Self Analysis Without Paralysis

Well all know the term, “paralysis by analysis”. Often within business we think of this in working on a project, or in sports you can see this from football coaches who over-think the situation they are in and make play-calling harder than it needs to be.

I don’t think I’m unique in stating this, but I live in an almost constant state of self-analysis. I’m not saying 98% of people do this, but I know I’m not the only one. The question is, why? Is it due to lack of confidence? Am I unsure of my next move or where I should go or what I should say? Many can confirm those are not issues I have. So why do I do it?

I was thinking about this in church today because we were discussing Naomi and how, essentially, she felt she was no longer worth anything to anyone and that God had given up on her. Now, obviously the end-result of Naomi’s life was much more grand, and because her daughter-in-law was such a wonderful woman, the lineage of Christ in human form has a long, regal ancestry.

But listening to how Naomi thought of herself, I wondered what it was about me, or about any of us, that causes so much self analysis. I can’t recall a time when I didn’t analyze most of what I did and said spiritually. In addition, I know I analyze most everything that occurs during my work day for improvement. I strive to be the best I can be in everything I say, in the e-mails that I write, the phone conversations that I have. Part of this for me is being humble enough to consistently analyze my own actions.

I want to discuss the spiritual analysis, however. Let’s start with a confession. I fail miserably, in my eyes, at being the type of spiritual leader I need to be in my home. Why do I say this? Well for one, I think most of us probably fail and know we do, but that’s not why I stated it. I say it because I rarely achieve even a portion of my own standards for spiritual leadership. Now we all know that generally, we’re harder on ourselves than God is, and I’m not talking about trying to reach some level that is reachable by only a select few. I’m talking about basic spiritual leadership in the home.

Know what made me think of this today? The idea of praying for my wife. My wife, who loves me at a level I sometimes can barely understand, has been going through some unsolved health issues for months now. Eventually, we both believe the doctors will find the right medicine to even her system out so she feels normal most of the time. This hasn’t happened yet, however, and we’re about four or five months into the actual analysis stage, trying to determine not only what ails her, but how to treat it. She rarely feels good, and she’s susceptible to things she didn’t use to have to worry about.

It dawned on me today that I find it very easy to lift up a quick prayer when I find out about a need someone has, or if I see someone broken down by the side of the road. I’m real good at being silent but willing. I’m also very good about being in almost constant communion with God. We have many conversations throughout each day, and it’s ingrained in me that we are always talking.

So why is it, then, that I don’t take regular time daily to pray for my wife, to pray for my son and daughter, to pray for, well, anyone or anything that means a lot to me? Know when I have directed prayer times the most? Meals. We’ve got that one covered. Our food does not get eaten without being blessed. Phew! What a relief!

Ummm, yeah. Listen, my challenge here is to me as well as anyone else choosing to read. Why do we continually fail at a monumental level to be in touch with God for the ones we love? What about true leadership, men? Are we sharing a devotional time or Bible study time daily with our wives/girlfriends…gasp!…children?

I can’t begin to explain the depth of my disappointment in an inability to retain a constant devotional life either individually or with my wife. What’s my reason? Oh, that devotional book is boring; it doesn’t speak to me. Or, that one just isn’t as exciting as the last one. Or, I’m really tired tonight, so perhaps missing a night is OK, right? And then it becomes two nights, then three…you see where I’m going with this.

I didn’t write this to counsel us on being spiritual leaders. I didn’t write it to guilt myself or anyone else into having daily devotional and prayer time with not only yourself but your significant other as well. I wrote it because I realized that even though I analyze so much of what I do, especially spiritually, I’m shocked it doesn’t have a bigger impact.

Ultimately, this is my focus point. When you look at your life spiritually, in any facet, and you realize your shortcomings, do you make any changes to correct it? If you do, are they always short-lived and eventually you fade? So here’s my challenge to myself and all of you. Habits are formed by continually doing something over and over and over again until they become a part of you. You don’t get smart at how you eat by doing it for a week, then taking a week off (BELIEVE ME, I’ve tried).

Likewise, we don’t become spiritual servants, and spiritual leaders, by thinking about something, then doing it once in awhile or only in spurts. We have to continually challenge ourselves. And maybe food is the best comparison to spirituality, odd as that may sound. Food is something most of us Americans struggle with because we have so much available to us. I don’t know about you, but I get used to ordering the same amount of food, or the same number of items, every time I go to Taco Bell or McDonald’s. So I have recently challenged myself to eat one thing less, whether at a restaurant or at home, to see if I can develop a habit of being smarter about my food intake.

