I am getting so sick of how often this story repeats itself. . .
I have this friend M. M is a great pastor. M is friendly and able to talk to anyone. Despite this, M's first call ended really badly, it was not a good fit at all. Very traditional conservative congregation, which should not in itself have been such a problem, because M is a fantastic pastor who is friendly and caring and able to talk to anyone (and from a traditional conservative church in a traditional conservative part of the country, so fully knows how that goes) and theologically speaking M is as orthodox as me, probably even moreso. But M does not look the part of a traditional Lutheran pastor. M has multiple piercings and tattoos. M neither hides nor apologizes for the fact that they smoke and drink. M dresses more stylishly than 95% of our colleagues. This is clearly oversimplifying, but the cribnotes version is: traditional conservative congregation wanted a millktoast pastor who looked the part and would hold their hand while they died instead of a great pastor who acted the part and challenged them to think and act beyond themselves.
So, M currently lives and awaits a call in a hip urban center, someplace the wider church claims it wants to be a witness/presence, among people the wider church claims it wants to reach. And M will go to the bar on a Saturday night because that's what M likes to do. M will talk to a lot of people at the bar on a Saturday night because M is friendly and extroverted and likes talking to people. At some point in the night, God stuff will come up in the conversation not because M is some sleazy proselytizer but because M is a theology geek who loves talking about God stuff with anyone and everyone.
Sunday morning M will provide pulpit supply at a dying pastorless traditional Lutheran church in the heart of the hip urban center in which the ELCA so desperately wants to be present. Literally half of the congregation that morning will be made up of the people the ELCA claims it so desperately wants to be reaching, and they are there because of the conversation M had with them at the bar the night before. Some cannot believe M is actually a pastor and show up just to verify the veracity of the claim. And some show up because what M had to say about God actually made some sense, or at least intrigued them enough to want to hear more of M's thoughts on the matter.
M has been going on like this, working a secular job to pay the bills, for multiple years. M has debated leaving the roster and even leaving the church.
Fellow ELCA members, please hear me, I am most serious: we are killing M's spirit and we are wasting M's gifts. This is an egregious sin and it needs to stop, NOW. Will somebody please give M the permission and the financial support to plant a missional community in the hip urban center in which they live? Please, before M leaves the pastorate and the church altogether?
And I ask this because another friend, S, has just done exactly that. S is also a great pastor, the kind of pastor I myself would want to have, the kind of pastor this church needs. I don't know the details so well, but S also had their first call go horribly wrong. S has been working odd jobs and waiting, patiently, for another call to emerge. The bishop's office has given S the runaround for over a year. S has small children to support and care for and could not keep working odd jobs while waiting indefinitely. Apparently today was the day S cut the ties completely - off the roster, left the church. Hurt, frustrated, disappointed, bewildered - as am I.
Because I hear the wider church say what it thinks it wants and the Holy Spirit lifts up these amazing pastors who we train and develop and send out, and then when they do exactly what we claim we want, I watch us eat them alive.
And I see these creative, passionate friends with a heart for God's people and what God might actually be up to in the world, I see them being crushed and driven out of the ministry at the same time that I see other colleagues who are on autopilot and are completely phoning it in week after week staying in their calls far longer than they should, to both their own and their congregation's detriment.
It makes me want to scream.
Please don't get me wrong - I love the church. In fact, my life would be easier if I didn't love the church, because then I simply wouldn't care. But I do love and I do care for the crazy, mixed-up, messed up, broken beyond frustrating body of Christ.
Still there are some days that I sure don't like it very much. . .
PS - Tim shares thoughts about why he jumped off the ordination track here, and having witnessed what happened to M and S, I can't blame him, though it's also a bloody shame because Tim is another with the kind of gifts and pastoral presence the church needs these days.
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