When Did You Know You Wanted to Be a Pastor? A Story About Grace

The truth of the matter is a grandmother who struggled mightily to do what was best for her granddaughter and her family came to the difficult and heart-wrenching decision to let go of this newborn child, and the one thing she most needed was the promise from God spoken and enacted over this child, and I wasn’t seeing it. I failed to speak and enact the very promise of God.

It gets worse, I am sad to say. Yet another child was born, a baby boy. Grace never approached me about baptizing this child who was also headed for adoption. An adoption that he never made. The baby died in a car crash before he was three months old … unbaptized.

The tragedy is that Grace never got to hear that promise spoken over her babies. One left her home, the other died before anyone, before I, her pastor, spoke that promise over them. I knew what I had to do, I had to visit Grace.

The entire way there I tried to figure out what I was supposed to do when I arrived. How could I give comfort to this grieving woman when I knew I had been a part of that grief? I found her with a friend, distractedly moving about the house from room to room. She greeted me, but kept up her flight. Chasing her about the house, I gave my condolences about the baby, but that did not seem to relieve my burden, which now, I am ashamed to admit, became my main focus. Grace did not bring up the fact that the child was not baptized, but in my guilt and self-justifying stupor, I had to. I had to tell her something, anything! So I told her that in the ancient church, for those who died before they were baptized, death itself was considered to be their baptism.

There! I had taken my best shot at comforting Grace and relieving my guilt. With eyes on fire, she whipped around at me and said, “You know, some day that might give me some comfort, but right now, frankly, I don’t see how!”

Of course, she couldn’t see how. It was never intended to give her comfort. It was meant to give me comfort. It was meant to justify my position and to address the anxiety I felt for the terrible part I played in this sad drama. When her eyes shone on my cowardice, my face instantly grew hot with embarrassment and all I wanted to do was to get out of her house and out of ministry. What else could I do when the shameful truth was made so clear? I wasn’t in it to accompany Grace in her suffering, I was in this to save myself from the pain of having gotten it all so wrong, from the shame of intentionally choosing to justify myself rather than console a grandmother who mourned.

Ministry had gone horribly wrong. How could my work ever come to such a graceless dead-end? How could there be any way forward in ministry? There was none. I left that house and lived the best I could with the weight of my shame. For months, every proclamation I made rang hollow, every conversation I entered into was marred by fear that the person with whom I was speaking knew all about my colossal failure.

Ashamed and afraid of being further exposed, I all but disqualified myself from the office of pastor. I faded into the background as much as I could. No bold sermons, no strong pastoral leadership, no risks. My pastoral life was on the edge. I no longer thought that this was what my life was made for and for the first time since I had embraced my calling to be a pastor, I wanted out.

POSTED ON March 5, 2014

1 Comment

  • March 5, 2014

    Rory Wynhoff

    Somehow we do a mindless (and Bible-less) jump from “calling” to assuming God means Seminary or Bible College. Look at the men Jesus chose as His disciples! The indoctrination of men does not equal the calling of God! It is not the Bible that we get that understanding from, it is the doctrines and traditions of men. One of the main doctrines that Luther was
    enamored with, at the start of the reformation, was the priesthood of all believers. Sadly, this never resulted in repentance from the hierarchical priesthood of the Catholic church. Empty buildings were filled with “Protestant Priests,” called Pastors. Having the same to-do list as their Catholic counterparts, less transubstantiation and a formal confessional, this old priesthood role remained intact. The Biblical priesthood of all believers, where “and all ye are brethren,” can not survive in an atmosphere of strife, control and division. Yes, the clergy does create a very real division within the body where the so-called laity is not considered
    to be on the same “spiritual plane,” and there is a definite hands-off my ministry attitude among the clergy. Understandably, if the Pastor lost his perceived realm of ministry he would loose his identity as a Pastor. That would be a good thing. Then he could enter the realm of the brethren, not better, not worse, but equal.

    There are, obviously, leaders within the body – those who go first and lead by example in order to train-up the priesthood of all believers, and watch over their souls. “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ;…” (1 Cor 11:3) “But be not ye called Rabbi: for one is your Master, even Christ; and all ye are brethren.” (Matt 23:8) The principle is the same whether we use the word Rabbi, Father or Pastor, we are not to appoint earthly “heads” of the body. The leadership dynamic within the New Testament is a plurality of elders, a sharing of the burden and a protection against abuses. Paul did not tell Titus and Timothy to go about appointing Pastors, but elders. And the giftings of Ephesians 4 are likewise plural. Not just a “Pastor,” but a plurality of gifts to help the body grow and mature.

    Another problem in the current practice is placing young, immature men in places of authority. We are doing both the young men and the body a grave disservice. They should be elders, “Not a novice, lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the devil.” (1
    Tim 3:6) Can any refute the fact that there is far to much “me” in ministry and a horrible shortage of humility in the same? We ought to cringe at the words, “you (laity) need to support the ministry (me).” This is 180 degrees turned around from the gifted edifying the rest of the body – these gifts are never meant for personal use, but corporate.

    No wonder burnout and leaving the ministry is such a problem. The workload that should be divided among the believers is heaped upon a very few (plus some things that should not be on the list at all).

    God is so gracious to us when we are faithful to His Word! Repentance is necessary to enter a relationship with Him, and daily repentance is likewise necessary for that relationship to grow. We all do things we wished we hadn’t, but coming closer to God through repentance is always available to us. “Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of
    you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble.” (1 Pet 5:5)

Paul Palumbo is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He was born and raised in Maryland and received his Master of Divinity Degree from Duke Divinity School in Durham, North Carolina. He has served two congregations in twenty-five years, one in North Carolina and currently one in Chelan, Washington, where his parish work includes Spiritual Direction, ministry to Vietnam veterans, the Adult Catechumenate, and care for the poor and dying. He and his wife Virginia have four grown children.