A Pastor’s Stessfession

Allow me to let you in on a little secret about yours truly: I am madly and hopelessly in love with me.  It is not some weird fascination that you would see in a freaky movie with a creepy sound track and me writing valentines to myself. Nor does it manifest itself in softly whispered affirmations of my own greatness as I gaze into the mirror; (I actually do not have a very good relationship with the mirror).  But none the less, underneath a thin veneer lay a love for myself that is deeper and more powerful than my love for anything else, and indeed it is most likely the motivating factor in just about everything I do.     Strangely enough I somehow manage to mix this amazing amount of self-concern with a considerable amount of self-loathing (see my relationship with the mirror). It’s not just that I hate how I look, or sound or just about everything I do, it’s that I live just about everyday trying to fulfill the needs of the always eating, always famished never fulfilled monster that is me. I think I am a co-dependent with myself, I can’t live without me, unfortunately I am also killing me.   I was reading the other day how National Basketball Association super star Jason Kidd is divorcing his wife because she abused him.  I would have to add that I find this strange, this super athlete who is being beat up by his little ole’ wife.  And yet it seems a lot less strange than my relationship with me.  I am the abuser I can not escape, I am a real life emotional version of the children’s game where you take another persons hand and slap their face with it and tease “stop hitting yourself.”
Under normal circumstances one might be ashamed to tell you all of that, but I am not, and the simple reason why is this: It is easier to talk to people with the same issues as you.  This is why Alcoholic’s Anonymous works: people with drinking problems are less ashamed to tell them to other people with drinking problems.  Who would there be to judge? They all have the same issue.   So I tell you honestly about my self-obsession because I know that you my friends are just as self obsessed as I am.  It’s ok you can admit it.  Perhaps you can find someone else and introduce yourself:  “Hi, I am Dave and I am a me-o-holic.”  It will be the first step to your recovery.

This is the confession part: Ihave some stuff to do coming up that is hard and I am completely ill prepared for it and I hate even the thought of it. I will have to completely depend upon God and frankly I am just not comfortable with that.

So B.L. (the Dube) rightly points out that it would be great for everyone to have a Stessfession site. In honor of that sentiment I offer mine, fell free to use this place as your doorway to the wonderful world of stessfession. Use the comments to stressfess whatever you like. A few of mine.

1. It get’s old waiting for people who should know better to mature.

2. It totally frustrates me when the supposedly mature, rather than supporting those who are new to a given ministry attack like a pack of dogs. It seems very unChristlike….why is there no sense of helping people grow into their ministry instead of complaining about it. I am not referring to my ministry but to the many young people whom I have working with me in various areas who get picked on instead of appreciated. These are people who are volunteering their time to make the church better, and instead of being appreciated certain birds have nothing better to do than crow about how they are doing it. Why not love them and support them appreciate that they are growing into what Christ is doing?

3. When people seperate mission from discipleship, as if they are mutually exclusive…

More later….

4. When the “supposedly mature” look at the church and access it’s value by all the wrong standards. Newsflash: the church is full of funny-looking, socially challenged, unstylish, awkward, sinful, messed up people. They’re called neighbors (as in that pesky Golden Rule). I also find it interesting that the unchurched don’t have these standards. Why is that?

Comment by beckilinn 11.05.06 @ 12:46 am |Edit This

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5. When Christian people seperate into “us” and “thems”…as in we will minister to them…but they are not cool like us…Or almost as insideous: We don’t want our family around them they are dangerous…

Comment by PJ:

The most Christlike aspect of the whole problem/process described is that he lived with and served the same kind of people.

Response by me:

This is a really good point an one I have been dealing with a lot lately…aren’t we when we complain about them just becoming like them? Are we not becoming what we hate? I realize there has to be a place to speak truth about sin in another’s life…but when do we start to sin in our response to them..this is hard for me because frankly I find some people so annoying and so unwilling to a part of the mission of Chrsit that I want to slap them…By then again as PJ observes, Jesus had the same kind of people in his life. His disciples, after spending three years with him and while he is trying to tell them what is about to happen to him are having dinner with him and begin to argue about who will sit at his right hand in heaven, which is contrary to everythign he has taught them in the previous three years, three years of full on time will Jesus and they still don’t get it…Now if it is me I probably push away from the table storm off and write a blog post about them…but the interesting thing is that Jesus stays at the table….

So I know some of you read my other blogs…this one will be different. The title is an outright thievery of my niece “The Dube’s” brilliant post on the mixture of stress and depression. This is the mixture of stress and confession thus: Stressfession. All the things that i feel as a pastor because I am human. Like everyone else, but somehow different because pastors are not supposed to be human, have feeling or get ticked off when another person decides to leave the church for a stupid reason that in actuality reveals their lack of spirituality but in their warped mind , to them somehow confirms it. Anyhoo. This will be my place where I talk about that stuff. I have no earthly idea why you would want to read it, and yet it is very therapeutic for me to write it. And if perchance you attend someones else’s church, I pray that my reflections will help your pastor.