And, not to throw too much pressure on myself all at once, I’m challenging myself spiritually as well, to do one thing more when it comes to being the spiritual leader in my home that I am called to be. Devotions will start back up, and the push will be that even when I’m tired, or when neither my wife nor I is feeling well, we’ll still do the devotion. Even if we don’t care for the book we currently have, we’ll do the devotion (and search for a new, cooler one just as soon as we can!).

When you analyze, do you paralyze? If you do, stop. Do one thing less and accept the gift of grace God provides. Accepting who you are and who He made you to be is how you’ll keep from becoming paralyzed when you over-analyze.

Livin’ In A Box

Do you put God in a box? I know I’m guilty of it. Having been through multiple job searches over the past several years I have often found myself creating my own limits on what I believe God will do. I have found myself thinking and saying crazy things like, “I won’t get that job…it’s where I want to be” or “I’ll apply for this job but I doubt I’ll get it because I never get interviews where I want them.”

Is that crazy or what? Here I am, a child of the God of the universe, the One who can do anything and created everything, and I doubt His ability to create something good for me? What’s more surprising, that we all create this box for God to work within or that we doubt His love for us, allowing our own self-doubt to overpower a love we can barely comprehend?

I suspect that, truth be told, it’s a little of both, but that ultimately the box we create comes from a lack of understanding His love for us. Let me ask you a question to force a bit of introspection. When you fail at something, or run through a period where things don’t seem to be going very well, do you lose sight of God’s love for you? Before you answer, think about it for a bit. The easy answer is to say that no, you never doubt God’s love. The response then must be, “then why do you/we not believe He wants great things for us?” It would also be wise to ask yourself why you don’t focus even more on His love when you feel that distance creeping in?

I know this thought process can be a bit off the path a bit, so let’s see if I can clarify just a touch with this statement: If I know God loves me and I believe He loves me as a dad loves his child, then even in my limited human understanding I can recognize how powerful that love truly is. The sheer power of my own love for my children is so strong I can’t hold it inside. I get very emotional at seemingly small things because I love them so deeply that I feel everything they go through. God’s love is even so much more than that for us, I believe, so for me to suggest He doesn’t care enough to aid my happiness is selfish and blind, at best.

What happens when I become so inward and lose sight of His obvious love is that I begin to create limits on what I believe God can do. For example, let’s say I’m job searching and cannot seem to find the right fit. After several months I begin to doubt everything about my search and where I’ll land because I’ve been stating to God all along that I’ll go wherever He wants me to go. Deep down, do I believe it? I do, but even in that willingness to move I’m creating a box for Him to provide because I’ve resigned myself to a belief that my ideal choice can’t possibly be His ideal choice for me.

Ummmm, why? Why would I believe God wouldn’t want me to be incredibly happy? Do I not want my own children to be extremely happy? How different is this, then, from His perspective? Let me share a little secret. I’ve spent 22 of the last 30 months unemployed, constantly believing my life was going to be changed in dramatic ways by moves to unfamiliar locations. In all of this, my consistent affirmation to God was that I would go wherever He wanted and do whatever He wanted. I wanted to serve and that was a sincere desire but I firmly believed my desires had no place in that commitment to Him.

See, never in all those times of searching did I once ask God to place me in the one location I wanted to live more than any other. Not once. So it struck me, as He circumvented my own lack of understanding and gave me a job in exactly the one place I wanted to live more than any other, that I had not understood. I hadn’t understood the depth of His love; I hadn’t understood that while I was willing to go and do anything for Him, it was OK to state my own preference, especially as it wasn’t selfish, though I’m aware He understands my selfish thoughts as well.

Look, there is nothing wrong with asking God the desires of your heart as long as you understand He’s not about to grant something counterproductive to His work and what He’s accomplishing through you. As a child of God, as one who has said YES to His Son, you have been given many gifts, one of which is the opportunity to serve the One who saved you from nothingness. So do Him a favor; the next time you are worried that your prayers will not be heard because you are concerned they are selfish, examine the reason you feel you are being selfish. Sometimes it’s because you don’t understand His love for you and sometimes it’s because you’ve created a box you believe God will work within.

Stop living in the box and start living without limits. God loves you deeply enough that you’ll never comprehend it on His earth, but that doesn’t mean you have to forgo enjoying it while you’re here. He wants to show us His love, but so often we don’t allow Him to do it fully because we can’t comprehend it. The phrase that comes to mind here is “Let go. Let God.”

