What now? What next?

Well, we’re already a third of the way through February, which is admittedly a short month, and I haven’t posted anything since early January. I guess I have the winter blahs. This happens every year, but it always takes me by surprise. Too many days of minus thirty – not so much the cold as the being stuck inside – and recovering from too much eating and partying over Christmas, always leads to this. I’m also out of work right now and, in my experience, the more I have to do, the more time I have to do it. As Job said, “My days fly by like a weaver’s shuttle.” (Cool image.) But life has its rhythms, and I can feel the rhythm changing even as I write.

When I began this “blog thing” I said I’d share my personal story as I went along. I thought I would, but I really haven’t. And why I haven’t isn’t quite clear to me. It’s personal, of course, but I don’t think I’m overly concerned about that. It involves the personal lives of others, but I’m probably not as concerned as I should be about that. The real reason, I suspect, is that I can’t believe anyone would find my life interesting. Not that I think it’s boring; it just feels like one of those stories you start to tell and then realize you really had to be there. Anyway, over the next little while I think I’ll share, a bit more intentionally, what’s happening with me. And we’ll just see how it goes.

As I said, I’m out of work right now. I’ve been a pastor for 32 years. In fact, last Sunday was my 32^nd anniversary, and I didn’t even think of it till today. Before I was a pastor I was a teacher, and before that, from the time I was 16, I always had some sort of job and/or went to school. As with most people my life has been about work and school, so it’s strange to have no job. It’s nice – I’ve needed a vacation for a while – but it’s not exactly a vacation when you don’t know when it will end or what you’ll be doing then.

And, until you’re out of work, you don’t realize how often someone asks you what you do for a living. It’s not embarrassing, or anything like that, it’s just more complicated than small talk’s supposed to be. I’m out of work is the simple truth, but to a lot of people it seems to be a cry for help. It’s amazing, in a world where so few people go to church, how many people have a brother-in-law who attends a church that’s looking for a pastor. But, I’m a pastor, leads to, What church?, and then to, I’m between churches right now, and then to the brother-in-law. It’s one of those Chinese puzzles where, whatever you do, you always end up in the same place.

The real complication I’m facing right now, however, is that I’m not ready to retire but I can’t see myself pastoring, at least in the traditional way, anymore. As I shared with some pastors a few weeks ago, I feel like a train that’s got lots of steam left, but has run out of track. I still love Jesus and the work of teaching and spiritual guidance. I love pastoral ministry. But I can’t do the church thing, at least the way most churches are doing it, anymore. I don’t think it works or can work. I don’t think it’s really worked for a hundred years, if it ever did. And I think that most of what happens in church has nothing whatever to do with Jesus, or with anything he ever intended us to do or be.