Number Six - Four More To Go!

Hey friends, I appreciate all the comments that I have received from you.  I am glad the last several blogs have helped, encouraged, or poked you enough to respond.  This blog is about Choosing Holiness Over Talent.  I constantly lived with this tension as a pastor - do you?

"Can we have a cup of coffee?"  Tom knew I had witnessed the temper tantrum earlier that morning while the worship team was practicing.  He reluctantly agreed.  He looked like he was going to get in big trouble from the boss.  I put my arm around him, and with grace, assured him I just wanted to find out what was going on in his life.  It was out of his nature to take himself so serious and snap at others.

Later that afternoon we met at Starbucks.  For a couple of hours he shared some of the stuff going on in his life.  He was living a different lifestyle than was being projected on a Sunday Morning.  What we saw on Sunday was an amazing leader, musician, sensitive guy.  On the other side of Sunday, his life was a mess with some bad stuff.

As he was talking about addictions and other issues, I was thinking to myself, what is going to happen to worship without Tom?  I am embarrassed to admit that, but it's true.  I got control of my selfishness and listened to Tom.  I hope I responded in a way that Jesus would have -- Tom was eventually restored and  it never became a talkative issue in the church - not even a prayer request.

That evening, I went back to my problem.  We were missing talent.  I remember thinking the tension in my thoughts: Talent vs. Holiness.  Obviously, I want both.  But I choose holiness.  It's more important to me that the person that is leading the congregation in worship or any volunteer role is not pretending.  You cannot lead someone where you can't go. 

How do you get this message out to volunteers and staff?  The first thing, get it out there before the issue happens. Don't wait to  develop a policy on this issue until you are sitting at Starbucks and someone is confessing an addiction to pornography to you.  Don't wait until a small group leader tells you he is having an affair.  Set the boundaries early. Set the boundaries that communicate love and restoration. I am shocked at some of the procedures outlined in policies and bylaws.  "If you do this... then you are kicked out!"  Really?  That's grace and reconciliation?  Come on!

The second thing I would say is live authentically.  Don't pretend you never struggle with missing the mark.  It was not uncommon for me to apologize to a staff member for something that I said or failed to do.  My daughers will tell you that I apologized to them all the time for messing up as a dad.  My wife, if she had a dollar for every time I had to own my junk in our relationship, she would be listed as one of the wealthiest women in Chicago... right up there with Oprah. I wanted my congregation to know I was real.  I was horrified by the thought that my daughters or my staff would ever listen to me preach or do anything upfront and think to themselves, "what a fake!"  There were tons of times they saw me and said, "he is frail, imperfect, messed up but he desires to be right with God and man."

The more one hides behind talent and slowly starts to replace holiness with sin and selfishness, is a very dangerous road.  So, create a safe place for people to be real.  I know there are many that will disagree strongly with me on this but I will say it here and maybe they won't see it - our holiness message often shuts people down from being real.  If the scripture says, confess your sins to one another so that you may be healed... and we refuse to admit sinful behavior then no wonder we seldom see emotional, spiritual and physical healing in the church.

Bottom line is this: It's always holiness over talent.  But holiness doesn't mean people won't struggle in life, confess sin,  or mess up.  Make sure your definition of holiness is all about Jesus and not your behavior or how perfect you are.

That is all.