Let’s let go and let God and see where that gets us. I have a suspicion it’ll be much better than we ever hoped.

Your Weakness, His Strength?

My brother made a comment on the last post I’d been thinking a bit about lately so I want to place a note here to flesh out this thing that can be a problem. The problem is, how do we overcome the limits of our simple minds and recognize that even in our weakness, God can draw strength? Moreover, when do we quit placing limits on God’s ability to use us?

Dan’s quote in his comment was, “I keep wasting my time on my strengths and thinking they must be the path God wants to work most through me.” This is exactly what I’d been thinking about and states the idea very well. We all use this excuse for not being more and doing more for God. It starts with saying we’re not ready to become saved or make a commitment to Him because we’re not good enough, or acting right, or in the right place spiritually. It continues when we determine that our weaknesses are too much for God to overcome, so we can’t possibly serve Him in the way we should until those are corrected.

While both of these thought processes are simply part of being human, they show a lack of understanding of the true power of God and His ability to effect change using any part of us. What’s crazy to me is that we’ll read about all the mistakes the Israelites made (their deliverance from Egypt is the most common one to attack) and poke fun at how they continued to forsake God and forget what He’d done and was doing for them, and yet often not make the connection that we do the same.

Admittedly, reading these stories has always seemed a little off to me. I’d see how they seemingly continued to forget God’s grace and would begin to worship idols, or how they’d complain to Moses and Aaron about different things and I’d wonder how they could be so, well, stupid. But I knew somewhere in there as I was pointing my finger at them that there must be three fingers pointing right back at me, though I couldn’t figure out why that was true.

Well, here I am putting limits on God’s ability to use me or place me into any form of ministry because I know my own weaknesses and feel they are too big of a hindrance. I seem to think I need to correct them before I can do something for Him. I struggle to accept His power to use me, His power to change me, and fight off the opportunity to serve Him in a great capacity because I can’t handle these weaknesses. What kind of a dud am I? No need to answer because I know what the issue is. The issue is that I’m human and because of how I was made, my natural inclination will always be to rely on myself before I let God take full control.

God has given each of us abilities and gifts we can use for Him. We all have strengths in certain areas ranging from encouragement to leadership to caring for children to being prayer warriors…the list is unending. And the needs within His kingdom are unending, which is perfect since we are all so different! This way we can each serve Him using our unique set of skills. But to get there, we have to first recognize our weaknesses are a hindrance only if we refuse to let God turn them into strengths or remove them altogether. We don’t have to be perfect to come to God and accept His Son as Savior, and in the same way we don’t have to be perfect to serve Him in whatever ministry He has called us to.

You’ve seen the term “Let go. Let God.”? It really is that simple in terms of execution, but the difficulty is overcoming our own mental block that wants to make things hard. God’s path for us is so easy to find when we allow Him to mold us into who He wants us to be. He wants nothing but good for all His people. Stop getting in the way of His plan, bow to His love for you and let Him use you for His glory. Stop selling yourself short and stop creating excuses for not being all you can be. Remember, this is God’s universe. He created it and has a plan for you to help Him improve it while you’re here, but He’ll never force you to do anything. Remove the veil of misunderstanding from before your eyes and just let…God…reign.

If I’m Divorced, Am I Broken?

When I went through my divorce in 1998, I had a lot of troubling thoughts. My concerns ran the gamut from wondering if I had lost favor in God’s eyes to whether I would ever love again to how long it would take to heal from the pain I felt inside.

Just a few months after my divorce was finalized, it became evident God was calling me to move someplace new. Prayer led me to apply for a job in Jackson, MS, where my brother was in seminary. After a phone interview where I was told they’d make a decision in the next few days on who would be part of a second interview, I got the job, via phone call 20 minutes after the initial interview. A God thing? I think so.

I packed up and moved to Jackson, thankful for the opportunity to live with my brother but not thrilled with having to leave my daughter behind with her mother. God has always been faithful, and brought her to me a few months later, but that’s not the point of this article. In what I strongly feel was God’s design to help me stretch and grow, He led me to attend the Vineyard Church in Jackson. It was during a lunch conversation with their pastor, Bruce Wimberley, that I came to realize my divorce was not the end of my life either personally or spiritually.

During my year in Jackson, God showed me His tremendous grace and provided friends to help make it clear to me that I could be forgiven and life did move forward. Believe me when I say I needed it, and I bet anyone else who has been through the pain of divorce understands how low you feel and how much of a struggle it can be to progress in your faith.

