The Invisible Pastor: Reflecting on 20 Years of Ministry

Our stories are all stories of searching. We search for a good self to be and for good work to do. We search to become human in a world that tempts us always to be less than human or looks to us to be more. We search to love and to be loved. And in a world where it is often hard to believe in much of anything, we search to become something holy and beautiful and life-transcending that will give meaning and purpose to the lives we live.” Frederick Buechner

We are not invisible people. I believe that God sees us. I believe that God believes in us. I believe that God desires for our lives to have meaning and purpose; that God wants us to craft our lives as beautiful works of art. 

I am in my 21st year of pastoral ministry. Twenty years of working to communicate the truths of Jesus to a curious people. Twenty years of trying to demonstrate, as a member of the clergy, the ways of Jesus to a watching world. Twenty years of helping people uncover the hidden goodness in their lives, of peeling back the curtain of reality to reveal the presence, the mystery, and the love of God in all things. Twenty years.

This is and has been my working “job description” for two decades.

My “job description” is borne out of a deep conviction, and study, and understanding of what it means to live this Jesus life: and ultimately how to bring this into the pastorate. There has however, been a tremendous tension in this process. This has never been my official or stated job description.

In my 20 years of pastoral ministry, I have held many different roles: youth pastor, worship pastor, associate pastor, ministry pastor, teaching pastor, senior pastor, lead pastor, church planter, missions pastor, campus pastor–every last role coming with their own robust job description filled with tasks and expectations of programs to run or maintain. While most of those tasks and expectations were good and beneficial they created a boundary box, closing me off to a great many ways in which I was able to fulfill my own story, calling, and job description of pastoral ministry. 

For twenty years I have been met with nods of disapproval, hand slaps, and reprimands: “You can’t go there”, “You can’t sit there”, “You can’t do that”, “You can’t talk about that”, “You can’t drink that, eat that, or spend time with those people!” That is simply not in your job description or in our unspoken code of conduct! And to do otherwise is completely inappropriate for a pastor. 

I could feel the walls being built, statement by statement, closing off a part of who I am. Trapping a part of my self out of sight, hidden behind a wall of confusion, guilt, even shame; wondering if I somehow had this whole pastoring thing wrong. If I had mistaken the way in which I was created to interact within this world.

Have you ever felt as if some part of your profession was asking some part of you to become invisible? As if your job was asking you to not be who you fully are, to intentionally silence bits and pieces of the truth and goodness within that God has created you to be? I’m pretty sure this isn’t just a pastoral dilemma. 

When we wall off pieces of our selves, we replace our true identity with masks. We live as shells of our true self. We live in constant danger of being actors in our own lives. We ultimately rob the world of the uniqueness that God created in us and asked us to be. When we hide or moderate what we are passionate about when we bind up, seal off, or quarantine our zealousness, our vigor, our fire, we rob the world of what God see’s as possible in and through us. Did I mention that God believes in us?

So here I am in my 21st year of ministry looking back on the previous 20 years, thinking about all the ways in which I moderated who I was in order to cram into the box that others created for me. Wow, has that been exhausting. There are several who have wondered how I’m still at it, how I’m still in this thing called ministry–not just because of my past experiences, which have been crazy, but also because I won’t completely fit into the tiny boxes prescribed for me. Yet, here I stand at the beginning of another potentially two decades wondering how do I make it to that next great milestone? 

I think it starts by stepping into the fullness of my job description: of working to communicate the truths of Jesus to a curious people, of trying to demonstrate, as a member of the clergy, the ways of Jesus to a watching world, of helping people uncover the hidden goodness in their lives, of peeling back the curtain of reality to reveal the presence, the mystery, and the love of God in all things… and by using all of the ways that God has gifted me with and created me to be. No more cloak of invisibility, no more hamstringing the efforts and making the arduous task all the more difficult.

I am on the precipice of another 20 years. No more holding myself back.