Ministerially Speaking

By Mark Bernhardt

Your Old Preachers Will Dream Dreams

I remember those heady days thinking how great it would be to sit in my pastor’s study communing with the Lord of earth and heaven. Perhaps you share my dreams of the near mystical experience that was sure to accompany pastoral ministry. You remember the “visions of rapture [that] now burst on my sight.” Every once in a while I like to think back on those days.

I remember going to the office in my first days of ministry and wondering what I should be doing. In my first assignment the parsonage was right next door to the church, making the commute time rather incidental. I’d go over to the office with a “To Do” list that would take me all the way through ten o’clock in the morning. I just did not know what to do with myself. My wife began to think of my hanging around the kitchen all day as a burden!

I catch myself wondering whatever happened to that safe place I assumed the office of the clergy would provide. In my dreams I spent hours with the Lord, “and He walk[ed] with me, and He talk[ed] with me.” In my dreams I’m parsing Greek verbs and unpacking deeper meanings to all manner of spiritual truths. In my dreams the pastor is a lot like the parson of a quaint New England village; he’s a man in the know.

That was back then, before the young man wearing a chain that ran between nipple and nostril came to see me looking for a way to make life work; it was before the first painful confession by one of my church leaders to a sin that would disqualify him from serving; before my first experience with a marriage failure in the church.

It was even back before I’d mastered the expression I now wear in pastoral counseling. I use a slight nod of the head and reassuring contact with my eyes, which are all carefully designed to make a person feel comfortable; but all the while on the inside I’m screaming, “You’ve done what?”

Oh, I’ve been to the seminars: Maxwell, Warren, Hybels, Schuller, and more. I’ve read the books and listened to the tapes. I even have a vague understanding of Pareto’s 80/20 principle. But none of this has helped me to deal with the magnitude of need that continually walks through the door to my study. I’ve realized that nothing could have prepared me for the needs I daily encounter. There have been days in the sacred office that left me wanting to run away and hide. In those times I’ve wondered if there were any “normal” people left out there. Perhaps they’re attending someone else’s church!

Some days I tire, I run out of strength. I’ve had all these aspirations for a smooth-running church but just cannot seem to get there. I’ve taken my case before the Lord for a hearing a time or two. I’ve told Him what we’ve all been known to tell each other, “I could be a great pastor if it weren’t for the people.” That’s when the Lord reminds me of His Word.

In Corinth they had church potlucks that degenerated into drunken brawls, they had lawsuits among the people, sexual immorality in the families, and worse. In the churches of Galatia they were taking legalism to unprecedented levels. In Philippi there were arguments among the leading women of the church. The churches in Thessalonica were struggling with those who wouldn’t work for a living.

And that’s when reality hits me the hardest. The same reality Elijah faced when he complained to the Lord that he was the only one who really cared, the only one who really loved Him, and the people all wanted to kill him! It’s then that Jesus speaks and reminds me that these are the ones for whom we show up at the office; they really need us to go to work. It’s reminiscent of the question He asked Simon Peter, “Do you truly love Me more than these? Then feed My sheep!”

This is our call—to be agents of God’s transforming grace that can turn an unruly flock into a Romans 16 church. It’s a whole lot like work. But sometimes I still prefer my dreams.

Mark Bernhardt is senior pastor of Living Hope Church of the Nazarene in Monterey, California.