I just looked at my current church's website, and saw my name, picture and biography under the heading "Pastoral Staff". And all of a sudden, it hit me fully for the first time - the enormous responsibility I've been given, to guide and walk with these people, to be charged with their souls in a very real sense. My initial thought was - "how on earth did I trick myself into thinking I could do this? How did I ever convince this congregation that I was capable enough to be handed such awesome power?" Even on my best days, I worry about letting them down, not giving them the absolute best, not doing things in the right way.
Lew Parks, a friend from Pennsylvania and a professor here at Wesley, once told a class of Small Church Leadership students that "there's a wonderful moment in ministry when you realize, 'I probably can't kill this critter!'" I will confess freely that if there is such a moment, I am clearly not there yet. I am all too aware of the fragility of the thing I hold in my hands, very scared that the time of transition I'm leading this program into could end up destroying it - or me. But I'm somehow perversely comforted by the fact that I haven't become immune to the weight of it all. There is no doubt I am a worrier, but I think too often we lose sight of the fact that our calling is catastrophically huge, that thousands of people will be affected in a very real way by the decisions we make over the course of a career. Are we called to be basket cases? Definitely not. But we should be operate with respect for the trust people put in us and the power that's placed in our hands.
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