Clergy Burnout . . .

Today when I got home from a short visit with my Mom and sister

there were two E-mails from folks who will be co-residents in the program in Clinical Pastoral Education I will be entering the end of the month . . . both were about clergy and burnout . . . then someone else posted an article she had written last month for the Huffing ton Post -- also on clergy burnout.

I am not sure that I am suffering from burnout, but family and friends this weekend suggested that I was . . .that this break will be good for me. I am thinking at this moment that not going back to the parish as a pastor would be a good thing for me . . . not that I didn't love being a pastor and not that I wasn't good at being a pastor . . . of course, I had my quirks -- we all do . . . but I think that finding a church at my age who has a compatible vision for ministry will be extremely hard.

I am in my 5th decade . . . some folks find this hard to believe . . . on good days, so do I . . . I am also a woman . . . even though, I do not believe this should make a difference to Churches, the reality is that it does, esp for those in the South where I have chosen to live . . . I am also single . . . again, this shouldn't make a difference, but the reality is that it does -- I think on two levels -- 1) many churches are suspicious of single women (I was at the last church for two weeks when a woman came in, she said she was sent, to ask if I were a lesbian. I asked if this would make a difference? "No, not to me, but to the church, yes.") and 2) because a person is single the church believes that they will get more bang for their buck (now this is also true if you are married as they expect the spouse to play an active role in the life and ministry of the church -- not because God is calling them to this necessarily, but because their spouse if the pastor.)

So I am taking a break -- further education and training . . . and a time for discernment . . . working to find out where God is calling me next on this journey . . . excitement is growing as the start date nears . . . praying that as pieces have fallen together in the last several weeks they will continue to fall together giving me a glimpse of where God will use me when this program ends next September.

Good girls don't . . .

Good girls don't get angry . . . one of the myths that I have been living . . . instead of expressing my anger I swallow it letting it eat me up inside . . . letting it take away my sense of worth.


I have learned that I learned this unhealthy coping mechanism as a child . . . it reared it's ugly head to bite me in the butt as I faced a dysfunctional congregation that mirrored in many ways the family I grew up in . . . all of this has been new revelations . . . at least on a conscious level . . . as I have been in work with a new therapist.


It is hard work . . . work I would rather not do, but work I must do if I am to have the quality of life that I believe God desires for me. My therapist has me writing about my anger . . . not really writing about it as much as writing to it . . . this, too, is hard, but there is wisdom in her madness.


And so I am working to be a myth buster . . . What this adds up to, then, is this: no more lies, no more pretense. Tell your neighbor the truth. In Christ's body we are all connected to each other, after all. When you lie to others, you end up lying to yourself.


Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry -- but don't use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don't stay angry. Don't go to bed angry. Don't give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life. Ephesians 4: 24-27


Lydia

Timing is everything . . .

Checked the mail . . . a summons for jury duty . . . I am to appear on August 30th . . . interesting timing . . . August 18th I will be moving out of the parish to the parish across the River . . . August 30th I will start at the hospital where I will be doing a year long residency in Clinical Pastoral Education . . . hope this gets me out of appearing!

Lydia

Searching for Community

One of my favorite seasonal films is White

Christmas . . . during the finale one of the songs that Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye sing is "What Can You Do With a General" . . . part of the chorus goes:

What can you do with a general

When he stops being a general?

These words have been playing through my head since the dissolution of my pastoral relationship with the church . . . even though my plans for the next year are set they still ring in my ears, esp. on Sunday mornings.

Paradoxically, as I find freedom in not being in the pulpit every Sunday . . . I am not sure whether this is related to the particular congregation . . . to be frank there were a significant number of folks in the congregation that I didn't cotton to . . . yes, many may think this is a terrible thing to confess -- I loved them and I prayed for them, but I didn't like them -- they demonstrated a pattern of bad behavior that was ignored . . . I miss community . . . I miss having a community with which to Worship on Sunday mornings and live with during the week.

I am sure that many pastors who have left a church and not moved on to another pastoral call right away has struggled with this same issue . . . perhaps, my struggle is compounded as I am single, live in a rural area (of course I can drive into the city) and have chosen not to Worship in a church of my own denomination . . .

And even though this is the case, this brings me back to the Crosby/Kaye song . . . none of the pastors from my own denomination have invited me to Worship at the church where they are pastor . . . and I have to wonder, "why?" Perhaps, it is awkward . . . perhaps, they don't know how to make the offer . . . perhaps, they aren't interested in having a MOWS Worshiping with them . . . perhaps, they haven't even thought of it . . . and I don't want to come down hard on the pastors . . . there are laity who know about the situation and they haven't asked either. And even one of my colleagues in another denomination in this small rural community who knows my situation hasn't invited me to Worship at the church where he is the pastor. Only one woman has invited me to Worship with her and her husband at the church they attend (a Baptist church) So . . .

What can you do with a church pastor?

When (s)he stops being a church pastor?

So I am searching for a Worshiping community to partner with for the, at least, the next year . . . a place of welcome and invitation . . . a place of acceptance and challenge . . . a place for healing and growth.

And let us consider how to stir one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. Hebrews 10: 24, 25

Lydia

Transitions . . .

in the next month I will move across the River to begin a new adventure in ministry . . . a one year residency in Clinical Pastoral Education . . . it is an exciting time for me . . . a time of challenge, growth and above all discernment . . . discernment about where God is leading me in my next phase of ministry.