One of the things I notice most for Christians who are going through divorce or who have already experienced it is a sense that their worth in God’s eyes has changed. They feel they are damaged goods and that their path to greater things, be it their relationship with God or ministry opportunities, has been thwarted.

THIS IS NOT SO!!!!

God does not make broken stuff! He makes amazing people capable of breaking themselves, thanks to free will, but He also provides a level of grace we can barely understand! You, just because you’ve been through divorce, still have life!

I wanted to state those things strongly so you’d recognize just how small a divorce really is. You know who it affects the most? Us. It’s our human nature to hold on to things we’ve done that bother us, that are negative, no matter how far in our past they occurred. It’s our nature to hold fast to the pain we’ve felt partly so we make sure we don’t make the same mistakes again in the future. That’s fine, but we have to also recognize that if we’ve asked God’s forgiveness for something, it’s done and over. We should let it go, and this includes divorce!

Look, it’s a terrible thing; we all know that. It has horrible consequences and can certainly stick with you for many years because of them, especially if there are children involved. But, spiritually, you don’t have to let it overwhelm you. God forgives and He is faithful in His promise to us to love us no matter what! Let Him do His work in you. Then you be sure to give Him your concerns and pain and live your life doing great things for His glory!

Falling Off The Mountaintop

Ever been to the top of the mountain in your Christian walk? For your sake I hope you have. If you’ve been there, you know how close to God you feel when you’re at the mountaintop and have reached what feels like the pinnacle of communication with Him. It’s a place where you have such a sense of communion with our God, with our Savior, that joy literally spills out of you and you find yourself unable to quit smiling.

But what happens when you come down? Maybe a better question would be, why do we all fall off the mountaintop? I don’t think we have to for the most part; rather, I think we choose to by our actions once we’re there. That’s right; I said we choose to fall off. It doesn’t just happen.

It seems to me it’d be easy to rationalize losing mountaintop-type communication with God the same way we rationalize anything else we fail at in our lives. Yes, fail. That’s not meant to be accusatory or overly dramatic. When we don’t succeed at something, we fail. Is that bothersome? Oh, I see. Perhaps you don’t want to think of it as “failing”, but would rather say something to yourself that is less inflammatory. Maybe you’d like to explain it away as, “That’s not something we can feel all the time; it only occurred because the situation was just right.” Or something along the lines of, “You can’t expect me to feel that close to God all the time. I can’t recreate that weekend at camp or that concert which drew me in with such worshipful music.”

Sure, OK, keep telling that to yourself. In fact, as long as you’re at it, don’t forget to apologize to God for lying about your commitment to Him just so you can feel better on the inside. Now make no mistake about it, I am just as guilty as any of us when it comes to falling off the mountaintop. And if it were scientifically possible to do so, I’d guess each of us truly lives that amazing experience maybe .001% of the total time our lives encompass. I could be off by fraction here or there, but seriously, how many of us actually maintain that level of communion with God all the time?

Why don’t we do it? Notice I didn’t ask why we “can’t” do it; I asked why we “don’t” do it. I’m calling all of us out here. What is wrong with us that we don’t strive for that mountaintop experience all the time? Why would we NOT want to feel that way 100% of the time, 100% of our lives? Is it possible to live it 100% of the time? If I’m honest with myself, it’s probably not. Honestly, it’d be a little distracting to others if you sat with a goofy smile on your face in every activity of every day, too. In fact, that reaction may get you a ride to the funny farm for a little testing. But I’m not trying to be unrealistic here, even though it probably seems like it.

What I’m really trying to do is challenge each of us to make a firmer commitment to God, to make a solid commitment to being in communion with Him 100% of the time. We may not get to that mountaintop experience 100% and it may not even be technically possible, but what I’m suggesting is that if we are willing to commit more of our lives to study, pray and fellowship with others more, we’ll get closer to that number.

Do you spend time in a daily devotion, just you and God? If you’re married, do you spend time in a daily devotion for the two of you? If the answer to either or both of these is “no”, why not? Don’t say you don’t have enough time, because even five minutes a day can have a profound impact on your life. And if you are married and are not having a devotional time together, I’d encourage you to do so. This is the person closer to you than anyone else, and what better way to grow together than by investing spiritually in each other?

