“Noah did everything just as God commanded him.” –Genesis 6:22
No way could I have done what Noah did. Building that boat with little help and for the purpose of a flood no one else saw coming. No way. But Noah did it. Faithfully. He built the ark just as instructed, gathered his wife, sons, daughters-in-law, and all of the animals and locked them in a boat just as the first raindrops began to fall.
I bet it was an utter mess. Literally. I can imagine them fighting about whose turn it was to clean up after the elephants and who was going to risk life and limb to feed the lions. They were probably constantly at each other's throats from being too long in such a small space. When I think of those people cooped up together like that, I remember when I, as a teenager, had to share a room with my older teenage cousin. We almost didn't make it to adulthood. A person needs some privacy. The passengers on the ark could never get a moment’s rest or peace or privacy. I'm sure after only a few days at sea, Noah's prayers sounded a lot like this:
“God, you have to be kidding me!”
“Get me off this boat!”
“This is such a mess!”
This text reminds me of pastoral ministry. It reminds me of how following God's instructions can lead you into a giant mess.
You arrive at church the first day as pastor to find that the mortgage hasn't been paid in months.
Or the musician has never been to a worship service on time.
Or the head trustee is Satan's cousin.
Or the youth minister is far too chummy with the teenage girls.
And you are standing in the middle of the sanctuary wanting to scream at the top of your lungs, thinking, Surely I heard God wrong. Surely God could not be so unreasonable as to call me into such a mess.
It's happened to me. I've been there.
Another leader looked me in the eyes and said, "You're what … 25? I have trousers older than you."
Cleaning Up an Elephant-Sized Mess
In my first gig as a senior pastor, God sent me to a church that had been planted 15 years before. At the time, it was trendy to distance the church identity from denominational affiliation. When the founding pastor was moved and I arrived on the scene, the congregation learned for the first time they were a United Methodist congregation. It was traumatic. I spent the first year and a half of my pastorate explaining the meaning of itineracy and acting as a chaplain by helping a congregation grieve the loss of their "real pastor."
Feeding the Lions
Not only were my sheep confused and grief stricken at the pastoral transition, they were also enraged—and I received the lion's share of their anger. My first leadership meeting was interrupted by a disgruntled leader who yelled, "You are not my pastor. You have no idea what you're doing!" Another leader looked me in the eyes and said, "You're what … 25? I have trousers older than you. What could you possibly teach me?"
Navigating Family Strife
I regularly dealt with issues that I had no previous experience to help me navigate. There was no "pastor's manual" to help me sort through the chaos I faced. My head trustee who had a key to every room in the church relapsed into a crack addiction, and I had to juggle ministering a parishioner in need of his pastor and protecting the church building from recurring vandalism and attempted theft. Where is that section in the Sermon on the Mount? Spoiler alert: you won't find it in there.
Weathering the Storm
I've been an avid runner since middle school, and I've always had impeccable blood pressure. The nurses would say, "You work out don't you? I can tell." At my first check-up after nine months as a pastor, my blood pressure was so high they wouldn't let me leave the doctor's office until it lowered.
This doctor's appointment was the day after a finance committee meeting where I was informed that the church had run through its annual budget and there wouldn't be enough money to get to the end of the year. My salary would have to be cut.
"That can't be," I responded. "My salary is paid by a grant."
"Yes, but we sometimes have to use grants to pay bills. Rob Peter to pay Paul, you know? Regardless, there is no money. What are we going to do, Pastor?"
So we cut my salary.
After a few years of pastoral ministry, I told my father, "I just wanted to do good in the world. I wanted to spend my days serving God and being of service to Christ's bride, the Church. God and I are fine. We have a great relationship. But working in this church, working with church people, sometimes makes me want to jump off a precipice!"
My father, ever the wise sage, responded, "I think that's normal. I think that's ministry."
He's right.
Somewhere along the way, I’d assumed that ministry was supposed to be neat and pleasant and rewarding. I believed that if I worked hard enough, if I did enough strategic planning, if I read enough "how to grow a church" books, then the attendance would grow, the finances would multiply, the worship would be pure and life-giving, the sun would shine.
We don't have to take it so personally when it feels like we are running a circus instead of a church.
But church is messy. It is composed of people, and people are messy. As pastors, we spend much of our time cleaning up messes we didn't create, risking our wellbeing to spiritually feed those with half a mind to destroy us, settling disputes among church members who fight like teenagers sharing a bedroom, and weathering financial storms that could last months, even years.
That's normal. That's ministry.
The biblical model of ministry suggests that God can and often does call us, like Noah, into situations we have never experienced before. God calls us to perform in ways that aren't pretty or pleasant or easy.
There is something deeply liberating about knowing that. It means we don't have to take it so personally when it feels like we are running a circus instead of a church.
Dealing with the Mess
There are all sorts of ways to deal with the difficulties of ministry. I've tried most of them:
Stress eating until my pants no longer fit. I don't recommend it.
Developing a mild drinking problem. I don't recommend it.
Becoming so burned out that I stopped responding to emails, showing up for meetings, or coming to the office. I don't recommend it.
Still, in my years as a pastor, I’ve found some healthy ways to navigate ministry’s messes. I do recommend:
Therapy. Find someone to go to and scream, cry, and process so you aren't carrying around the weight of the institution all alone.
Get away. I became intentional about negotiating away time. Once a week, I take a Sabbath. Once a year, I take a summer break. I let interns and associate members or lay leaders preach for the whole month of July to gain some time to breath. Once every couple of years, I take a sabbatical, whether it's a couple of weeks, a couple of months, or a year. Extended breaks are necessary for a lifelong commitment to church work.
Laugh. It doesn't cost any money, but it's healing. Sometimes what you face as a pastor is so absurd you just have to chuckle. My administrative assistant and I faced crisis after crisis, and in our staff meetings we would collapse into giggling fits because the situations were so ridiculous. After a good belly laugh, we could get back to work and face the storm.
Don't compare yourself to other churches. Compare yourself to the Good Book. In the Bible, leaders did not get called to pristine congregations. More often, they were like Abraham—called to leave his family and everything he knew to go to a place God would not reveal until he arrived. Or they were like Moses—minding his own business in Midian until God burned into his life, and the next thing he knew, he was wandering around the wilderness with thousands of thankless Israelites. Or they were like Noah—faithful to God in the midst of the unknown, a fight, a storm, a mess.
Armed with good mental health, rest, joy, and perspective, we are prepared to put on our gloves and dig elbow-deep into the muck of our congregations and communities. Eventually the storm will end and the waters will subside. God calls us to be like Noah, not to be the best, or the most glamorous, or the shiniest. God just calls us to be faithful, to go where he leads us—even into an utter mess.
Tiffany Thomas is a native of Columbus, Ohio. She earned her BA from Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, and pursued her MDiv from Duke University. She currently serves as senior pastor of South Tryon Community Church in Charlotte, North Carolina.
