Reflections on the Ministry, Part II

I am very happy that my life's work developed the way it did.

I made the right decision to study English and eventually become a community college instructor.  It's been the right work for me in countless ways.

So when I write about why I didn't go the other direction I felt pulled toward, into church ministry, it's not with regret. I enjoy remembering back, examining those days, and coming to realize that I continue to live with questions about myself that I doubt I'll ever resolve.

That said, a few days ago, after having presided over my Aunt Lila's funeral,  I wrote a piece about how I didn't pursue going into church ministry because I didn't want to be an administrator.  If you'd like, you can read it, here.

I told the truth in that bit of writing, but not the whole truth.

Thinking more about this pivotal decision in my life has taken me back to 1975-79 and a little beyond and I started to remember a deeper reason why I didn't pursue church ministry.

I didn't think I was worthy of such a pursuit.

I didn't think the way I lived was of a high enough standard to be a church minister.

I also didn't think I'd ever really change -- or want to -- so I was afraid I'd be a lousy person to have up front in a church.  I didn't think I could be respected or trusted, as a man of God, to use the language I heard a lot back in the mid to late 70s. I thought people would surely suspect that I wasn't really a man of God.

I knew I could handle the intellectual load.  I even thought I could be good at pastoral care.

I didn't think I could be someone whose life was one that people in a church would want to look up to.

To this day, I don't know if I was right.  It's what I thought all the time and here's what fueled those thoughts.

Beer.

Profanity.

Tobacco.

Growing up in Kellogg the town was divided, in my mind, between the church people and the non-church people, well, between church and tavern.  (I wrote about how this divide got broken at Carol and Paul's wedding in our family's back yard, here, at their 1986 wedding.)

The church people, and especially the ministers (except Father O'Sullivan and maybe Father Mac) in Kellogg, all practiced what I thought of as clean living:  they didn't drink, smoke, chew, or cuss.

But, I felt caught.  I loved to drink beer, especially with my friends in and from Kellogg.  Being my father's son, working at the Zinc Plant, and playing baseball and basketball helped me become nearly poetic in my use of profanity and not always restrained.  I also loved to chew tobacco.

There were times when I thought it would be fun, maybe even cool, to be some church's foul-mouthed, beer-drinking, tobacco chewing pastor.

But, then I'd think otherwise.

I thought otherwise because I couldn't shake the sorts of things I heard the straight Christians say.

I was deeply affected by litmus test talk, talk I hated, but talk that got inside of me.

It was talk that began with "if you are a real Christian".

Real Christians live clean lives. 

When I went to North Idaho College, I met a bunch of  kids who I thought were"real Christians", students who were always passing the litmus test by abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, and profanity.  I liked these students, but, when it came to the Christian life, I always felt unworthy, inferior, out of bounds.

I hung out with them because we were in choir together, they were good people, and I enjoyed conversation about Christian things.  But, I could never carry a Bible at school.  I could never wear a button that said, "I am Third."  I could never put stickers on my Volkswagen's bumper that were gospel passages or that just said John 3:16.

If this was witnessing, I was a lousy witness.  If this was spreading the Good News, I couldn't do it.
I was a lousy at this kind of evangelism.

This same lousiness continued during my college years at Whitworth and even when I was a Chaplain's Assistant.

I just could never walk up to someone or, as a conversation got going at the dining hall or outside a classroom, weave a question like, "Do you know the Lord?" into it.

I began to learn at Whitworth that for many Christian students and adults/professors, classifying Christians was really important and each classification seemed to have its own litmus test.

Was I charsimatic? Penecostal?  Did I speak in tongues?  Could I be a real Christian if I didn't?

Did I regard the Bible as God's infallible truth?  Did I consider the Bible as literal truth?

How could I spend time with indulgent things like plays and movies and fiction and poetry?  Shouldn't I be giving my time and energy over to study of the Bible and doing God's will?

What did I think of the oppressive multi-national corporations? World hunger?  The oppressive governments the USA supported in Central America?  Did I believe in the social gospel?  Liberation theology? Was I willing to make the word flesh and walk among the derelicts in downtown Spokane?

Was I a Calvinist?

One friend told me I couldn't be a Christian existentialist. 

No matter who confronted me with whatever stand they were taking, I felt like I fell short.

I wasn't devoted enough to the Bible.  I was wishy-washy about its infallibility.  I wasn't baptized in the Holy Spirit.  I was a lousy advocate for social justice.

On the one hand, I didn't confront oppressive social structures, but, on the other hand, I didn't ever tell anybody about the four spiritual laws either.

I didn't know if I practiced relational theology.   The questions of Christian ethics baffled me, so if spoke with certainty, I was faking it.

But, prayer, worship, fellowship, studying English and history, silence, the wisdom of the prophets and the parables all excited me, touched me deeply, inspired deep examination of myself and the world around me.

I didn't want to be classified as one kind of Christian or another and I hated the litmus tests.

And I thought of myself as a real Christian. 

Friends and fellow chaplain's office staff members tried to classify me and I chaffed.   

And, because I couldn't identify myself as one kind of a Christian or another and because I wasn't outraged by one way of experiencing Christianity because I was committed to some other, I felt unworthy of church ministry.

To use the language of people around me, I didn't know if I should go to a "liberal" seminary or a "conservative" one or one that was "innovative" or one that was "orthodox".

I was aware of congregations that split in Spokane and other places over questions of conservatism or social action or questions of the nature of the Holy Spirit.

I really didn't have a strong sense of self-definition.

I thought, if I were going to be a church minister, I should.

I really didn't live what I thought of as a clean life.

I thought, if I were going to be a church minister, I should.

I regarded clean living and a strong sense of Christian definition as making one worthy of the ministry.

I felt unworthy.

And things turned out just fine.

I turned to a profession where clean living was not a prerequisite and where, within myself,  I resisted being classified in academic life as much as I do in my Christian life.

And I got hired at Lane Community College when not being very well-defined was not a problem and I've worked happily in my undefined way since 1989.