Challenge yourself to reach the top of the mountain and stay there as long as you can. Challenge yourself by committing spiritually in a way you’ve never done before. Today, take a moment and ask God to show you one way you can be closer to Him. If you’re unsure of what to do, pick something you know will help. Honestly, that’s what He’s going to provide for you anyway, that idea of how to be closer to Him. You could start by subscribing to a daily devotional in your e-mail, or perhaps reading the Bible in a year via e-mail, or opening up your Bible and focusing fully on just one verse a day. There are so many small, simple steps we can take to draw us closer to God. And though He is so much bigger and so much more complex than we can ever hope to be, He also has really big arms waiting to give you a big hug. Let Him do it. Invite yourself into His world and spend some time with Him. Start working your way up the mountain.

Why Are You Trying To Run God’s Show?

Are you one of those people who think you know what’s right and best for the church? Is it important to you that your ideas, your thoughts be heard at all times and that, if things don’t go the way you want, it’s alright to push until things are your way? Perhaps if a decision is made that you don’t agree with, you’re the kind of individual who gets extremely upset and may even attempt to bully the pastor or board members to effect change.

If this is you, you may have already quit reading. If this isn’t you, I’m certain you know at least one person in your church who thinks this way, who attempts to control things. The people who feel they control the church, that everything should go through them, these are people who mistakenly feel the church is a social club of some sort, or so it may seem. My dad was once told by members of his church board that they called him to the church so he reported to them and, apparently, should do whatever they said to do regardless of whether or not it was the right thing spiritually or from a ministry perspective. He advised them that his call to that church came from God, not them. As he stated to me, ministry is a calling, not a job. Those board members did not last, by the way, and were replaced with members who recognized what they were trying to achieve was something great for God, not for them.

Now, I believe that most of the time when we see controlling individuals, we tend to write them off as just having annoying personalities or being difficult people we don’t want to deal with. I believe we carry a certain amount of frustration with them and maybe even some anger from time to time as we see them causing problems, too. Given that this is a battle in every church, big or small, it seems to me a wise solution would be to get at the root cause of the problem and find out why these people are the way they are. After all, isn’t part of our job as followers of Christ to encourage and assist fellow Christians as well as the lost? I think we’re responsible to both, so let’s consider something that might be useful here in order to think about a solution to this issue.

I believe that if someone is being a bully or difficult it is indicative of deeper issues they have personally. This could be any number of things, ranging from problems at home to an ego they need to feed (for some reason) to other relationship issues they happen to carry over into the church. I’m speaking about anybody in this situation, mind you, not just someone with influence like a board member or church elder. Think about it for a minute. When you are unhappy with some facet of your life, doesn’t that naturally flow into other areas? My brother, who is a pastor, summed it up by saying, “A church boss is someone who’s heart is partially in the right place but typically has many elements of their life in the wrong place.”

I think that’s not only the most likely reasoning behind a negative influence in the church, but also a great way of recognizing that this person is crying out for help through acting out. Interesting, isn’t it? Don’t we see children in this same way? What’s to say that just because someone becomes an adult they don’t still react in childish methods as a means of communication? And this is not a new thing, because people have been reacting this way and causing trouble in their churches by trying to intimidate as long as the church has existed. As such we can’t look at our current societal acceptance of excuses and believe this is only a current issue in the church or only a recent problem.

So when I ask the question, “Why are you trying to run God’s show?”, I’m definitely speaking first and foremost about the problem children of our church boards and within our church, those who seek power for themselves above all else. But now I want to flip that just a bit and point it back at us by asking you a directed question. Why are YOU trying to run God’s show in your own life?

Are you somehow under the impression that the God of the universe, the one who created this amazing world we live in, doesn’t understand what you need and what your needs are? If you are a Christian, God is not just your Savior, He is your Provider as well. When you try to run the show without Him, you’re effectively telling God, “I can do this on my own and I know best, not You.”

You can say that if you like, but you’ll be wrong. You can try to do things your own way, but you will fail. You can try to bully God into letting you go the way you want to go, and He may even let you do it for awhile, but eventually He will guide you back to the path He intends for you. Don’t try to run His show. He wrote it. He produced it. He knows what’s in store for the next Act. Be involved as He calls, but enjoy it as a player in His show and recognize His script is better than anything you could ever hope to write.

Legalism As It Pertains To…Legalism?

I had an epiphany the other night as I was contemplating my next post, realizing that it is possible to be legalistic when railing against legalism and that perhaps this would be a worthy topic to address. One thing I want to be sure of is that I never come across as having all the answers. I don’t want to be seen as being arrogant and so sure of my own ideas that I attempt to enforce them upon others to the point of putting them down for their own opinions.

