Ministry is Hard

Part 1 - Loneliness

It is deeply ironic to be lonely these days. Our lives are flooded with stuff – messages, emails, and “likes” from people we may call friends, colleagues, acquaintances, or even people we do not know. Such connection may affirm us, bring us meaning, annoy us, or make us anxious. It is extremely easy to be lonely these days because our forms of belonging and community have become so fragmented and digitalized that real, meaningful, deep connection is harder to come by. It is a well-known fact that, although we are more connected than ever, we are more lonely than ever. 
 
Loneliness is a hard but very real reality for those who serve in ministry. I think some of the loneliest people are those working in ministry contexts. It would be foolish of me to try to offer “the reason” why this is so. So instead I simply and sadly acknowledge that it is so. Loneliness makes us acutely aware of our separation – from people, from God, from ourselves, all of these, maybe none of these. Perhaps it is a loneliness derived from feeling separated from one’s calling, purpose, destination – in ministry, these sorts of things usually come into question at one point or another.
 
Loneliness is not quickly fixed. No one can instantly change your ministry situation or the number or kind of people you work with or would like to. Nevertheless, I’d like to suggest (in no superficial, quick fix, “here’s a Band-Aid” sort of way) that there is an opportunity to engage our separation in a different way. That way is called solitude. Solitude is different from loneliness. Solitude is a space in which we can know our deepest forms of belonging. It is a form of belonging to ourselves in a way that we never can with another. Perhaps this is because each of us is a mystery, the depths of which can never be plumbed. But I know that I have learned through the practice of solitude that I feel most at home, I feel I belong and have the greatest connection when I take time to be alone with God. Perhaps this is because he is the one person who knows the mystery of my self, more than I ever could, because he made me (Isaiah 64:8; Psalm 139).

Jesus practices the way of solitude often. It says in Luke 5:16 (NIV, cf. Mark 1:45) that he went away to the lonely places in order to pray, to have solitude from the hustle and bustle of his ministry work and be with his Father. While we cannot say that Jesus himself was lonely, we can say he engaged a place of loneliness in a different way, making it the place where he belonged and was known.
 
Loneliness is a situation, passively experienced. Solitude is something we have to create and enter into actively. We hope that in this season, you may rediscover the gift of solitude and that you may perhaps also find some solidarity with us at Sanctus or with others in whatever loneliness you may be experiencing.

Part 2 - Exhaustion

Exhaustion is a significant word. We use it often these days. Lots of people seem to be exhausted. Another way of saying this is “to be drained.” And to be drained means that whatever vital liquid was within has been poured out. Perhaps this is why we think of serving in ministry as a sacrifice – we feel poured out for the sake of the lives of our churches. The problem many of us experience, whether we volunteer in ministry or are vocational, is that everything seems to be poured out, we are drained and thus exhausted. We can, or even often, ask ourselves: why keep doing this if I’m totally drained and have nothing left?
 
I cannot offer you the solution to your exhaustion, but I do feel confident that giving up or stopping is not it. A car has an exhaust system, which means it needs both an input (gas) and an output (an exhaust pipe for the fumes) – without the output the car will combust or no new gas will ever fill the still-full-but-stagnant tank. No, I do not think the solution to our exhaustion is not serving, though changes to your schedule and the number of demands on you could always be re-evaluated (vacations, breaks, and sabbaticals are necessary, too). 
 
My encouragement for us is to look at the other end of things in our lives: we need to be filled if something is going to be poured out of us at all; we need to be filled so that we do not become drained or exhausted. Perhaps it is unsurprising how Scripture speaks of God as “living waters.” God is called “the spring of living water” in Jeremiah 2:13. In the famous text of John 4 Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that he has living waters to offer her. In John 7:38 Jesus promises that whoever believes in him will have living waters flow within them. And Revelation 7:17 declares that the Lamb, our shepherd, will lead us to springs of living water, echoing Psalm 23. 
 
What these texts encourage us to realize is that we all need an input that is not of this world to keep us running. This is not unique to ministry but certainly is felt acutely there. No matter what we do, we need living waters to fill us. We need that precious spiritual input, that essential potency required to run and work and give. Regular ol’ water will not cut it. When we are deprived of that which is essential to existence, we will without question become exhausted, drained, poured out. In this respect, everyone becomes exhausted because we all need an input we cannot make or acquire on our own. And that is the key: we do not have to make or retrieve this living water. We are told it will be offered to us, we will be led to it, and it will flow within us. We are encouraged to ask for it, to believe in it, and trust in it. 
 
