February 24, 2010 at 12:04pm
I know that because pastors get up on stage every weekend and talk about the Word of God that everyone thinks that we are the most secure people in the world and that nothing really hurts us. We are these indestructible forces who need to perform up to par week in and week out. We can never say the wrong thing, do the wrong thing, in essence we have to be perfect.
One of the things that I struggle with is that I hope that every weekend that people like what I communicate. I determine for some reason that the amount of praise I get determines my value. I don’t know why I think this way, but actually I do. The reason why is that just like most people out there, I am insecure. I allow my perceived value and worth to be determined by others. I know that it looks like I have it all together because I talk about the issues of everyday life and how to handle them according to God’s Word, but the reason I know how to handle them is cause I am going through them myself. I am not indestructible, perfect or got it all together. I am just normal and trying to figure it all out. I am self conscience and struggle with not having it all together.
February 18, 2010 at 6:34pm
One of the things that I have struggled a lot with in life is the fact that I don’t have a lot of formal education. I always have this bit of a chip on my shoulder because of it. I feel like I have to work a lot harder to prove myself because I don’t have a piece of paper that says I endured school. The question that I fear internally the most is the question of, “What qualifies you to be a pastor?”
I did attend an institute of ministry called Rhema Bible Training Center in Tulsa, Ok. but did not finish. I got hired by a church after my first year and never returned to finish up my degree. Because I don’t have a degree I have always felt like a less than and that I didn’t know enough. The real problem with this thinking is that I have always felt like I have had to make up my inadequacies by outworking everyone else. I told my pastor and mentor Randy Bezet one day that a lot of people are smarter, better looking, more educated and have more potential but it is really hard to beat someone in life who doesn’t sleep. I have made it my mission to outwork anyone and by doing that I can beat anyone. The thing that you don’t realize when you outwork everyone is that you truly sacrifice other areas of your life.
I would say that there have been times that I have had an affair on my wife. It was never with a person but with my work. There were times when I loved my job more than I loved her. There were times that I would sacrifice for the church but would not budge for her. All because of my insecurity in feeling less than I would hurt the one person who thought I was a more than.
I am totally not qualified by peoples standards to be a pastor of a church, but I am qualified by God’s. That is the thing that I had to learn. I had to learn that he was the one that called, qualified, and equipped not some person or institution. I had to learn that my greatest and first ministry started first and foremost in my home with my wife, who is my partner. I am so thankful for an amazing woman that I get to do life with everyday who I love more than life itself.
God doesn’t call the qualified, He qualifies the called.
February 16, 2010 at 9:57am
I struggle with this whole idea that if people really knew me, they would not like me. I think that if I allow people to see the real me, the one that has flaws, that doesn’t always know what he is suppose to do, the one who is living completely by faith because he doesn’t know what to do, that no one would want to follow. I struggle with this a lot. I am in completely unfamiliar territory being a lead pastor of a church. I have been on staff at large churches, taught thousands of people but there has always been someone else who at the end of the day, the buck stopped with him. Now the buck stops with me. I want to be the best pastor, leader, friend, husband that I can be, but let me just confess, I DON’T KNOW WHAT I AM DOING. I am walking more by faith now than I have at any other time in my life. I am trusting God for direction, answers, provision, and help. I try to walk around like I got it all together but the reality is that I don’t, I am just walking the faith walk, trusting that what I heard from God is God. I wish that I could tell you I know all the answers and have it all figured out but unfortunately I am learning along the way as well.
Right now at Coastal Community Church we are in a series called UNWRITTEN, and in this series we are discovering the vision that God has for the different areas of our life. I believe that it is going to be an incredible series of vision and revelation for people to discover what God still wants to do in their life. One of the things that I have discovered in life is that God has a purpose for us, but there is a process to get to the purpose and the process is the point.
I am really enjoying the freedom that is coming from this confessions of a pastor series of blogs. This is the process that God has me in to experience His freedom and presence. I am falling in love with this verse in James 5:16
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
It seems like the more that I get things off my chest the easier it has been to communicate with God. I can finally see why the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. That person is not trying to hide anything from God, isn’t dealing with the guilt of concealment, and does not feel the burden of their mistakes. There is so much freedom in confession but yet we stray away from it, why? Why would we want to live outside of God’s presence when we can live in it.
by T.J.
no comments
add a comment link to this post email a friend