Book discussion today at the presbytery office—Barbara Brown Taylor’s Leaving Church. Many good questions raised; few answers:

BBT’s path of faith and her desire to be authentically herself ultimately led her out of the church and pastoral ministry. Must it be that way? Can this kind of questing and questioning (including a bald admission of great doubt) take place as a pastor? (My answer: Geez, I certainly hope so.)

BBT is a priest; we were a room full of Presbyterians/Methodists. We wondered whether there was a priest/pastor distinction to be made. She always felt she was “on,” wore her collar everywhere, and so on. So is the answer to view ministry solely as a profession, like dentistry? (Is a dentist still a dentist when he’s at home with his family, without his dentist’s drill? And is it strange that I have never met a woman dentist?)

Or if ministry is an “office,” does that mean we’re always on? And if that’s the case, that we are ministers every moment of our lives, isn’t it even more important that we be as genuine as we can possibly be? Otherwise we will be exhausted with the constant “performing.” Genuine and authentic were words thrown out this afternoon—I also like “integrated.”

I don't know where I am on that question. I'm much more aware of myself as a follower of Jesus every moment of my life, rather than a pastor every moment of my life. The decisions I make regarding how to live are much more informed by "I am called to Christ-like response" rather than "I must reflect well on the pastorate."

There was some talk about boundaries, not oversharing, and so on. I am all for boundaries around time, but I am somewhat less worried than others seemed to be about boundaries around the sharing of who I am. (hard to tell for sure) There seemed to be a sense that people in the church want their pastor strong and sure. (??) I wonder if this is partially a generational thing. I remember reading some years back about the difference between inspiration and identification in leadership. The book argued that many older folks want an inspirational leader, younger people want someone that I can relate to.

I remembered this a few years ago after I went off on some rant about the mean-spiritedness of much of reality TV and a member of the church (young adult) said, “You’re very easy to listen to on topics like that because I know you really struggle with them in your own life.” (Presumably that is in contrast to Senior Pastor, who really is an amazingly inspirational figure in so many ways—and incidentally, who seems to watch PBS exclusively—so her pop culture commentary definitely takes a different tone.)

At any rate, there was some wondering about whether a certain level of guardedness (is that the word?) is the price of doing business. I may have read the conversation wrong. But if that’s the case, I would respond by saying: for me, while I certainly don’t believe in emotionally vomiting all over a congregation, that’s too high a price to pay. Now, part of the reason I have this blog, for heaven’s sake, is to have a place to explore things with a little more latitude. But my hope is that if a member of the church were to ever stumble on this blog, they might be surprised by a few sharp edges, but they would fundamentally recognize the Me that they knew before. As opposed to, “You are a completely different person. I don’t even know who you are anymore.”

One final nugget. One woman, in response to another clergywoman’s dilemma about what to wear to her own wedding next summer that won’t seem inappropriate to the nattering nabobs: “It’s your wedding! Wear what you want! Why do we always make the rules conform to the expectations of the most dysfunctional people?”

That?
Will preach.