Well after taking a long break from posting anything on my site I am here to post. Some people may have thought I was dead which I am sure would make some happy. However where I am only has a dial up connection. To try to post on dial up is near torture, I am with some family in Michigan and they have wifi so now I am posting. This may be a long one so hold on.
Recently I was thinking about some things that I was missing. During that time I decided to change my thoughts to what I will not miss. Trust me there are a lot of things that I will miss in PA. I am extremely thankful for the lives I had the privilege to be a part of in PA and those that God allowed me to mold. However there is much I will not miss. This is not an extensive list just some things that relate to me personally these things may not be for everyone this is based on my experience. If you have a fear this will make you mad then please do not read it. These are my open and honest opinions.
Gossip This is first thing I will not miss. In my 9 years in PA I don’t think I heard so much gossip in my life. I am sad to say it got to the point where I was not just hearing it I was participating in it. I think when you step back or step away and you begin to look at things from the outside the picture gets alot more clearer which has definitely happened to me over these past months. So many times I would confront people on gossip and I became the bad guy for doing so. Everyone needed to know everyone else’s business and why they were doing what they were doing even after people left our church people would still keep right on spreading their gossip. By the way the number one thing I would hear is “well it’s true” just because something is true does not mean it has to be said. When we say things that we know are going to hurt someone else or cause someone to look negatively on someone else that is gossip period. We cant explain it away and not matter how much we try to justify it it’s wrong.
Drama I don’t mean just drama in teens but drama everywhere. Everywhere I turned it was drama. If it wasn’t the teen being all dramatic about something it was an adult stretching something or making something way more dramatic then needed to be. I will save you the many many stories I could share where I experienced this firsthand. The need to be dramatic about everything stems from pride. We want the attention placed on us and when we don’t get it we become dramatic to get it. If you want to test this out quit paying attention to someone and see if they get dramatic to get your attention back. I will not miss this.
Elders Meetings I definitely will not miss these. Sometimes our meetings would go for hours and at then end of the meeting I felt little was accomplished many nights. When I would address this or say something about this it was merely pushed to the side. Or I really did not know what I was talking about. Never-mind I was the secretary taking the minutes. Meetings filled with stories and little accomplished are pretty close to useless. Some meetings were better than others and in some much was accomplished. I just had no idea what the point was sometimes and why we could not keep our meeting on track. I guess I don’t understand why we would need to spend literally hours talking, discussing and going back and forth on whether or not to have a drum in our church. Trust me this was not the only issue meeting filled without doing kingdom purpose is not what and Elder Board is for. But that may be another blog post.
No Vision For 9 years I fought for a vision statement. It was brought up time and time again yet when I resigned there was still no vision statement and no plan in place to make one. Ministries had no goal to work for. What was our church trying to accomplish why did we exist. Sadly If that questions was asked we would get many different answers. I know because the question was asked. Why is this? It is because we had nothing to work for. When you have different ministries pulling in many different directions how can you be successful and healthy? Why was this continually and constantly put off? It is the job of the leadership of the church to cast vision and give some direction but failure to do either seemed to be the motto.
No Accountability It is difficult to get far without accountability. One of the first things I began to push for was evaluations. There were never any evaluations and the pastoral staff is not held accountable. We did not even hold one another accountable as pastors. Without accountability it is like you have your own secret life that no one really knows about. I think this is often the case with Pastors no one really knows them and few really know their struggles. Because we typically build a wall around us and don’t let people inside. If the Pastors are not held accountable then how can they lead.
Joking one thing I have constantly struggled with is my joking. I tend to turn just about everything into a joke and there are times that my joking has hurt others or that I have taken it to far. After leaving I have realized also how often sometimes we would sit around as pastors and take pot shots at people or say things that we thought were funny about someone else. Whether it was making fun of the way someone acted or just how they said something it was not right. Or even at times in elders meeting where we would say something funny about someone and everyone would laugh. There are times that the things we said we know we would not say if that person was sitting their in front of us yet we said them anyway. I have looked back on this and realized how wrong this was. I am ashamed that I participated in this and that I was a part of it. I don’t think Jesus would make fun of other peoples deficiencies or light of their problems and then laugh them off. Yet we did it more than once.
Lack of Follow-up Many people had left our church and in essence nothing was done to follow up on them. We did not see why they left though we knew the reason or at many time we thought we did many told me why they left but nothing was ever done to adjust ourselves. I don’t think we need to run to people and beg them to stay but shouldn’t we at least figure out why they have left and do something about it. Many times we would just blame it on the person that left and say it was their fault for leaving and never really address the fact that maybe just maybe we were doing something wrong. Sometimes maybe we were just afraid to hear the truth and to do something about it. When people are leaving there is a reason.
Backstabbing or being thrown under a bus I will close with this one. I recently heard a message about the disciples being thrown under a bus because they could not heal this guys son. So the guy openly accused them but Jesus did not side with the guy. I cant tell you how many times I have felt stabbed in the back or thrown under a bus. Not just from friends but from others as well. I found people to be generally rude where I was at in PA and for the most part self seeking. If they did not like how you did something they gathered others to side with them and would make attempts to take you down. This happened time and time again over my 9 years in PA. People would say one thing to your face but the minute your back was turned look out. I put a great deal of trust in people and that trust was definitely decimated and destroyed. I know what it is like to be thrown under that bus and to take it on the chin. To have half truths be shared about you, and downright lies. From here you just go on.
Well that is a list of some of thing I will not miss. I could have wrote alot more. I am sure this is me somehow shifting blame or something like that. However this is me sharing what I have gone through and what has been revealed to me.