That’s the gist of it; legalism at its core is a firm belief that your way is the only way and anyone not in line is wrong. There is no problem with having your own sense of how things should be done and even attaching a strong emotion to it. In fact, I would say that type of passion is crucial to helping you recognize how strongly you feel about your faith. The passion is great! Hold on tightly to the passion! Just don’t be confused into believing that because you are passionate about it, you have all the answers and anyone who disagrees is lost.

By the same token, if we are to speak out against legalism in all its many forms (and we’ve only scratched the surface in this blog so far), we have to be willing to examine ourselves first. For example, I feel pretty strongly about there not being too many restrictions on dress code or appearance in church. I feel pretty strongly about music or worship styles, how leadership should act, how a pastor’s wife should be, yada yada yada. But, and this is critically important, I don’t ever want to come across as trying to sound like I have all the answers.

Ultimately it comes down to this for me: I feel strongly about many things with regard to my faith, church, the worship experience, you name it. But I also recognize, and have to recognize, that others can feel just as strongly about those same things in completely different ways. And none of that is wrong. What is wrong is when any one of us decides we have to try to force others to adhere to OUR sense of how something should be when that cannot be directly backed up through Biblical evidence and specific interpretation.

Confused about how something was interpreted? If you are, and if scholars have come up with multiple ideas on something, what should that tell you? It tells you that, most likely, on that issue the Bible wasn’t black and white and people are doing their best to understand what it means and that is OK. It also means that this is not an issue critical to your salvation. There are no confusing statements in the Bible with regard to your salvation, to becoming as close to Christ as possible.

This is where legalism most often rears its ugly head, when people decide that issues not critical to salvation are just as important and require their “insight” to be clear to others. Like the person who believes you should wear certain clothing to come to Christ in worship, or the person who believes only hymns should be sung in church (never mind the fact many of the most popular hymns began as bar tunes), their insight is nothing more than a feeling that is important to them.

So, where things are important for you to be able to worship properly, do them. If you feel best coming before Christ in formal attire, do so. If it matters not how you are dressed, with respect to modesty of course, do so. If you cannot feel a closeness in music worship unless the songs are hymns, attend a church where that traditional approach is prevalent. If that doesn’t work for you, attend a more modern worship service so you can be fed. Regardless of how you feel about these types of things, you should be assured God created something for everybody to come to Him.

Now don’t go pushing your opinion off on the others who don’t agree with you and I think you’ll find your life is a little happier for it, a little more focused on God and less on you.

How Not To Be A Pastor’s Wife

Is that a touchy heading or what? Heads up, I’m not interested in discussing anyone’s views on women pastors (which would change this to pastor’s husband) here, so we’ll stick with traditional thought for purposes of this post.

I think it’s important that when God calls someone to be a senior pastor, it’s critical that his spouse be fully on board with this life choice. This applies whether a man entered ministry straight out of college or if God called him later in life. It’s vital that the wife of a pastor not be a hindrance to her husband’s ministry. So let me detail just a few things a pastor’s wife should not be.

Home. If the pastor’s wife doesn’t come to church, or attends another church, this is not acceptable. What is her motivation for doing this? It’s selfish, to be sure, because she isn’t being supportive of her husband’s ministry and is concerned only with herself.

Disinterested in church tradition. A few weeks ago our pastor’s wife didn’t take communion. My first thought was, “Did I just see what I think I just saw?” I wasn’t looking for it. I was simply following the plate as it came close to our row and happened to notice she didn’t take the bread as it passed. To top it off, she walked out in between the taking of the bread and the passing of the cup down the rows. She returned during her husband’s prayer for the cup (I know, because you could hear her walk back in and she was back in her seat once the prayer ended). This is beyond acceptable. Yes, your heart needs to be right before taking communion. For a regular attender, I can see this happening. The pastor’s wife is held to a higher standard. Getting up in the middle of communion and being disruptive was, in a word, unbelievable.

Be disruptive. Our pastor’s wife also has this habit of getting up at least once if not twice during the service, usually within the first 5 or 10 minutes the first time. If she sat in the back row, this wouldn’t be so noticeable, but she sits in the second row, then walks out right down the middle. This is, as it is with anyone else who gets up during service, incredibly disruptive. Again, she is held to a higher standard. She should recognize this and act accordingly.