In a way this is a return . . . a return to the vision that called me away from a career as a clinical social worker to seminary . . . a vision which grew out of working with women, men, children and families who were broken and hurting . . . who were either on the fringes of the Church or outside the Church . . . who were in desperate need of the healing and life changing power of Jesus Christ . . . who the Church, for the most part, were ignoring.

The journey thus far and especially in the last five years has been instrumental to bringing me back to this vision . . . even though parts of the journey have been extremely painful God has used these experiences to bring me back to that original vision and to open doors to help focus this vision.

"For I know the plans I have for you," says the Lord. "They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29: 11

Lydia

Long silence . . .

I am not sure why the long silence . . . well, yes, it is Face Book . . . another venue for a cyber presence . . . but one that does not allow anonymity or at least how I set it up . . . here I have this so can share more fully.

I am no longer at the smaller membership church where I had served for five years . . . few probably would have noticed that my last Sunday was my 5th Anniversary with the church. What happened? I guess there could be many answers to that question . . . bottom line is it was time . . . as one of the Elders said to me on 2 occasions misquoting Scripture -- if they don't accept you shake the dust off your feet and leave . . . after three years of working with a church consult it was obvious that our understanding of church and what God calls the church to be and do were entirely different . . . and there were "controllers" . . . one who was not happy -- of course the church exists to make her happy . . . the other "I" offended when it was decided by the co-ordinator of the CE Program that her daughter should not continue to teach Sunday School as she was openly involved in an extramarital affair (the Sunday before my last I learn she is pregnant by this man -- this will be her third child born outside of marriage).

I am now in therapy, again -- third time since being associated with this congregation . . . it is powerful stuff . . . one of the amazing insights is that being in this dysfunctional congregation surfaced for me many family of origin issues leading me to be less effective than I could have been . . . however, out of this I am dealing with these issues . . . learning about myself and working to change behaviors that for the last five years have not served me well . . . so out of chaos has come hope and renewal.

God is good . . . the church negotiated a very generous settlement knowing that it takes 6 to 18 months for a person to find a new position . . . God is good . . . on August 30th I begin a year long residency in Clinical Pastoral Education in the Metro New Orleans area . . . a new position with a move across the River . . . it is an exciting and busy time . . . what happens after this year? . . . I don't know, but I know that God will provide as I partner with God in living within His plan for my life.

What's love got to do with it . . .

I have been wrestling lately with the idea of God's unconditional love . . . yes, I can affirm that God's love is unconditional . . . I have no problem with this. Where my problem comes is when we translate this into believing that we are to love unconditionally . . . I just can't buy into this from a practical standpoint and more importantly from a theologically standpoint.

Although not a parent myself, I don't think parents love unconditionally . . . successful parenting calls for the parent provide structure for their child(ren) . . . limits/boundaries -- things that are acceptable and things that are not acceptable. Might I suggest that some of the problems are culture faces today are caused that at some point parents -- for a variety of reasons, have been unable to set clear boundaries or if these have been set the parents have been unable to follow through on consequences when a child crosses those boundaries.

Jesus said to his disciples: If you love me, you will do as I command. Then I will ask the Father to send the Holy Spirit who will help you and always be with you. The Spirit will show you what is true. The people of the world cannot accept the Spirit, because they don't see or know him. But you know the Spirit, who is with you and will keep living in you. John 14: 15 - 17

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. Now we know that Jesus gave a Reader's Digest version of the 10 Commandments: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your heart, with all your soul and with all of your might. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself. So stealing from Bill Clinton infamous statement that it depends on how one defines the word "is" the question arises how do we define the word "love" . . . is love as Jesus talks about it an emotion or is it action, a way of being . . . perhaps the best definitions of the love that I believe God is calling us to show one another -- apart from Scripture, is written by M. Scott Peck in The Road Less Traveled: "the will to extend one's self for the purpose of nurturing one's own or another's spiritual growth."

I think when we look at the love that Jesus demonstrated Peck's definition encompasses how we as mere humans, although empowered by the Holy Spirit, can best live the love that Jesus calls us to live. Part of this love is to hold one another accountable to God's commands. Can we truly love people if we allow them to live in ways that are not in keeping with how God calls us to live.

Now, I know that this is the case made by those who are opposed to full inclusion of folks who are homosexual, lesbian and transgendered . . . and while the Church is focused on this we have men and women who are heterosexual involved in a variety of sexual relationships outside the bounds of marriage . . . too often we, and here I mean the Church, turn a blind eye. My first semester in seminary we had a man and women living together openly in the dorm . . . no one said anything. They broke up the following semester. Several years ago I was told by a staff member of a regional church group that if anyone brought "charges" against any one in our regional church groups based on a same sex relationship he has a file of which of our clergy and key leaders were having extramarital affairs.

In the last congregation I served we has several couples who lived together without benefit of marriage . . . no one said anything about these couples . . . interestingly, each came to me to tell me the reasons . . . each had to do with money (each of the women would lost the pensions they were receiving on their deceased husbands) . . . but they were welcomed in the church . . . after all, we are all sinners . . . when one of the men was asked to be a spiritual leader in the church, he came to talk to me -- to tell me why he would have to decline -- he knew that he was living in a way that was not pleasing to God and although he would continue to be an active member (as he tried to convince his live-in girlfriend that they didn't need the pension) of the church, but could not serve in a position of leadership.

Does the Church show their love when they turn a blind eye to bad behavior . . . behavior that is blatantly against God's will . . . or does the Church show their love when they are willing to say, 'we love you, but we do not believe your behavior is in line with what God desires as revealed in the Word.'

Just thinkin'

Lydia