{"id":37438,"date":"2024-04-11T23:27:36","date_gmt":"2024-04-12T06:27:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=37438"},"modified":"2024-04-11T23:27:36","modified_gmt":"2024-04-12T06:27:36","slug":"big-fish-little-glass-bowl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/big-fish-little-glass-bowl\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Fish…Little Glass Bowl"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have mentioned in the past that I am a PK, my grandpa was a pastor, my uncle was a pastor, my brother-in-law is a pastor and sister a pastor now, my husband and I were pastors.\u00a0 I have put a lot of thought into pastoral families, and while reading J.R. Woodward\u2019s book The Scandal of Leadership <\/em>it brought me back to all my thoughts on growing up in a minister\u2019s home.\u00a0 In my growing up years, there were 2 youth pastors who got into trouble\u2026who fell.\u00a0 One went to jail, and I have seen the devastating consequences he\u2019s had on the lives of some of the teenage boys older than me. The other was a bit too handsy with the girls.\u00a0 My sister was a part of this but had so much self-confidence that she walked instantly away from him but come to find out later that one of my friends was not equipped with the same level of knowing she was being groomed.\u00a0 Her life has forever been changed as well.\u00a0 Fallen and a path of destruction left behind.<\/p>\n

Most of my life I was asked the following question when people found out that I was a PK, are you a \u201cgoodie two-shoes? Or are you a bad girl?\u201d.\u00a0 My reply was always, neither.\u00a0 I went to church camp every summer where my dad was always the camp pastor.\u00a0 My dad didn\u2019t always have the wisdom to ask my permission to use me as a \u201csermon illustration\u201d, I remember at this camp with hundreds of my peers, when my dad said, \u201cJana came out of the womb pooping, and Tarina (my bubbly and popular younger sister) came out talking.\u201d\u00a0Talk about formation issues!\u00a0 When I went to the Christian college, everyone knew me, and my shy self knew few.\u00a0 Once they got to know me out of the context of my family they told me how wrong they were about me, they thought I was a stuck up snob, when I was really just shy and slightly mortified by my dad.\u00a0 I love and forgive him and knew when I married a pastor that I needed to also be \u201ccalled\u201d to this lifestyle and prepare my children for life in the fishbowl.<\/p>\n

Coffee table overview<\/p>\n

Woodward lays out in his book the scandal of leadership and the fallen.\u00a0 He notes \u201cHigh profile \u201cfallen\u201d leaders often share common characteristics, pride, manipulation, seeking status, isolation, a lack of community to hold them accountable, using status to push an agenda, love of the crowds, an abuse of power and role, a push to \u201csucceed\u201d, and a sense of self-importance.\u201d [1]<\/a> It can be intoxicating to have the power, to have everyone listening to you every word, to follow you and sometimes idolize you.\u00a0 Having genuine friendships in a church as a pastor, especially if you\u2019ve moved somewhere new, is extremely hard.\u00a0 No wonder it can breed an environment of scandal.\u00a0 However, what I know about pastors and their families is that they are human. \u201cLife is a paradox. We are all a mix of good and bad; we are beautiful and broken.\u00a0 We often have mixed motives. Sometimes, as leaders of families or churches, we become controlling.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

Pastors and families as humans.<\/p>\n

\u201cMembers of the minister\u2019s family are expected to be spiritual and moral examples to the congregation. \u00a0The minister and spouse must have a model marriage.\u00a0 Other couples within the congregation may confess their marital difficulties and perhaps even be praised for their openness and honesty in doing so. For the minister to acknowledge marital problems, however, may provoke disillusionment, anxiety, and doubts about the minister\u2019s spirituality.\u201d[3]<\/a>\u00a0 Are pastors and their families allowed to screw up? To be human?\u00a0 What happens to the pastor when their child gets in trouble, or heaven forbid stop coming to church?\u00a0 So much pressure.<\/p>\n

Woodward addresses this humanity in leadership by revealing an encounter Walter Wink had with understanding scripture from a Jungian workshop.\u00a0 He speaks of a workshop where he needed to \u201ctake the story of the healing of the paralytic in the Gospel of Mark and internalize it by creating a clay sculpture of one\u2019s own inner paralytic\u201d.\u00a0 [4]<\/a>\u00a0 Wink was working was becoming aware of his own humanity and need to be in touch with his inner self. I wonder what my inner paralytic is, what is yours?\u00a0 What paralyzes us?\u00a0 What paralyzes our call as leaders?\u00a0 I think this may be a key point for all of us as we face leadership and the pitfalls that can happen to us?\u00a0 Are we paralyzed by fears of unworthiness? By inadequacy? By the desire to be loved or adored?\u00a0 By the need to be the most popular in the room? The wisest in the room?\u00a0 What is your paralysis?<\/p>\n

How do we remain human in a fishbowl? Wink notes it\u2019s simply to \u201cimitate Christ. Wink makes a case that Jesus eschewed any pretentious titles and simply identified himself as the Son of Man\u201d.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Wink also notes \u201cIf we are to imitate Jesus and seek God\u2019s domination-free order that Jesus was announcing, we should condemn all forms of domination, as Jesus did: for example,<\/p>\n