Listen to me, you coastlands!
Pay attention, you people who live far away!
The Lord summoned me from birth;
he commissioned me when my mother brought me into the world.
He made my mouth like a sharp sword,
he hid me in the hollow of his hand;
he made me like a sharpened arrow,
he hid me in his quiver.
He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel, through whom I will reveal my splendor.”
But I thought, “I have worked in vain;
I have expended my energy for absolutely nothing.”
But the Lord will vindicate me;
my God will reward me.
So now the Lord says,
the one who formed me from birth to be his servant—
he did this to restore Jacob to himself,
so that Israel might be gathered to him;
and I will be honored in the Lord’s sight,
for my God is my source of strength—
he says, “Is it too insignificant a task for you to be my servant,
to reestablish the tribes of Jacob,
and restore the remnant of Israel?
I will make you a light to the nations,
so you can bring my deliverance to the remote regions of the earth.” Is 49.1-6 NET
Leighton gave these words from Isaiah to a few of us over twenty years ago. He keyed on the words which in the NIV read, “It is too small a thing…” asking us, pleading with us not to be about "too small a thing". I like the way the NET translates it, “It is too insignificant a task…” They are remarkable words. Think about the task he labeled "too insignificant..." it was bigger than him. It was bigger than he capabilities and perhaps even his wildest dreams – to restore Israel to its place, bringing back the exiles and giving them their promised glory. And that wild dream, was too small, or too insignificant a thing.
Those words stay with us. We pass them on often. And I know that they came to the forefront of my thinking recently. Dan called us to something simliar in our class entitled, "Faith, Hope and Love" last term. "If we can achieve it ourselves, it is not truly hope."
I received an email from the Dean of Students last term at a point where things were starting to get a bit dicey emotionally, financially, etc… He asked to get together. Because I commute from Portland, it didn’t happen until a couple of weeks ago.
Now, at The Seattle School, the Dean of students, who looks like the fifth member of Nirvana, is the student body's friend. He is our pastor, and he not only epitomizes love, he epitomizes Pacific Northwest cool. Did I mention he has a huge capacity to love?
After I left his office, running to get to my theology course (well walking quickly down the stairs), I began the process of unpacking our conversation which had been a conversation about my place and calling in the world, and my place and calling at The Seattle School.
I pastor pastors. It is what I do because God called me to it. He called me to it because of where I have been, what I've done, and what has been doone to me. The further I get into my course of study the more amazed I become at how God set me up for this. Not manipulated into it, but created for it. He allowed me to make all the mistakes I needed to make, and experience all the pain that I needed to experience in order to be the person I am supposed to be in this moment I find myself.
For the time being my job at Clergy Recovery Network is to get my support in, to support Dale Woolery– the Founder -- to the best of my ability, and take on a very light load of pastors in crisis, to help them through at least until they can see some glimmers of light. It is also to do the work of a good student.
For, you see, helping pastors and their families through crisis is a noble and wonderful thing, but it is also too small a thing. The church is broken in so many ways, and as a result, it often hurts people it wants to love. It often turns people away from the One it wants to call them to. And it has become a corporation that more often than not, views authority as James and John (see Mark 10) rather than the views of Jesus whom they were following.
In my current situation, the church that I am more often than not likely to call home, is living out its own sin now.The sin has always been there it is in DNA that I passed onto them, and another pastor grew in them. Now it is simply killing my friends’ souls. In the midst of there slow, unknowing dying I am called to love them even as they continue in their sinful ways, because that is what Jesus does for me.
That leads me to my work now which preimarily resides at the Seattle School: first, to learn the craft of the counselor (I can deal with addicts and anons in the realm of recovery, and I need to move beyond those simple borders); second, I am reading and preparing to write on ecclesiology in light of the capaciousness of the Triune Godhead and His splendiferous Spirit; and third to piece together some thoughts about pastors, addiction and spiritual abuse. That is my current work at The Seattle School. I can think of no better place to do this work.
In addition, I am already meeting with a former pastor struggling with demons. (Those meetings are off book.) And am looking to start meeting with more as finances allow. If you aren't already, I'd love you to be a part of this. Join me. Join us, and lets change the Church together.
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