Smile. If you want to be a bad pastor’s wife and have a negative effect on his ministry, never smile. Again, unfortunately, I have to provide an example from our own church. I have yet to see our pastor’s wife smile in five weeks of attending. In fact, I’d have to say her countenance is generally disinterested and frowning. Is she this unhappy her husband is in full-time ministry? He had a corporate career previously, so I understand this isn’t what she initially signed on for, but this is where God called him and she needs to be supportive. Acting like this just ticks her off is not good for his ministry.

Dress inappropriately. Now, I’m not concerned with style or exactly what is worn, but it is important that a pastor’s wife be dressed modestly. A short skirt or short shorts obviously would not be modest for her, nor would they be for anyone else attending and, in fact, would be a distraction for men in the service. Likewise some tops can be too revealing or accentuate features too much for church. Again, this is just for the purposes of the church service and you don’t want men in the church to be distracted or thinking things they shouldn’t just because what was worn was not quite appropriate.

Be uninvolved. I know that over the history of the modern church pastor’s wives have often been expected to spearhead children’s or missions programs, head up Sunday School or play the piano. I don’t think it’s fair to expect the wife of the pastor to assume full-time ministry responsibilities within the church unless you are paying her to be on staff as well. I think if she has gifts and wants to use them, just like anyone else, that’s great, but to expect her to serve is not right in my eyes. However, I do think if she is completely uninvolved, with no interest in helping or serving in any capacity, that reflects poorly on her husband. It’s important to know that when her husband became a pastor, she took on a role in ministry as well. Sometimes it means being more involved than others, but it is a commitment.

These are just a few of the things I’ve noticed on what is a fairly unapproachable topic within the church. Pastors, how in the world do you teach on something like this? You can’t in your own church, but if you’ve been called to speak at a camp or other event, you have an option to do so, but it sure is a touchy subject. This is one of those areas where Christians want it to stay unspoken, but they will talk about it amongst themselves within the church.

My wife and I have tried out this church for five weeks now. I wrote previously about the other experiences which turned us off and the pastor’s wife factors in as well. While I think we can work to overcome things that bother us and contribute to solutions, we’re all wired differently. For us, the pastor’s wife and all the other things are major distractions that make it difficult to listen to what are pretty good messages from the pastor. And for us, the pastor’s wife is probably the nail in the coffin of our desire to stay at this church, though I will have a conversation with the pastor about the other items (not his wife) that are causing us to look into other options.

Just a word of warning, pastors. If you believe your wife is not fully committed to your ministry, you need to have a frank, honest discussion with her and prayerfully consider where that may lead. Is it possible her disinterest is actually a sign that you are not cut out for this as well? Or is it possible that her disinterest is something indeed she needs to overcome, which will only come by true faith in Christ? Tough topic with tough answers, I know.

Serving, Not Complaining

I want to speak briefly about serving in the church and the attitude you bring to the table when you serve, regardless of capacity. But first, let’s define what serving is.

For purposes of this article, serving is filling a need the church has, whether it’s folding worship folders each week, taking the offering, greeting people, teaching Sunday School, taking care of the babies in the nursery or even something such as clearing the parking lot of snow and ice after a big winter storm. It’s literally anything that is needed to be done to help things run smoothly, whether there is direct people impact or not.

Some of us serve according to gifts we know God has given and we feel we can do well in those areas. Some of us only want to serve if it can be in a specific area or not at all. That’s alright, too. It really is, though I’d caution you to not be afraid to stretch yourself and go outside your comfort zone. However you choose to serve, if you do, do it cheerfully and without complaining.

Why is this important? Let me toss out this thought. How many people serve because they feel obligated to do it? They serve because nobody else will fill the need and someone has to do it so why not them? This is fine, and if this is you, thank you, but remember why you’re doing it. Even if this is your “reason” for serving, you know deep down that it isn’t. If you felt and recognized the need, and it bugged you enough to do something about it, consider that God put that thought there because He needed you. And if He put you there (and regardless, He most definitely did) then shouldn’t you be thankful He cared so much to use YOU to serve Him?

Maybe you serve but only in the description of the word. Perhaps your reason for doing it is to have some sort of control in the church. I’ll jump on that topic more in depth in another article, but let’s say this is indeed your reason, consciously or not. If this is the case, you’re doing it for yourself, which means you are actually self-serving, which actually helps nobody. If you feel this way, let it go and let someone else fill the need. Or, if you feel strongly enough about it, like perhaps nobody can do it as well as you can, that’s fine, but spend some time humbly in prayer about how to make it a positive experience for everyone and an attitude-changing opportunity for yourself.

