan? You may have to carry the smelly mess, but you don’t have to let it into your soul, where attitudes are created.
Dignity in ministry is found not in the task but in the one who has called us to it. If you are clear that it is Christ who has called you to serve this church, then you are always part of a royal priesthood. But you have to choose to see that. It’s the only way you can look like royalty while doing a task that just stinks.
You can get a new job with another church if you want, but there will be a few bedpans waiting for you there as well. After serving three congregations, I can tell you that it’s a lot easier to change the pastor than it is to change the church. And the way to change the pastor is to focus more on the Caller than the calling. Christ has set us free by binding us to himself. This frees us from other lords, which means the bedpan has no power over us.
The pastor is even free to determine if he or she will continue to be a pastor. Few people are saying this, but pastors are always free to respond to difficulty by quitting the whole business. There are higher callings in the pastor’s life than being a pastor. If you want to go sell insurance, you are certainly free to do that as long as you continue to serve Christ. But this means you are also free to stay in the pastoral ministry, and as long as you are free, your life is filled with dignity.
Editor at large Craig Barnes is pastor of Shadyside Presbyterian Church and professor of leadership and ministry at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary.
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