I know this devotional has not solved your exhaustion – that was never my goal. I simply wanted to say that what you need exists, that you do not have to be exhausted and drained, and that there is something on offer to fill you that you do not have to earn, make, or find to get. Praying to be filled with these waters is a good place to start. Asking God and ourselves where we need to pour out less is, too. Even if you do not do these things, I take comfort in the fact that it was in the act of the Samaritan woman serving, coming to draw the water for Jesus, that she was given living waters. I pray that whether you create the space, or have the energy, to ask Jesus (once again) for living waters or not, that he will fill you with them, and in abundance. 

Part 3 - Disappointment

Disappointment has a range of experience. It can be momentary (your team did not win a game) or deep and bitter (your marriage, career, etc. did not turn out how you expected). Disappointment is bound up with expectations. Disappointment is, in one sense, a gap. It is the gap between what we hoped for, planned, and thus expected and what the actual situation is. Depending on how we experience this gap, we can experience disappointment or shame.
 
Ministry is a field filled with landmines of disappointment – disappointment often happens unexpectedly, hence the gap, hence the metaphor. This is not to say there is nothing positive in ministry, but this series is about the harder aspects of ministry. If we step on one of those landmines often enough, we will learn to not expect anything. And to expect nothing eliminates the possibility of hope. And if we do not hope, then not much is possible, including the impossible, which God, says Scripture, seems to be quite good at doing: resurrection, eternal life…life in full (John 10:10). 
 
How do we guard our hearts from expecting nothing and thus shutting down our capacity to hope, especially when we have experienced deep and bitter disappointments in ministry, such as division and conflict (even excommunication); desertion and disinterest; leadership and congregation failures? Nothing about this question is easy, but I can say for certain that expecting nothing or very little is not the answer. 
 
I believe the answer lies in the word trust. When people or situations disappoint us, not only do we avoid expecting anything anymore, we also do not trust people or situations anymore. The Psalms have much to say about such circumstances. Betrayal, theft, humiliation – you name it, the Psalms talk about it. And they do not just talk about it, they talk to God about it! They complain even! What I love about the Psalms is, amid these complicated and disappointing circumstances, the psalmist declares again and again his trust in his God. I find this as inspiring as I do difficult. And this trust is stated as a given and as an expectation. Psalm 130 depicts this beautifully. The first half of the Psalm shares the psalmist’s trust in his God. It is assumed, he does not have to think or wonder if he trusts God or not. Yet it is on the very basis of this trust as a given that the psalmist expects things from his God, as we read in the second half of the Psalm. He expects to be rescued from some pretty troubling circumstances. Trust as a given and trust as an expectation. They go hand in hand.
 
What and who are we trusting in our work in ministry, whether as a volunteer or vocational? What are we waiting for (to use the language of Psalm 130)? In my own personal experience with disappointments, I have found the only way to navigate them is to bring all of my disappointment (and the accompanying confusion, hurt, or anger) before God and say, “I do not understand, I am utterly disappointed, but I trust you, and thus I expect you to do something in my life.” All my disappointments remain after I say, “Amen.” But I know there is one thing I can trust in and rely on. Does this mean we only trust God and do not trust those we serve in ministry with? No. As my mentor, quoting Jim Houston, once said to me about friendship: “I trust you because you trust Jesus.” Easier said than done. But not a bad beginning.

Part 4 - Conflict

Living in this world necessitates living in relation with others – as Donne wrote, no man is an island. Sometimes we wish we were islands. Conflict is all too real a reality for many churches or serving contexts. Whether we serve as a volunteer in ministry or vocationally, we get the special and frustrating privilege of seeing the glory and gore of the humans we work with and alongside. People can be annoying, demanding, difficult, rude, opinionated and close-minded, unjust and unfair. Sometimes it feels like certain people are trying to make it hard for us. I have a number of people in my own life who have experienced the difficult and even traumatic realities of conflict in ministry. It can be nasty. Forgiving can feel impossible. And sometimes there is no other way forward than for paths to separate. 
 
From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was schooled in the art of conflict management. When we read the Gospels with an eye for it, a huge amount of his time is spent arguing with people and dealing with some very annoying, rude, and opinionated humans. Individuals and groups were trying to make it hard for him, to trip him up, and ultimately to kill him, which they succeeded in doing. That is not to deny that Jesus laid down his life willingly. But the context in which he laid down his life was one of extreme hostility to the point that people wanted him to not exist anymore. 
 
