Through the magic world of blog links, I am only 3 clicks away from a blog by pastor Steve Furtick. I don't know this guy and do not read is blog regularly, but today I read his post, "Getting Fed." For some reason this post upset me. It was like hearing the "same song, second verse, a whole lot louder, and a whole lot worse."
I understand what Steve is saying in this post. I have heard it all too often by Pastors who feel like they work so hard at preparing life changing messages, study hard to make scripture applicable to those that will be listening and then pray fervently that God will bless the effort that was put in to the preparation and use the words that are spoken on that given day.
I can also understand this tension that Pastors feel because as someone who once had a job to do ministry, I felt the same contempt toward the people I was paid to teach. Looking back on it now I am embarrassed of my disapproving attitude. I think for the same reasons that I am embarrassed about my past behavior, I am upset about this same attitude that still exists in some Pastor's today.
Steve wrote, "I try to serve up the Word, hot and fresh every single Sunday. But if you refuse to apply it, study your Bible and pray some during the week, join a small group and dig deeper with others…If you refuse to bring it back to your mouth, I can’t help you."
I think this is the why I am embarrassed and upset. Why is there so much emphasis on the Pastors ability to teach the word, "hot and fresh" every Sunday. I think this is why Pastor's are frustrated. It seems that there is a an overconfidence that the freshly made message is somehow suppose to connect and drive every person within ear-shot to apply, study, pray, join a group and dig deeper during the week! And there is an assumption that I am not doing any of this.
What if the reality is that I am NOT refusing to bring it back to my mouth? What if I do digest? Study? Pray? Go deeper? What if the reality is that I can only eat so many marshmallows before I start to get sick and feel malnourished? I guess if all Pastor's took the attitude of Pastor Furtick...then, I can't be helped. And if I can't be helped then I become a statistic that pads one of the top 3 reasons whey people cancel their membership to that particular club. And as a statistic, I will choose to go and eat at the buffet down the street where the "hot and fresh" meal has some nutritional value to it.
So why am I embarrassed about my job performance as a Pastor. Because I wasn't teaching people how to "feed" themselves I was only upset that they were not being inspired enough by my teaching to somehow magically thrust them into the deep troughs of endless nutrition.
I'm sure that there are churches all over that are still hanging on to the "old school" way of doing church: Exegetical preaching, Sunday school classes, adult theology classes, bible interpretation classes, expository bible study classes, etc. But it seems that they are labeled as being too boring or irrelevant to our culture. Why do we insist on wanting our cake and eating it to?
I don't know, maybe it's me, but it seems that if I never stopped picking up the fork and bringing it to the mouth of my 2 year old (which to me seems way too old to be fed by a parent anyway), and now he is 20. How can I all of a sudden expect that he can feed himself when I have never taught him!?!? And why would I show contempt when he doesn't do what I want him to? Why would I feel defensive and betrayed when he decides to go learn how to eat somewhere else.
So why was I upset buy this post? Because Pastor's that are usually singing this song have done very little to put the fork down and teach their 2 year old how to pick it up themselves!
