Interesting
May 19, 2008 at 1:49 pm | In Church | 7 CommentsTags: authority, Christian, david hayward, naked pastor
I love the “nakedpastor” website. Often the posts and pictures challenge us, and even provoke some strong emotions…. and they are always interesting.
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about expectations, and assumptions. Not only the expectations put upon ME, but the ones I put on others as well.
This cartoon, in particular, reminded me of church days gone by. This is a cartoon that was indicitive of where I come from, although much more subtly. Many of you have experienced the same type of things in churches as well to varying degrees.
But it goes both ways. We often expect our pastors to be perfect people. They are supposed to always know exactly what we need, when we need it, how we needed, and deliver it now.
David Hayward (nakedpastor) wrote a great post to both pastors and congregations about avoiding burnout that I just read today. We must resist the temptations and expectations to become something we are not. Here is the link.
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I never swallowed the idea that pastors are supposed to know “what we need when we need it.” The way that I grew up–coming from an alcoholic family–I had a lot of problems that my youth pastors/leaders simply could not relate to or just didn’t want to talk about. And that was a good lesson for me to learn at such a young age. It also helped me to see the shortcomings of humanity next to the divine.
Spiritual abuse is and has been very real for hundreds and hundreds of years. Every generation has its share of charismatic speakers and authoritive leaders in the church. But with the more people learn to be wary of spiritual abuse, the more we can teach future generations to avoid it and to see Christ for who He is instead of who someone else tells us he is.
Thanks for sharing that post, Heidi.
Comment by TheNorEaster — May 19, 2008 #
I’m still thinking through the expectation thing…
Comment by HW — May 20, 2008 #
Yeah. I can see that. I’m still struggling with it myself.
By the way, I have a question. I was thinking about recording my readings of my Essays to put them into Podcasts on my site so that people like your husband could hear them and, quite simply, be that much more independent through this reasonable accommodation.
Does he think that could be a good idea? (Of course, personally I’d prefer to meet for milkshakes, but…
)
Comment by TheNorEaster — May 20, 2008 #
Well…. since milkshakes won’t work…. he said that podcasts are very helpful for him. He listens to podcasts while he is working. He can’t even keep up with my blog, since after work his eyes are just too fatigued to try and read.
So that is a yes.
Comment by HW — May 21, 2008 #
Okay. I’ll keep you posted on my pod-progress!
Comment by TheNorEaster — May 21, 2008 #
I read this the day you posted, but didn’t really want to talk about spiritual abuse…we’ve had some bad experiences. But each one did bring us closer to the Lord and helped us to discern truth based upon the Scriptures.
If any man/woman speaks contrary to scripture and tells us we must follow – turn the other way and run!!!
That’s my 2 cents…
Comment by Michelle — May 21, 2008 #
Yep. Run.
You don’t have to talk about it.
It has just been the past few months that I’ve finally started processing it all. The don’t talk rule that I grew up with has been so pounded into me, that I’ll post comments and then delete them… or write posts, and then edit them later…. or delete them.
Anyway… thanks for your comment.
Heidi
Comment by HW — May 22, 2008 #