An odd thing to say, right? But how many people do you know who spend all their time moaning and complaining while doing something? Why do you think they do this? They do it to draw attention to themselves, to engage you in a conversation about them, which makes them feel important, which makes them feel, well, loved, oddly enough.

This is the lesson on the back end for the rest of us, those of us who are frustrated at an apparent bad attitude by some who serve but do so seemingly out of obligation or wrong motives. When you hear this from those people and when you see this occurring, I’d encourage you to dig deep, look beyond your own attitude and frustration, and think about why it is they are acting this way. Chances are they are looking for love and acceptance, even if they don’t know they are doing it or that they need it. They may very well need an ear to hear, a shoulder to lean on.

Everyone has a call to ministry in some form or another. For most people, it doesn’t involve anything full-time, so don’t feel guilty if you haven’t received that call. But don’t ignore the call to serve, either. Serving is a key part of ministry. God will utilize your talents, or help you stretch abilities you didn’t even know you had, to meet His purpose. And when you feel your attitude is getting in the way, or you allow yourself to complain, even internally, about what it is you’re doing, remember God chose you to do that work for Him. Think about how personal that choice really is, about how He cares enough to select you to serve, regardless of what it may be.

Whatever the needs may be in the church, they are all important. When you fill a need, when you serve, recognize the opportunity is a worship experience, a chance to praise God for using you to meet the needs of His people. You are vitally important! Be happy about it!

Legalism As It Pertains To…Appearance

You may be thinking, “Wait, isn’t this the same as the one you wrote on clothing?” That’d be a valid question, but this actually is an entirely different topic, and one I think most of us have lived out if we’re honest about it.

When someone walks into a church service and they don’t look like you, how do you feel about that? For example, perhaps everyone in your circle dresses well for church, limits hair length for men, would never pierce an ear or *gasp* something else. It’s also likely nobody in your circle has a tattoo, either, right?

What if you attend a church essentially built for a different crowd, perhaps a motorcycle-driving group? Your circle may well include folks who wear riding gear to church, might have a few or many tattoos, some piercings and heck, maybe even long hair and seemingly unkempt beards on the men. If someone walks in that doesn’t look like you, do YOU then feel a bit uncomfortable, as though they don’t fit?

Look, I’m neither of these groups. I’m casual, don’t have a pierced ear (well, not anymore), no tattoos and my haircut could best be described as “military” in style. I don’t really fit either of the above groups, and so maybe all that means is they might not be in the circle I hang out with, but does that mean we can’t worship together?

What I’m trying to get at is that I expect us to be uncomfortable with people who don’t look like us, talk like us, act like us. But that should never be a reason to exclude someone or not go speak to them and invite them in lovingly to church. Realizing we are very much human and prone to looking at appearance much more than someone’s heart, I think we have to work hard to see past the exterior to enjoy the interior with people. As a rule, I think that’s a tough line for Christians to cross, for a variety of reasons.

The only reason I am bringing up here, however, is legalism. I think this is a case where legalism can actually be fairly unintentional. For example, I may not intend to ignore that person who walks in who makes me uncomfortable, but I may not put any effort into talking to them, either. Am I wrong? You bet I am. Have I judged based on my own sense of what someone should look like? You bet I have. Is this legalism? I believe that it is and I say that because even though it is seemingly unintentional, I’m creating a box I want their appearance to fit within and am unwilling to be inviting to them if they are outside that box.

While I firmly believe most forms of legalism are completely intentional, based on often misguidedly strong beliefs about something upon which God has provided no Biblical guidance or specifics, appearance is one where I think we all fail without even thinking strongly about it. If you ask many Christians, and press them on the issue of whether or not someone’s appearance (again, not clothing for purposes of this discussion) should affect how well you accept them, I think they’d say it should not. Yet subconsciously, unintentionally, we all do it.

So while I’m saying this is something most of us do or have done even though we didn’t mean to or didn’t want to, it’s still legalism at its core. I challenge all of us to remove our preconceived ideas about what a Christian looks like, about who God can love. He has made it clear to us He loves us for our hearts, not our outward appearance. If we go against that, we’re against God, making up rules of man, and that, again, is legalism.

Let’s not do it! Let’s love like God loves us! Don’t ignore the person and hope someone else will speak to them. Don’t walk away figuring God will take care of it. We are all called to minister for Him and it happens in many ways. Sometimes, it really is as simple as looking past appearance to the heart of someone and loving them as God would have us do.