Anxiety for the Churches

Anxiety for the Churches

2 Corinthians 11:28-29

            It’s difficult to avoid saying, “I’ll never….”  It doesn’t matter how you finish the sentence, those words are a dangerous way to begin.  Learning never to say never is one of life’s hardest lessons.  I have often said to prospective teachers, “Remember when you sat in the classroom of a teacher who had done something you thought was really horrid, and you said, ‘When I become a teacher, I’ll never do that!?’  Well, when you’re in your classroom, and you’re under stress, you’ll likely find yourself doing what you swore you would never do.”  The same is true for parents.  How often have we heard a parent say, “I sound just like my mother/father!”

            I never thought I would become a preacher.  I believed God had called me to teach, and that’s how I would spend my life until it was time to retire to the front porch rocker.  I didn’t say, “I’ll never become a preacher,” I just didn’t think it would ever happen.  When I finally felt God calling me into the ministry, however, I did say, “I’ll never be a pastor.”  My wife said it too.  She felt that God would call me to some other kind of ministry, but not to a pastorate.  Imagine our surprise when I began to fulfill the role of pastor, first to my students and faculty members, and now to a congregation.  Where did this come from?  How did it happen?

            I realize now, as I look back over my life, that God has been preparing me for this role for a long time.  My father was an excellent pastor.  When his denomination assigned him to do evangelistic work across the northeastern United States rather than serve one congregation, he became pastor to all the churches where he preached, both to the members of the congregations and to their pastors.  When, at the end of his life, he became bedridden, he was a pastor to those who cared for him.  For much of his pastoring I had a front row seat.  For the rest of it I heard about his effect through conversations with those he pastored.

            So here I am, about to graduate from seminary and pastoring a congregation, while I continue to serve in the same role in my teaching position.  It’s clear that this is what God wants me to do at this point in my life.  How long this will last, or where and what God may have in store for me in the future, I have no idea.  I do know this:  for now, God has called me to be a pastor, and that’s what I’ll be.  Because of this calling I can empathize with Paul in his second letter to the church at Corinth.

            Paul has just spent many verses complaining about false apostles and their effect on the Corinthian congregation.  His comments have been blistering, as he turns his displeasure first on the false apostles and then upon the church.  Then he states—at length—his credentials, both his background and his suffering at the hands of those who would stop him from preaching.  Finally, he says, “And apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches.”

            I feel anxiety for one church and one group of teachers and students.  Paul felt anxiety for all the churches he had planted, all he had visited, and those he had only heard about and written to.  I can’t begin to imagine that level of anxiety.  How could anyone care that much?  I suppose, when I think about it, my father must have carried that same burden for all the churches with which he had been involved.  It’s difficult for me to imagine a heart that great, a love that full, and a level of caring that high. 

            As I enter more fully into my life as a pastor, I have two objectives.  First I must teach myself never to say never, but to always be open to God’s leading.  Second, I must pray that God will increase the size of my heart, the depth of my love, and the breadth of my compassion for those I have been called to serve.