When I read the Gospels with an eye for how Jesus managed conflict, I do not see a tactic or plan for how to eliminate it. Even after he was raised and passed on his ministry to his first disciples, conflict remained, even intensified. Rather, what I observe in Jesus is the extent to which he let the conflict affect him. He knew who he was. This is important, since so much of the conflict he encountered had to do with the nature of his identity and what he was doing in the name of this identity. Individuals and groups were saying Jesus was deluded about who he was. Yet Jesus continually went away to pray in the lonely places in solitude in order to remember who he was and what he was here to do. Conflict often devolves into a clash of personalities. Problems in ministry often become problems with who a person is. Knowing who one is in the midst of conflict can be a game changer and a lifesaver – it does not eliminate the conflict, but it can help us fend against those who would try to question it.
 
Perhaps this sounds like I am suggesting we really are islands – as if, grounded in our identities, we are immune to the criticisms of others who attempt to come upon our shores. The problem with this is that we find out who we are not by ourselves but by being in relation with others. Namely, with the Other. Jesus found out who he was in relation to his Father, and it is through this relationship that he knew his opponents were wrong, their perspective of him was incorrect. In the midst of conflict, it is vital to remain in close connection with the Father through the Spirit so we can constantly be aware of who he says we are (and perhaps our perspective will need a little refining), as held and redeemed in his son, Jesus Christ. 

Part 5 - Boredom

Church and ministry can feel very boring: same place, same time, same people, same liturgy (however formal or unformal that is), same rota of songs, same rota of sermon topics, same coffee, same snacks, same meetings, same preparations…same same but different, week after week. We feel we lack the excitement of other jobs or professions or modes of volunteering.
 
The cause of boredom can be varied. Addiction to entertainment, lack of engagement or things to do, undisciplined attention, consumeristic outlooks on the world to name a few. Whatever the cause, boredom means we look at the world and find nothing engaging, nothing surprising. We might look at our churches or ministry and see nothing engaging, nothing surprising. It is the same old, week after week: repetitive, uninspiring, boring. Add to this the fact that many of us feel that the people with whom we serve are “salt of the earth” people. AKA boring. That sounds harsh, but often we feel it to be true, at least on an experiential level. 
 
It is ironic that we call those whom we find less exciting the “salt of the earth” type of people. It is ironic because this phrase originates from the Bible. Jesus calls us to be the salt of the earth! In Matthew 5:13 he declares: “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.” Salt used to be a high value commodity and was very valuable as it was one of the only means to preserve food. By comparing the people to salt, Jesus was calling them indispensable and trustworthy. Salt is necessary for life. 
 
However, when you think about salt, it is actually quite boring, which is perhaps how the phrase came to have another nuance in meaning. No one thinks, “salt, my favourite flavour!” Salt is not terribly inspiring for cooking or baking – there is no such thing as a “salt cake” or a “salt soup.” (If there is, I do not want to try it). But if salt is missing? You can bet that it will be noticed, whether in a cake or a curry or anything in between. In fact, when we taste food and are asked to evaluate it, I feel certain the most common answer given is, “It needs salt.” 
 
I think there is something to attend to about salt being boring and yet necessary. The church body as a collection of people is boring at times (or often) but is vital to one another and for the life of the world. We are necessary in a way that is not “show stopping” but will stop the show if not there. Without claiming this is part of what Jesus meant, I appreciate what Agnes Sanford wrote about being the salt of the earth: “Salt does not insist upon its own flavor, but brings out the natural goodness in everything with which it comes in contact. And we, by sending forth the forgiving love of Christ, can bring out the natural goodness in those we meet. For every living creature tends to return love for love.” (The Healing Light, 69). 
 
Our goal in ministry is not excitement, entertainment, or variety. Rather, we are called to look at the world, look at our churches, look at our brothers and sisters in Christ as full of flavour, mystery, potential. Our job is simply to bring out the natural goodness that is already there; to recognize the vital “something” they bring to our contexts that maybe we do not see but would notice if they were missing. A change in our attention (how we look at things and people) may help us to see where our salt is truly needed. If you're feeling bored today, remember your important God-given role of drawing out the flavours in other people, and that they, too, are drawing out flavours in you and your ministry. This may not be instant or obvious. But take heart that it would be noticed should you not be there.

Shannon Parrott