We want our pastors to be vulnerable but without any wounds.
Ok, maybe wounds are allowed so long as they are healed wounds.
We want healed wounds without any scars.
Well, maybe scars are ok if those scars are covered and no longer show any weakness.
We want weakness but no struggles.
Then again, maybe we can deal with those struggles so long as they are the convenient ones at a convenient time for us.
And of course, this means not in a global pandemic.
We might pay lip service to this but mostly it isn’t true. We demand boldness and confidence, sprinkle in some decisiveness, and mix it with a visionary spoon. And as we mix we smooth out the lumps. Idealism we best smash that out, o and there is evidence of wrestling best smooth that away as well- the payoff might be worth it but the process takes work. Here is some simplicity we will just leave there, might not be perfect but adds some earthiness and grounding- like nuts in the cookie.
And although we have culpability, it is not entirely our fault that we got here. We are all heirs to a generation and more and more our recent forebearers have being left with an oversimplified faith and have passed it along to the generation after them. Whether it is the false dichotomy between spiritual or smart to the what’s in it for me aspect that our songs have beat into us.
We need to do better as churches, as leaders, and as Christians in general.
